Amboseli

Last weekend, I went on my first Safari in Amboseli National Park. The park is in the southern region of Kenya, very close to Tanzania. It is known for two things mainly: elephants (lots of them) and a scenic backdrop of Mount Kilimanjaro. I was the most excited out of everyone I went with because it was my first real safari (after going to Amboseli, I have stopped counting the one at Disney World because it can't compare). Everyone else would only get excited to see the predators while I was jumping up and down every time I saw a new bird.

Apparently I was extremely lucky because we were able to get really close to lions on within our first hour at the park while others spend their entire time trying to find them. The pictures below are from our lion encounter:

Other than lions, here's an almost complete list of the animals I saw:
1. elephant (more pics below)
2. monkey
3. hippo
4. ostrich
5. jackal
6. hyena
7. heron
8. zebra
9. wildebeest
10. buffalo
11. gazelle
12. impala
13. giraffe

14. warthog
15. lots of other birds
16. really skinny black squirrel in our front yard
17. black cat in our back yard

(Safari vehicles have detachable roofs so that you can stand up and view the animals)

We stayed at a Kenya Wildlife Services (KWS) rest house which was very basic. It had a kitchen full of bugs, electricity from 7PM-11PM only, and plenty of mosquitoes ready to feast on me. Despite all this, we had a great time. We cooked elaborate meals including scrambled eggs with every ingredient you could imagine, butter chicken, shrimp fried rice, our own spin on ramen noodles, and fresh pineapple with Toblerone for dessert. Unfortunately the red snapper we brought for Simon's big birthday dinner did not make it because of the lack of electricity and shoddy cooler, so we didn't risk eating it. We also had an amazing view of Mount Kilimanjaro from our backyard. It was definitely worth the $15/night we spent to stay there.

Overall, the experience has me very excited for Masai Mara (the best safari experience Kenya has to offer) next weekend. Hopefully I will see some cheetahs and leopards there. Stay tuned...

Note: I can't take credit for most of these photos. Simon, another volunteer consultant with TechnoServe, took most of them. His camera and photography skills are far superior to the rest of ours so we basically relied on him to capture all the memories from the weekend.