Elephant Walk Safari

Nairobi

Day 2 Ole Sereni Hotel Nairobi  Pickup at Nairobi International Airport by our Deeper Africa driver, Lydia Mwanga, after clearing customs. Lydia will have a sign with your name on it. She will transport you to the Ole Sereni Hotel. Ole Sereni Hotel sits at the edge of Nariobi National Park. The Sheldrick Animal Orphanage is within the park’s perimeter. It is common to view wildlife from the room windows and the dining room. An outdoor patio makes it even easier.  Overnight at Ole Sereni Hotel. Swimming pool available. 

Amboseli | Nairobi | Tsavo

Day 4 Tawi Lodge  Amboseli National Park Breakfast at Ole Sereni. This morning your Deeper Africa safari guide will meet you at breakfast to brief you for your safari. You’ll be departing Nairobi this morning for the wild lands of southern Kenya in Amboseli National Park and  Tsavo East National Park. Tsavo and Amboseli could not be more different. Amboseli is small and spectacular, clustered around a swampy core that spreads into a seasonal lake. It is the prime source of water for miles around, meaning that it draws a crowd during dry season. That can be a lot of wildlife vying for water in 153 square miles (396 sq kms). But, if peace is what you are after it is just 50 miles east; in Tsavo. We’ll have a picnic lunch packed and head south for Amboseli. Today and tomorrow you’ll meet, observe, and learn about the intelligent, complex, and  sentient elephants that make Amboseli their home. But, Amboseli has more than elephants and this afternoon you’ll be able to wildlife view in the plains, acacia woodland, savannahs, marshes, and swamps of Enkongo Narok. Amboseli is quite lush in places, because the snows of Kiliminjaro flow underground into the park continually feeding springs, swamps, and marshes. The swamps of Enkongo Narok are permanent enough to keep hippo here all year long and there are plenty of elephant and buffalo, plus a profusion of bird life. Amboseli comes from the work “empusel” which in the language of the local Maasai means “salty dust.” When Amboseli was gazetted as a national park the area around the swamps became off limits to local Maasai as a watering hole for their cattle. In retaliation the local Maasai pursued and killed lion that left the park boundaries. As a consequence lion are not plentiful in Amboseli. A piped water supply was set up outside the park boundaries for the Maasai cattle and the Maasai  finally did give up their land within the park boundaries. Even so, sometimes you will still see Maasai cattle herds grazing within the park boundaries.  We’ll make sure you see the views from Observation Hill, a conical volcanic plug rising 100 feet (30 meters) above the plain. From binoculars at the view point on Observation Hill you’ll be able to see the lattice of dirt tracks traveled by Amboseli elephants as the herds come in for water.  The views of Kiliminjaro are spectacular from Amboseli and Tawi Lodge. Sunrise and sunset are the best times to see the mountain, even if the peak is often shrouded in a thick shawl of clouds. Tawi Lodge is located just outside the park boundary on a 6,000 acre private conservancy. The community conservancy is run together with African Wildlife Foundation and it maintains harmonious development for the wildlife and the Maasai people along the corridor between Amboseli and the Chyulu Hills.  Dinner and overnight at Twai Lodge. Swimming pool available. 

Kilimanjaro | Tsavo

Day 6 Ithumba Banda @ Sheldrick Wildlife Trust compound Tsavo East National Park  Breakfast at Tawi Lodge. You’ll set off eastward deeper into Kenya’s wilderness and Tsavo East National Park. In Tsavo you’ll be learning more about Sheldrick’s reintroduction program, both by observing at the Voi and Ithumba compounds where juvenile elephants still sleep with their keepers, and also by observing the wild herds that the orphans have joined.  Tsavo East is one of the leading biodiversity strongholds in the world so you will have plenty of time to track the wide variety of animals including lion, leopard, cheetah, zebras, giraffes, serval cats, antelopes, kongoni, lesser kudu, oryx, klipspringer, impala, stripped hyena, gazelles, buffalos, and elephants. You can also view endemic species: desert warthog and Hirola and Peter’s Gazelles. Tsavo is also a favorite place for bird watchers. Prolific birdlife includes white-headed buffalo weavers, golden-breasted starlings, eight species of hornbills, as well as birds of prey, bustards, sunbirds, starlings, parrots, barbets, and rollers. Tsavo has endless bush grasslands, open plains, acacia scrub, and woodlands ecosystems.  The rolling scrub-covered hills of the park have a very remote feel.  The Tsavo River runs east from the western end of the park near the border of Tanzania where it joins with the Athi River, forming the Galena River near the center of the park. The Galena River provides an area of lush vegetation as it crosses park lands, including a cascade down Lugard Falls, before the river makes its way to the Indian Ocean. Tsavo’s vast size means you will have the uninterrupted pleasure of exploring the wilderness, most of the time, completely alone. This is some of the last real wilderness left in Kenya. There is much of Kenya’s history in Tsavo. At the turn of the 20th century the infamous “maneaters of Tsavo” terrorized British East African Railway workers as they built the railroad from Kenya’s coastal port of Mombasa into Uganda. These two, mane-less, man-eating lions ate many humans working on the railroad before they were shot by John Henry Patterson. Patterson wrote a book “Bwana Devil” about his adventures – later made into the movie “The Ghost and the Darkness” starring Michael Douglas. Chicago’s Field Museum has the lion skins and skulls on  display in life-like mounts. The railroad opened up the area. New settlers glimpsed the vastness of Tsavo, and often Kilimanjaro, from their train carriages as they headed inland toward Nairobi. Hunting enthusiasts, including Karen Blixen’s lover Denys Finch-Hatton, fell in love with the wildness of Tsavo. You’ll cross the bridge twice on your way in and out of Tsavo East. In the nineteenth century, Mt. Kilimanjaro, visible from many parts of Tsavo, would have been in Kenya had it not been for Queen Victoria’s giving it as a wedding gift to the German Kaiser, thus permanently signing it over to what is now Tanzania.  You’ll have most of the day wildlife viewing as you journey north of the Galena River to the Sheldrick Ithumba compound, one of the two locations where the orphans transition to the wild, in the late afternoon. Stop by after you arrive and say hello to the young elephants as they return to the stockades to sleep. The bandas are simple, but the best part is that there are elephants close by. Picnic lunch on safari, dinner, and overnight at Ithumba Bandas. Your guide will be doing the cooking while you stay at Ithumba Bandas and we will be packing in your food. 

Serengeti | Tsavo

Day 8 Satao Camp Tsavo East National Park  Breakfast at Satao Camp. Today you journey to the Voi Elephant Rehabilitation Centre in southern Tsavo and learn more about the reintegration process. You’ll have some great wildlife viewing on the way to the Centre. If you are lucky you will be able to observe some of the wild herds and see some of Tsavo’s elephants blowing red dust through their trunks and over their bodies, glowing red after their dust bath. By now you’ll have a rich understanding of the emotions and intelligence of elephants. Perhaps you can absorb enough ancient wisdom to give our species the tools to help their save their species.Tsavo lions neither look like, nor behave like, their Serengeti cousins. Adult males in Tsavo often lack a mane, which immediately brands a Serengeti lion as a loser. This deficiency does not prevent Tsavo lions from acquiring females, defending  territories, or siring offspring. Maneless lions are in all of the resident prides in Tsavo. Without a dense blanket of hair, maneless lions require less water to cool themselves. They can travel longer and farther form permanent water sources and encounter more prey or females. Tsavo prides are made up of single males with 4 to 10 adult females each. This differs from the smaller coalitions that exist in the Serengeti. Well maned lions do live in the northern sector of Tsavo West, were cooler, moist slopes of the rugged Ngulia Mountains permit more luxurious manes.  Picnic lunch, dinner, and overnight at Satao Camp. 

Day 10 Travel Day International Flight 6