Kruger Mammals

Photo dump time! 

Our four full days in Kruger National Park was the best concentrated safari experience we have had in a single Park ever. The variety of wildlife and the quality of the sightings was just incredible. There was so much to see and other than maybe one or two times in the late morning / early afternoon when we started to feel that 5:15 a.m. departure time, we were engaged every minute of every day. The wildlife sightings were pretty much continuous.

I've covered some of our Kruger highlights in the past few weeks with posts about our number one species target (painted dogs), the Big Five (or four, as it turned out) and the amazing amount of birdlife we encountered in the Park. I'm done with lengthy written posts about what we saw there. 

But...I do think there is room for one more photo post showing off some of the looks we got at Kruger's mammals which are not painted dogs, elephants, buffalo, lions or leopards. So here goes. With minimal commentary. At least I've tried to make it minimal.

These photos do not show every species we saw in Kruger. Go out there and explore for yourself if you want that.

Giraffes

The first time I saw a giraffe in Botswana I was thrilled. This was was safari was all about. Tallest mammal on the planet! A few years later, we got an incredibly intimate look at these animals at Lake Manyara in Tanzania. They are still amazing to behold. So huge with a kick that can kill a lion. Our guide, Gareth said that he hated giraffes. We were shocked and asked why. "They are always looking down on me" was the response. Dad jokes. Who knew we would get these on safari?

Hippos

My former favorite African species. Their lack of social interaction has them way down on the list in 2025 but any time I get a chance to see them with their tusks showing, I want to take a picture. Still terrifying to me to be chased by one of these things in a small boat (Chobe River, 2015). Thankfully none of that in Kruger.

Impala

Impala are everywhere in Kruger. When we asked Gareth what we were going to see in the afternoon every day after lunch, his response was inevitably "impala!" and sometimes that declaration was amended with a guarantee. We DID see a ton of impala all over the place. We learned to call these animals "McDonald's of the bush" in Botswana in 2015 for their abundance and M-shaped markings on their hind quarters.

Shocker of the trip: who knew that impala smooched? At one of our impala stop, we watched a couple of these antelope alternately lick each other repeatedly on the neck. I have new respect for impala based on the smooching. Smooching is good.

Vervet Monkeys

Vervets are my favorite monkeys ever. They are just the most straightforward-looking, typical monkeys and I love that. As someone born in June 1968 (year of the monkey), I have an affinity for monkeys as a personal mascot. I have a monkey charm we picked up in Japan that goes on my backpack everywhere I go. The charm isn't exactly a vervet but in my mind's eye it is. If I had a spirit animal, it would be the vervet monkey.

Monkeys are mischievous and will steal stuff, especially food. Vervets are very adept at swiping grub. We saw it in Botswana in 2015 and again this year. Keep an eye on EVERYTHING you own around all kinds of monkeys but probably especially vervets.

Baboons

On the opposite end of the favorite monkeys spectrum...baboons. Just don't like them. I think it's the fangs and the fact that while vervets are mischievous, baboons look vicious. Baby baboons, however, are excessively cute.

Hyenas / Black-Backed Jackals

Shall we continue with the less-than-favorite African animals? Let's! 

Hyenas. Not good. Sneaky. Hunter-scavengers. Trying to steal from a lion or painted dog kill one minute but strong enough and organized enough to take down something big the next. And those faces. Ugh! UG-LEE! We did manage to see an almost newborn hyena playing with a stick on this trip but no pics. I just missed it with the camera and the moment was gone quickly.

I've included the black-backed jackal in this section not because there are loathsome to me (they are not) but because in the lineup at a kill, they slot right behind the hyenas. There's always one hanging around it seems looking for some scraps ahead of the vultures.

Warthogs

Done with ugly creatures for this post? Umm...nope. One more. Warthogs. Not pretty. But I do think if you are looking for a good picture of a warthog, these two are pretty darned good.

Zebra

When we first saw zebras in Kenya in 2018, we were thrilled. These animals are more impressive in the hundreds than in ones and twos and fives or so. The group below may have been the largest we saw on this trip. For a black and white animal, they really do blend in with the beige bush pretty well. This camouflage thing is amazing.

