Amboseli National Park, Kenya

My primary objective in visiting Amboseli National Park was a shot of Mount Kilimanjaro. Though Kili is in Tanzania, the southern border of Amboseli is right at the base of the mountain and it has the best view. The problem is that Kilimanjaro is covered in clouds about 90% of the time. It is the highest mountain in Africa topping out at 19,341 feet (5895 Meters). It is also the largest free standing mountain in the world. Our guide, Tony, met us at the Tanzania/Kenya border at Namanga and we drove East over an extremely bumpy dirt road about 100 Km to the park entrance. Then another 25 km across the park to the opposite side where our campground was to be. As we crossed the area, the clouds became more and more “interesting” (ominous would be a better word). Of course the mountain was sheathed in clouds but the broad expanse of the base was clearly visible. We had a couple small thunder showers as we crossed the park, but nothing major. Just as we neared the far gate, we started to see occasional tiny glimpses of the summit. By the time we finally got cross the park, it was nearing sunset and time to setup camp for the night.

By some stroke of luck, the clouds broke overnight and we were greeted with a spectacular clear view of the mountain in the morning. To top it off, the stormy weather of the previous day had left Kilimanjaro with a fresh coating of snow at the summit. That held out for a couple of hours allowing me to get several different classic views of the mountain with various wildlife and scenery in the foreground. That turned out to be the best viewing of the three days we were there, but it was well worth the journey.

Amboseli has the best population of Elephants in Kenya, and we were easily seeing well over 100 per day. Also lots of typical African wildlife such as Zebra, Giraffe, Antelope, Wildebeest and Cape Buffalo. We saw a few Lions and one Cheetah. The park has quite a few Hyena and we had some nice sightings on the last day. Amboseli has an area of permanent wetland, and that’s where you find the animals concentrated during the dry season. Now that it is starting to rain, the dry lake bed will fill up and the animals will spread out more.

This is what it looked like as we arrived in the park and made our first pass through. As far as I knew, this might have been the best view of Mount Kilimanjaro I was going to get:


This is the view from our campsite the first morning in the park. I thought I’d died and gone to heaven!


These are the shots that I went to Amboseli to get. A clear day with a fresh snowfall on Mount Kilimanjaro:








Some of the clouds look very nice in B&W:


The thunderstorms looked nice as panoramas too:


Here are some Elephants coming in from the dry section of the park to graze and drink in the marshes:


The Elephants love to wade in the marshes and feed on the green vegetation:




Lots of wading birds in the marshes, here are some Crested Cranes:


This Crane speared a tasty rabbit. We watched (and filmed) it as it struggled to swallow the bunny whole. It took it a few tries, but it got it all down:


Quite a few Hyenas in Amboseli:


This male Lion is taking an afternoon snooze after a big meal:


Can’t think of a better “office” to work on the old blog:



On the road into the park from Namanga, you occasionally see donkeys walking along the roadside carrying a load of water jugs. Sometimes they are completely unattended. They seem to be autonomous. Sort of an African version of Google’s self-driving cars. I think they must be relatively intelligent to carry off this task. I wonder if this is where the term “Smart Ass” originated?

Tarangire National Park, Take 2

This was my second visit to Tarangire on this African trip, but Brad’s first. We were treated on our first game drive by a pride of Lions feeding on a kill. Unfortunately, the kill was in rather tall grass, so all you could see was heads popping up to look around occasionally. We also had the usual large numbers of Zebra, Giraffe, Quite a few Ostrich and lots of Elephants including some quite close. It was a good way to finish off the Tanzanian portion of the trip. Now we are off to Kenya for another week of Safari for Brad and then two more weeks for me after he returns to the US.

Lots of Ostrich on this trip through Tarangire:


A herd of Zebra getting a mid-day drink:


A napping Warthog is getting it’s ears cleaned while it sleeps:


A baby elephant nursing:


Elephants taking a mud bath. Lots of Tsetse Flies in this area and a nice thick coating of mud works better than DEET:


A friendly tussle at the waterhole:


End of the Tanzanian portion of the trip. Here's the expedition team. Gerard, safari chef, next to me, Godwin, our Safari guide next to Brad and Joseph our driver in the front:

Ngorongoro Crater

After coming out of the Serengeti, we spent one night camping on the rim of Ngorongoro Crater. Early the next morning we went down into the Crater for a game drive. The weather was very interesting. All around the crater rim, large clouds loomed, including some very stormy clouds to the East. The entire Crater, however, was clear with the exception of a few clouds that occasionally drifted over into the open space. It made for some very interesting skies. That has been one of the primary differences between my previous visit to Tanzania and this one. Last time I had clear blue skies the whole time with nary a cloud in sight. While that’s nice, it isn’t quite as visually appealing as a few fluffy clouds to give the sky some character.

