Amboseli game drive

After our introduction to Nairobi traffic on Friday and Saturday, Sunday was an absolute pleasure as we headed east on the Mombasa highway to Emali where we turned onto a good tarmac road that took us most of the way to Amboseli and our entry through the Iremito gate. From here it was about 30 mins across the park to Tortilis luxury tented camp. Tortilis camp is located on the side of a small hill and looks out towards Mt Kilamanjaro, Africa’s highest mountain. Kili was shrouded on cloud for most of our visit with only occassional glimpses of the upper slopes and summit.

Maria, Katie and Jodie Lee with Tortilis chief guide, Ali

The tents are located down-hill from the lodge. An altitude of 5,300 ft and a hot afternoon was an interesting ‘density altitude’ lesson for our group of aircraft owners when it came to climbing the hill back to the restaurant. A late afternoon game drive followed escorted by Ali, the Chief guide from Tortilis.

Another photo opportunity with the lower slopes of Kilimanjaro in the background

Amboseli has a number of large swamp with floating rafts of grass. The Amboseli elephants love spending time in the swamps feeding on the grass. The swamps were weel populated with hippo also. Our return journey to Tortilis just on dusk found elephants all over the causeway road giving some great photo opportunities.

Morning game drive from Tortilis

We did a game drive before breakfast this morning with Ali, the chief guide here at Tortilis Camp. On the way to the Cynthia Moss Elephant Research Centre, we encountered this huge elephant (see photo) which crossed the road right in front of our LandCruisers!

Again we took in the numerous elephants, giraffe, wildebeest and zebra and were treated to the sight of one of the Amboseli lion prides resting alongside the road.

Vicki Fyshlock, Cynthia Moss Elephant Research Centre

At the Cynthia Moss Elephant Research Centre we were given an excellent presentation on current research by Vicki Fyshlock. Vicki came to Africa following graduuation to gain field experience, initially working with gorillas in the Congo Republic where she completed her Phd.

Vicki has now been working as a research associate in Amboseli for five years. (The project here has been running 40 years). Amboseli park itself covers an area of 290 sq km and is unfenced.

 On the drive back to Tortilis we came across a family of elephants and because of this presentation we were able to understand the interaction when a mother and baby rejoined the herd.