Kudu

Of all the antelope out there, kudu may be my favorite. It's the horns. I love these horns and these antelopes so much that I picked up a shirt from SENQU on our way back from safari one day. These are spectacularly gorgeous animals. Always excited to see kudu. We've only ever seen these animals in Southern Africa. It had been a full ten years since we'd seen any kudu I believe.

Wildebeest 

Excited about wildebeest? Not me. Not usually. But we were stopped in Kruger when these four wildebeest below started walking towards our vehicle. I waited until they got close enough to take a good picture and then waited a bit more for as many of the four as possible to hold their heads up. I got three. I like this picture. It's one of my favorites from this trip. And it's of a typically un-exciting subject. For me. I'm glad I watched and waited here. Sometimes it's cool when a species you are not necessarily always focused on surprises you with a cool moment.

Photo dump done! I feel better now. I'm glad these photographs can see the light of day.

My last picture note is about the cover photo of this post. It was taken at a rest area within Kruger. We stopped at a series of these during our four days in the Park. They were welcome because they had snacks, hot drinks, lunch (at mid-day) and most importantly...toilets. Way better to use the toilet in a rest area than just out in the bush. Most of the rest areas we stopped at were completely fenced with a heavy-duty gate at the entrance with daily opening and closing times prominently displayed. But on Kruger Day Four, we stopped at an un-fenced rest area and found the sign at the top of this post. Yeah...there's no way I want to be ordering a cup of coffee or tea and look over to find a hyena standing close to me with nothing between it and me. Nothing happened. Not on our stop. I need to see wildlife when I'm in the car, not on foot. 

That's all I have for this post. Apologies to the klipspringers, bush bucks, water bucks, nyala and everything else that we saw that didn't make it into this post. That's a wrap on safari posts for this year, but not for Africa posts. A couple of more of those to go.

Serengeti

Before I start this post for real, let me say that Toto got it way wrong. Kilimanjaro does not rise like Olympus (or anything else for that matter) above the Serengeti. Mount Kilimanjaro is about 200 miles, give or take 10 or 20, from the closest point to the Serengeti National Park. It's impossible to see the Mountain from the park, no matter how clear the day might be. Glad I could clear that up.

With that said, welcome to park number five in this blog. I'm sure if you've read all the other posts about our two week trip to Kenya and Tanzania that you must be thinking I can't possibly have any new stories to tell. I mean haven't I by this point seen and written about pretty much everything there is to see in East Africa? Nope. Not yet.

Serengeti National Park is one of the most famous game reserves in East Africa, if not the world. It's also massive. We were awed by the size of Masai Mara National Reserve in Kenya at 580 square miles in size. Serengeti is ten times as big as Masai Mara. It's bigger than the state of Connecticut. Go ahead if you must and make fun of the size of my home state but I'm telling you a park devoted to wild animals (and maybe a few Masai as well) that size is pretty darned huge. Serengeti is enormous. There's no way in two days we could cover anything near the whole area of this Park. But we spent the maximum amount of time that we could giving it a shot.

Leopard chilling in a tree.

Serengeti, which means "endless plain" in the Masai language, was established in 1951 as a haven for the area's cats, elephants, giraffe, African buffalo and any other species of animal or bird in the area. Its boundaries preserve about half of the Serengeti plain's total area as an undeveloped environment which bears an uncanny resemblance to the Masai Mara Reserve we were driving around just a week prior to our stay in the Serengeti. There's a really good reason for that: they are the same place. Masai Mara lies north of the Kenya / Tanzania border; Serengeti is just south of the border.

As you might expect, a great deal of the wildlife we saw was very similar to what we found in Kenya. We got some amazing looks at cats in Masai Mara and we did exactly the same in Serengeti. The lions were more active, the leopards were less active and we got an incredible closeup view of a cheetah which was doing little more (although enough, really) than the five we saw earlier in our trip at Masai Mara. We saw two more failed lion hunts (targeting zebra this time), some leopards in trees thanks to our eagle-eyed guide Filbert and a pride of lions so stuffed after gorging on a recent kill that I exclaimed that one female must be about to give birth she was so pregnant. But then again, so were the others, including the males. Lions can eat I guess. A lot.