The Crater was up to its usual standards with lots of interesting wildlife sightings. We saw out only Rhino of the trip, but it was at a very extreme distance out in the middle of the plains so it really wasn’t film-able. At any rate, it allowed Brad to officially fill out his “Big Five” list.

Here’s a panorama of the Crater from a scenic viewpoint on the rim road:


Descending into the Crater:


Acacia in the sun with clouds along the Crater rim in the background:


The forest section of the Crater floor:


Some Zebra grazing on the Crater plain:


Lots of Elephants in the Crater:




Zebra on the back slope of the Crater with some resting Cape Buffalo:


Male Lion:

Serengeti and beyond

My son Brad and I have just returned to Arusha from a 6 day Safari to Serengeti, Ngorongoro Crater and Tarangire.

The short version of this post is that the Safari was a rousing success and we got loads of good material. The long version of it is going to have to wait for another week or so until I get a 4 day breather in Nairobi.

We have one night here in Arusha, then we start all over in Kenya. We head for the Tanzania/Kenya border at 0800 and will be met by our Kenyan guide after we cross over. By afternoon we will be in Amboseli National Park. So we aren't getting much of a respite from a really busy schedule.

Here are a very few images from Serengeti:

This is at the park entrance looking back into the Ngorongoro conservation area:


There were some really nice clouds at times while we were there:






The park has quite a few Zebra this time of year that have migrated down from Masai Mara in Kenya;


Lots of Lions in the park, we must have seen over 50 in the three days we were there. This was a mating pair:


This female was extremely close to the edge of the road. She was about eye level and 6 feet distant. This is a wide angle shot:


These Lions were feeding on a Wildebeest that they had killed the night before:


Last time I had more good sunsets, but this one was a keeper:

Lake Manyara Video

I've had a busy couple days editing some of the footage from last week's safari. This short piece was filmed in Lake Manyara National Park. Old growth rain forest, Plains dotted with Acacias, Savannahs and lake shore make up some of the varied ecosystems in the park. The forest makes it a great place for primates with Vervet and Blue Monkeys in addition to numerous Baboon troops. Elephants live in the forest too, while Zebra, Giraffe, Wildebeest and Antelope prefer the plains. There were quite a few Flamingos present during my safari. You can see t he video here on this site on the Wildlife Films tab, or on my Vimeo channel at www.vimeo.com/fishtales/lakemanyara

Tomorrow, my son Brad arrives from Oregon to join me for safaris to several parks in Tanzania and Kenya.

Tarangire Video

Here's a quick little film from a couple days at Tarangire National Park in Tanzania. It's one of my three favorite game parks in Tanzania following Serengeti and Ngorongoro. It has loads of Elephants, plentiful Zebra and Giraffe, some good prides of lions (saw 16 total, but most hidden in the grass) and some amazingly large Baobab trees. You really don't get a true sense of scale of these trees until you see a Giraffe or Elephant near one to give it some scale. I'd love to have a treehouse on one of them. I will probably revise this video in a couple weeks because I will be making another stop at the end of my next Safari.

Lake Natron

Lake Natron is another location well off the beaten path. As a matter of fact, it’s over 100 km of nasty 4x4 track. They call this kind of road an “African Massage” because of all the bouncing and bumping you get the whole time. This one is so bad,, they call it “African Deep Massage”. It’s a very scenic route, however. You pass across vast dry Savannah’s with scatterings of Masai and their cattle herds and occasional small groups of Zebra and Wildebeest. The scenery is dominated by Africa’s most active volcano, Oldonyo L’Engai (The Mountain of God). It erupts every three or four years, which on a geological timescale it outright flatulent. It last erupted in 2013, so it is due in a year or two. Lake Natron is a soda lake and is the breeding home of Africa’s two species of Flamingos (greater and lesser). It is dotted with tiny Masai villages. We camped in one of the villages near a small river called Ngare Sero. After taking a trip down to the lake to view one of the flocks of Flamingos, we hiked up along the river in a narrow canyon to a picturesque waterfall. It was necessary to ford the river several times and even walk upstream in it in a couple of narrow rocky canyons but the reward was a nice view in a quiet peaceful place where we could float in a pool beneath the waterfall and relax after the trek.

Oldonyo L’Engai, The Mountain of God:


Masai Village:


Masai village at the mouth of the Ngare Sero river canyon:


The waterfall on Ngare Sero river:


Wildflowers in the canyon:




Flamingos in Lake Natron:




An extinct crater:


Dry hills on the route to Lake Natron:


Extinct crater:


Mountain of God with Acacias in the foreground: