Amboseli National Park

Amboseli is a flat, dusty basin in southern Kenya whose fame rests on something that stands outside it. Across the border in Tanzania, Kilimanjaro rises straight out of the plain, and on clear mornings its snow-capped dome hangs above the park like a backdrop painted too large for the stage. Herds of elephants walking beneath that mountain have become one of the defining images of East Africa, and here the picture is not staged: the animals are simply going about their day between the swamps and the dry lake bed.

The contrast between water and dust is the key to the place. Much of the park is the bed of an old Pleistocene lake, pale and cracked for most of the year, while a chain of swamps stays green through the driest months. Their water comes from Kilimanjaro itself: meltwater and rain seep through the volcanic rock of the mountain and resurface as springs to the north, feeding the Enkongo Narok and Longinye swamps. Elephants wade in up to their bellies, buffalo graze in the reeds, and hippos keep to the deeper channels. Observation Hill, a low rise above Enkongo Narok, is the one place where visitors may leave their vehicle and walk, and from its top the whole mosaic of swamp, plain and mountain lies open.

The name comes from the Maa word Empusel, "salty, dusty place", and the Maasai remain the people of this land. The area was set aside as a reserve for them in 1906, became a game reserve in 1948 and was declared a national park in 1974; it covers about 392 square kilometres at the heart of a much larger ecosystem that spills across the Tanzanian border, and UNESCO recognised it as a biosphere reserve in 1991. Amboseli is also where the study of wild elephants came of age: Cynthia Moss began following its families in 1972, and the matriarch known as Echo, observed for almost four decades until her death in 2009, became the most closely studied elephant anywhere. Lions, cheetahs, spotted hyenas, Masai giraffes and zebras share the park, along with some 400 bird species, from pelicans and kingfishers to dozens of birds of prey.

Getting there

The park lies about 230 km south-east of Nairobi, close to the Tanzanian border; the nearest towns are Tarakea, just across the border about 52 km away, and Emali on the Kenyan side, about 68 km away. Amboseli Airport (ASV) is an airstrip inside the park, less than a kilometre from its centre, used by light aircraft. Most visitors arrive by road from Nairobi on a safari vehicle; driving within the park is by vehicle only, except on Observation Hill.