Lion on the hunt. Failed, again.

The best cheetah pic we got on the trip. May have strayed off the path here. Thanks, Filbert and Samson.

We also stayed in our first ever unfenced camp which happened to be located smack dab in the center of the Park where I suppose buffalo, impala and, yes, lions and leopards might roam. Concerned about that at all? Don't be. After all, we are staying in a tent made of fabric. Why would we be worried about any noises we hear at night after being walked to our tent by a Masai with a flashlight and being directed not to leave the tent at night without calling on our walkie-talkie?

To make matters worse, we ended up in the very last tent. Not the last free one available. The last one in the row. Meaning closest to the grassland and potential lions or herds of stampeding elephants that would surely flatten a tent quickly. That walk to our tent at night was long, even with our Masai with flashlight (and nothing else) leading the way. Because surely a flashlight will help a lot. Although if it acts like a laser pointer with a house cat, maybe it would be just what we needed to fend off a lion attack.

The camp had its lovable perks and quirks. We got a wakeup call each morning with our prearranged hot shower, they had the best bar on the trip (an open tent facing the savannah with plentiful Kilimanjaro and Safari beers) and the tents were each named in Swahili after African animals. The shower had to be prearranged because they had to boil the water to get it hot; the wakeup call was a dude shouting through the tent "your shower is ready!"; and for what it's worth our tent's name was Pimbi, which means "rock hyrax" in Swahili. Other people got Twiga (giraffe) or Chui (leopard); we got rock hyrax. Cool!

Our row of tents taken from our morning stroll to breakfast hoping there were no lions behind us.

Pimbi, or rock hyrax. Fearsome, no?

But enough about awesome cat sightings and lying in bed wide-eyed with fear of attack from some predatory or territorial animal. I said Serengeti had it's own story and it did. And it wasn't about rock hyrax, although admittedly it was the only park where we saw these creatures. Let's talk about the real story, shall we? The sleep I got at Serengeti was, by the way, at no time restless. After a week hearing hippo, hyena and other sorts of noises, I wasn't concerned, even if we were told the noise that we heard one night were lions.

Serengeti National Park is home to one of the world's great spectacles. Each July through September it is host to the great wildebeest migration, the annual 1,000 mile trek north by between 1.5 and 2 million wildebeest accompanied by almost half a million Thomson's gazelle, just more than a quarter of a million zebra and some other hangers-on. If you can afford to go to Tanzania and Kenya in the summer months to see it, and can stand the crowds of tourists while you are there, it's apparently one of the most spectacular sights on our planet.

We didn't go in July through September so we didn't expect to see huge herds of wildebeest on our trip. In fact, I think we only saw two wildebeest in our first two days of the trip when we were in Masai Mara and those two were on our way out of the Reserve. That's about what I expected to see.

What I hoped to see wildebeest-wise on that later parts of this trip were babies, since February is generally the calving month for this species. I expected those in Ngorongoro Crater, which was our stop after the Serengeti National Park. At Serengeti I was focused on hoping for some kind of lion or cheetah or leopard or hyena or something killing something else. 

Then we came around a bend on our dirt trail and saw the scene below.

That's a whole lot of wildebeest in a field. And they were moving as a herd along with slightly fewer (but not much fewer) zebra.

We'd seen herds of wildebeest and zebra before on this trip. But I'd say at most we'd seen groups of 20 maximum at any one time in either Amboseli or Lake Manyara. Nothing like the hundreds and hundreds of animals that we saw in our first view out over the open field shown above.

When we first laid eyes on these animals, all we could see was that they were in a part of the Park on the other side of a river. But as we drove on, it was apparent that they weren't just on the other side of the river but were on our side too. And there were many many more wildebeest and zebra than we first saw. They were everywhere. On both sides of the river and on both sides of our vehicle. They were almost in perpetual motion, pouring down the river banks and across the water that appeared to me to be not a whole heck of a lot different than where they had come from so who knows why they thought they needed to cross at all.

When they weren't in motion, they looked nervous as they stood still, as if they were determined to determine where they needed to go next before doing the whole thing over again. There were black and white stripes and hoofs and horns and beards seemingly as far as the eye could see and as close to the car as about ten feet away. There was no other kind of animal in sight and it was impossible to not be fixated on the hundreds and hundreds of skittish looking prey milling about so close to where we were.

It kept on going. And it got more chaotic as it did. After the scene above we headed down to the bank of a saltwater lake and watched wildebeest and zebra cross from left to right in what seemed like a panicked rush. When they'd finished crossing the shallows of the lake, kicking up water and mud by young and old creatures alike they headed up a small hill at the other side of the lake and up on to the savannah. 

Then, and for a reason not entirely discernible to us, they all headed back the way they had come, a torrent of hoofs pouring down to the lake again and then rushing two by two or in threes or single file back to where they had just came from. Bulls. Cows. Calves. All for no obvious reason now running back in front of us from right to left. No prey followed the end of the herd. They just went back to where they had come from just some maybe 15 or 20 minutes earlier.

I don't know exactly how many wildebeest and zebra we saw that afternoon because it's just difficult to estimate numbers when they are in such herds but let's say it was maybe 30,000 animals and even that seems too high to me. I can't imagine what a herd of more than two million animals would look like. It was exhausting watching this hurried parade for maybe close to an hour. I can't imagine how many animals would be in a herd of the sizes they can get to in the summer months. Our guide told us in July or August the herd of wildebeest would be kilometers long. I just can't believe how spectacular it would be to experience that number of animals flying by at top speed. It must be staggering.

I had absolutely no expectations that we would see something like this so to find what I can only refer to here as a dress rehearsal for the summer months was such a treat. These animals are not social in the way elephants or cats are. I would imagine this parade of thousands is about as spectacular as it gets with zebra and wildebeest. 

Zebra and wildebeest streaming down the hill single file (mostly).

Running in a pack. Not sure where to but there was lots of running.

Single zebra in full gallop. My best wildebeest pic is the cover photo of this post.

At least one zebra didn't make it though.

I don't know if the zebra and wildebeest we saw that afternoon running in large herds were on the run from predators but shortly after we left the shore of the lake where we watched our zebra crossing scene we got a very real reminder that predators are out there. No, we didn't see a kill like we'd been hoping to see but we didn't miss it by much.

What we found was a dead zebra presided over by a single hyena and at least 20 or so vultures. It was a scene not for the faint of heart necessarily but we were far enough away that we couldn't see much of the details or smell any of the smells. Our new super duper camera served as both our binoculars and as a recorder of the event for the better part of the next hour.

When a lion or cheetah or leopard kills its prey, the death will be fairly clean and fairly quick. They'll generally go for the jugular (literally) and make it a last as little time as it can last. Then they can get on with the eating the way they want to. Dogs, like African wild dogs, jackals or hyena, are not so efficient, probably because they lack the size and agility of the cats. They may take several bites at an animal to weaken it or even might use their nails on their paws to slash at the stomach area. Sometimes this last strategy might not kill the target of the hunt but might debilitate the animal almost completely. In this case, the hunters might actually start eating their prey before the animal is even dead.

What I've just described is typical of a pack hunt, where a number of pack members might be attacking a single animal. I'm not sure how the hyena we came across actually killed the zebra we saw it with, but I can tell you what it did after we came upon the scene.

The hyena with the kill. I guess the zebra behind are making sure they keep an eye on him.

We watched two things for what seemed like a very long time in this part of the park: (1) the hyena tugging at the carcass of the zebra as if it was looking for something specific and (2) the hyena vigilantly chasing away the encroaching vultures again and again and again. There's absolutely no way that hyena was letting those vultures anywhere near his meal, except maybe when they grabbed and fought over what was probably some entrails off to the left of the carcass, lending credibility to my theory about the hyena having slashed open the stomach of the zebra.

As far as I am aware, hyenas only have paws and a set of bone crunching jaws with which to open up an animal and get at what they want. But from afar, it seemed like the predator here was carefully peeling back the skin of the zebra to get at what it wanted. I'm not kidding, it appeared to be expertly skinning the animal (see the photo at the end of this post). Once the hide was separated from the rump of the zebra, we could see the ribcage of the animal and the hyena kept going. At this point, we began to speculate about what was likely a quest for some organ meat, right before the hyena emerged with what I can only assume was the liver of the zebra. It was bigger than the head of the hyena and when it had it between its jaws, it left the kill site to go feast. 

The final extraction all happened so fast that all I have to show for the this event is the picture below, which I debated including in this post because really the vultures are the only creatures in focus but ended up doing it because it shows the relative size of what the hyena was looking for all that time and it's just stunning to me still that this animal would get that size chunk of meat out of a zebra. Note some of the vultures are either enthralled by what the hyena has in its mouth or are actually just making sure that he's leaving the rest of the zebra for them.

What happened next represented the most voracious feeding frenzy I have ever seen in person. As soon as it was obvious that the hyena had abandoned the enormous fresh kill, about 20 or 30 vultures pounced on it with a kind of bloodlust that can only really be brought about by the opportunity to gorge on something while hungry knowing that the moment to get your fill would soon pass. The ferocity of the mass of feathers, beaks, necks and dust was shocking. It was every bird for itself and it didn't seem that they cared what they were tearing and jabbing at or what they were climbing over or stepping on to get at what might end up being a tiny scrap of food.

There were so many birds on top of the fresh zebra that you can barely see any tiny piece of what seconds earlier was a kill that had been touched only by the jaws and paws of a hyena. You can only just see a portion of the zebra's front legs in the photograph below and even then it is obscured by the dust that is being whipped up around the scene by flapping wings and talons tearing at anything they can get a hold of. The only vulture not focused on the carcass is the one in the foreground and that's because it clearly has a piece of zebra innards in its beak.

To see this happen live was impressive. I've never witnessed a scene so opportunistic as those vultures tearing at that zebra. It imparted in me a new kind of respect for these birds. Like a healthy respect that I don't ever want to go against a pack of these things in the wild. 

I'll say this: the vultures were right to act with the kind of urgency that they showed because pretty soon after the hyena had eaten just what he wanted out of the liver (or whatever it actually was), he was back chasing them off again, I guess back for seconds or to just hoard the kill for himself (or herself) for a while. We'd had enough. It was getting close to 6 p.m. and there was a Kilimanjaro or Safari beer (or both!) with my name on it back at our camp. We figured we'd seen all we could see in our time there and had to get back before dinner.

Five parks; five unique African experiences. Cats at Masai Mara; Rhinos at Lake Nakuru; Elephants and Kilimanjaro at Amboseli; birds and giraffes at Lake Manyara; and now a mini wildebeest migration, and the most gory kill site we'd seen to date, at Serengeti. This portion of the world is so rich in wildlife that I'm sure despite everything that we'd seen in the first five parks we visited in February, we haven't even scratched the surface. I know I could do this sort of thing every day for a month or more on end. I don't think I'd ever get tired of this place.  Unfortunately at this point, the end was in sight. One more park to go. After another night in our unprotected pimbi tent at the end of the row.

"Your shower is ready!"

Up and at 'em, a quick breakfast and off to Ngorongoro.

One last look at the hyena and its kill. Check out the way the skin is peeled back off the carcass.

Amboseli

Mount Kilimanjaro, located near the northern border of Tanzania just south of Kenya, is the tallest mountain on the continent of Africa. It is also one of the tallest single mountains (meaning it doesn't sit within a range) in the world. Our Kenyan guide, Joe, described the mountain as shared between the two countries: Tanzania owns the mountain, but Kenya owns the view. If there was a place we might see Kilimanjaro, it would be when we were at Amboseli National Park in Kenya. With as much of a fill of rhinos as we could probably reasonably expect to get in just one day at Lake Nakuru, we headed south and east to Amboseli and Kilimanjaro. Although Joe wasn't promising us anything.

The road to Amboseli would be the last really long ride of our two week trip. Once we crossed into Tanzania the rides in cars got shorter and easier. But Amboseli made us feel like it had better be worth it. If we thought the road to Masai Mara was long at six and a half hours or the road to Nakuru was brutal at nine hours, the journey to Amboseli topped both of them. It was another nine hour drive, but that was timed after we left the park. My clock to Nakuru started when we left the lodge in Masai Mara and included several stops for some excellent wildlife watching. The road to Amboseli was nine straight hours of highway with just one short stop. And certainly no wildlife.

Our route that day was the main road that runs all the way to the port of Mombasa where Kenya's coast meets the Indian Ocean. Before the road enters Kenya at the border crossing at Malaba, it serves Uganda, Rwanda and South Sudan and trucks (or lorries, if you prefer) from those landlocked countries slowly make their way to and from the coast loaded with shipping containers filled with exports from the interior and imports from the sea. And I do mean slowly. The road is one lane each way and it's hilly in many parts. It is slow going most of the way and there is a lot of passing when possible in the other lane. This leads to endless games of generally good-natured and congenial chicken for most of the nine hour ride. If we saw the mountain and some other good stuff at Amboseli it would probably be worth it. Either way, we were doing it anyway.

Following a string of trucks down the road to Amboseli; unable to pass.

Size-wise, Amboseli fell in the middle of the three Kenyan parks on our agenda at 151 square miles, a little more than double the size of Nakuru and still way smaller than Masai Mara. If we were thrilled with the different types of landscapes we'd seen at the two previous parks, Amboseli provided us with the most diverse environment we'd seen to date. 

The word Amboseli is adapted from a Masai word meaning "open plain" but it didn't seem anything of the sort to us. We drove through parts of the Park that resembled the bush we'd driven through in Botswana in 2015, and on our way out two days after our arrival, we crossed the most barren stretch of desert we'd pass over on this trip; although if it had been a couple of months later, it would have been a lake. And then there are the swamps. Yep, in one of the driest parts of the Earth, there are a series of swamps in southern Kenya.

Amboseli's swamps are products of Mount Kilimanjaro. It (or maybe more accurately the snow melt runoff from its peak) is literally the lifegiver of the marshes that we drove around and between in our day and a half of safari drives inside the Park. Water is often in such short supply in many of the spots we visited in February. It should come as no surprise that these water filled areas in Amboseli are heavily visited by wildlife every day.

In my first post about this trip, I described how we were fortunate to find something different and unique at each of the six parks we visited. At Amboseli, we found elephants. Lots of elephants. Amboseli has a larger elephant population than any other park we visited and it shows. We found them in the bush as lone males. We found them in families making their way from the mountain to the grass they love to eat in the Park. And we found them in the swamps in large groups with elephants all around them and even more in the distance. Amboseli even has the elephants that used to live in the Nairobi National Park; they were relocated when the park was fenced to an area smaller than the elephants needed. It's packed full of elephants.

Elephants were the number one reason we wanted to come back to Africa so it should come as no surprise that we were especially looking forward to Amboseli. Watching these animals interact in complex social structures is something I think I can do all day. They are just way more exciting than checking out a herd of impala or seeing a giraffe or two wondering around. Now, that's not to say Amboseli was the only place we saw elephants because it certainly wasn't. In fact, we saw elephants at every single park we visited. They were one of the only few types of animals that we could say this about. It's also not to say that we were disappointed in the lions and leopards and rhinos and all the other wildlife we saw seemingly everywhere we went. But the quality and quantity of elephant sightings at Amboseli outstripped every other place we went.

So how was it? Well, it was pretty amazing. We spent the good majority of one day in the Park, getting up fairly early for a morning drive and then taking an afternoon sojourn after lunch at our safari lodge just outside the gate. We saw a lot in those two drives and we did it in a counterintuitive way from the way we'd done these trips everywhere else. 

Let me explain.

Elephants need variety in their diet. They get leaves from the trees at the base of Mount Kilimanjaro and they get grass (along with plenty of water to wash it down) in the swamps of the Park. Most game drives we have taken in Africa operate on the assumption of "the earlier the better." In other words, get to the spots where the animals are before the mid-day sun comes out and drives them all into the shade. 

Not required at Amboseli, and particularly with the elephants. Because of the complete lack of grass at the mountain and the complete lack of leaves in the Park, the elephants of Amboseli are essentially commuters. That means they make the long trek from the mountain to the swamps and then do the reverse commute in the afternoon when they've had their fill of grass. Don't get up too early to see them because they won't be there. Also remember this is a Park not a reserve; there's only one trail to get to the good stuff and there's no backing up. Timing was key and later, in this case, was better.

 

Elephants are best seen in families, not alone or in twos, although we certainly saw our fair share of bulls by themselves and in bachelor pairs. They travel together, they feed together and they protect one another in groups. This is particularly true of the babies, who are never far from their mother or one of the other females in the herd. Elephant calves are much like human infants. They need to be taken care of and taught what to do with everything, particularly with their trunks. Come across a group of elephants with a baby and you are likely to see mother and baby right next to one another and there's always likely to be at least one member of the herd keeping an eye out for any sort of aggression.

I think my favorite look at the elephants we got at Amboseli was the procession of nine or ten elephants making their morning commute. We saw them from the main trail walking in an absolute straight line from the main road and then were able to cut them off and see them walking towards us and then away towards the swamp once they crossed behind us on the secondary road we turned on to. The "coming" picture is above; the "going" picture is below. In these single files the matriarch of the herd, the single wisest and most experienced female, leads the herd and the smallest of the bunch, the babies, are always in the middle. The herd we saw was trailed by the dominant bull, who was sufficiently far behind the column to not be visible in the photos on this post. He made sure we knew he was there when we first saw them from the main road and we made sure we kept our distance when we stopped for a better look later on. Don't get too close to elephants, folks. You don't want one of these animals coming at you upset.

That logic applies not just to families with babies. On our way out of the Park after our second trip to the swamps we came across a pair of males crossing the road in front of us. After the first one crossed, he turned around, looked at us and marched back onto the road. We backed up. It's the only time I've been in a safari truck where we've backed up. Our driver, Peter, was justifiably taking no chances and we must have been just a bit too close for comfort. Don't want to be there.

In between the commuters we saw in the early-ish morning and the last males who we thought better of being too close to, we spent a good amount of time watching elephants drink, eat and teach their babies what to do to be an elephant. And of course in addition to seeing the elephants in the marshes, we got a good look at elephants (and all sorts of other animals) in front of the great old mountain, Kilimanjaro, who we had come so far to see.

It really is pretty impressive. There's nothing even approaching its size anywhere on the horizon. It is the singular feature that stands out in an otherwise open plain (guess the Masai got this one right in the big picture). When we got to our lodge after the ride from Nakuru, the mountain was already shrouded in mist and when we got up the next morning (the front doors of all the tents at our camp point towards Kilimanjaro) the top was covered in clouds. But by the time we left for our first game drive, the snow-capped top was clearly visible and it stayed that way for most of the day. We already missed one mountain in the past 12 months in Alaska so I'm glad we saw this one pretty clearly. It provided a great backdrop for wildlife watching.

But elephants and the mountain weren't the only excitement we'd get at Amboseli. I mentioned in my first post of this trip that one of the things we hoped to see was a hunt which would result in a kill. While we had seen a pride of lions gathered around the last remnants of a carcass at Masai Mara, we were still looking to see some predator on prey action by the time we reached the foothills of Kilimanjaro. Then the road we were traveling to follow our last elephants of the day led us to a pride of lions.

While we had seen plenty of cats (including lions) at Masai Mara, they were mostly all sleeping or lying down in the shade, probably because it was the middle of the day and lions and other cats tend to do that while the sun is highest in the sky. I was especially interested in seeing lions do something more than sit or lie because, to me, they look so much bigger and powerful when they move around. With their bellies on the ground, lions look like they are somewhat harmless. On four feet? Not so much. These animals are powerful and to be feared.

The pride that we found that afternoon were six strong and we got them when they were just waking from some sort of nap or long sleep. We first laid eyes on one or two near a stand of pretty good sized palm bushes. Eventually two more emerged and they started on the move, looking like this might be a hunt because it resembled what we had seen in our last day in Botswana in 2015 and that was for sure a hunt. Once the first four lions looked back towards the bush and two more lions walked out towards the first four waiting in place, we were positive these lions were looking for some meat.

The objects of the lions' gaze? A herd of wildebeest on the other side of the road we were inching along tracking the pride. It didn't seem like the prey had any idea they were being tracked.

Lions tend to draw attention from tourists. It's not like elephants don't but there are a lot more elephants than there are lions. Elephants at Amboseli stretch about as far as the eye can see in groups of one through five or seven or ten or more. These lions that were eyeing the wildebeest were the only six we saw in the Park. By the time they had gotten around to looking like they were making a serious move on possible dinner, a few more trucks with tourists had shown up. How many trucks are in the picture above? 12? 15? 18? And there were a few more around our vehicle that don't show up in that shot. And this is the shoulder season. I can't imagine what Kenya and Tanzania are like in the summer. It sounded like from our guides that there are self-imposed and peer-enforced time limits. Like five minutes before moving on. I'm glad we came in February and could spend whatever time we liked with whatever we saw.

The line of cars, while notable for its length, also blocked the wildebeests' view of what was about to hunt them. The lions slipped through the vehicular mass and popped out on the other side almost undetected.

The success rate for a lion or group of lions hunting during the day is less than 20%. That means that of every five hunts, at least four are unsuccessful. I'm convinced the one we missed in 2015 was going to result in a kill. There were so many impala and the lions we were watching had them flanked on both sides. It was pretty obvious that this one in Amboseli was going to be over as soon as it started. Yes, the lions got over the road undetected but it didn't take long for the herd to start purposefully trotting away before breaking into a more vigorous light sprint. The only moment of tension was caused when one of the herd broke and ran in the exact opposite direction from his (or her) friends. I cannot fathom why a herd animal would want to break from the pack. In a group, you just have to run faster than the slowest wildebeest. Alone, you have to run faster than the fastest lion. I'd stay with the herd.

Our lion sighting in Amboseli marked the third park in a row where we'd seen these animals and still no hunting and no kills. Our quest for blood would continue even as our guide, Joe, told us tales of people being very affected emotionally when they finally got a look at one in person. For this day and this abandoned hunt, we were done.

The next morning we passed through Amboseli on our way out of Kenya and into Tanzania. Three parks down, three to go and each one had a different story so far. We got cats at Masai Mara and rhinos (but no flamingos) at Lake Nakuru. Amboseli gave us our best look at elephants. 

There are a few last points I'd like to make about this place before moving on and ending this post.

First, and this is in no way critical of or complaining about the wildlife sightings we saw there, Amboseli made me appreciate our time two and a half years ago in Botswana more than ever. We saw and watched elephants far more effectively and intimately from the Chobe River in a small boat than we ever have in a vehicle with wheels. Amboseli was gorgeous and unforgettable and it got us looks at so many different species of animals in an amazing way. But it didn't get us what we got in Botswana.

Second, I promised in my first post about this trip that I would share some of my favorite photographs even if they didn't fit in with whatever narrative the particular park gave us in any one post. Right after we saw the parade of elephants on our morning game drive, we saw a zebra rolling in the dust of the bush. I missed him (or her, I guess) rolling around but got the dust shake off in action. That picture is below. I love it because the zebra appears to be standing dead still and just shaking the dust off its head and neck, which I suppose really is exactly what is happening.

Finally, and sadly, climate change is affecting Amboseli just like it has already affected Lake Nakuru National Park, where we stayed right before Amboseli. Kilimanjaro is not getting as much snow as it used to due to the temperature of the Earth rising. That's causing less snow melt which feeds the swamps where the animals in and around the area get water. Whether you believe our planet is getting warmer due to man-made causes or natural causes, there's no doubt that it is, in fact, getting warmer. And that's going to affect areas like Amboseli. When it happens and it causes the death of these swamps, it's not like the animals can wander off somewhere else. Man has pretty much taken over everywhere else. Something bad will happen.

The solution, or some ideas for some solutions, are apparently in progress already. The flamingos already mostly left Nakuru. The elephants can't just as easily leave Amboseli.

We, however, did, taking off across the desert that would in a few weeks become flooded by Lake Amboseli. I'll end this post with a couple of giraffe running across that baked dirt. Just a couple of miles away from the swamps of Amboseli, things are very, very different. Imagine how much poorer we'd be if the whole place looked like the picture below.