We spent the last few days vacationing at the opposite end of the spectrum from the majority of people in this developing country in which we now live. Soon after we arrived here, we made plans to go away during Christmas week, as Sarah had the week off work and we didn’t have any family here to spend the holidays with or anything else to do. I visited a travel agent, and we agreed to visit a couple of game parks. She choose some luxurious places for us to stay.
Early the morning after Christmas Day, we set out in the car and drove first in the direction of Mombasa (southeast from Nairobi) and then south toward Kenya’s border with Tanzania. The first place we visited was Amboseli National Park, which boasts Mt. Kilimanjaro as its close neighbor right across the border in Tanzania. We saw the peak’s top only on the last morning we were there, but we didn’t get to see the “icing on the wedding cake” – the mountain’s familiar cap of snow. Most of the time, the rain clouds hid the top of the mountain.
We stayed at a tent camp on the far edge of the park, which meant we had to drive across the length of the park to get there. Even on that drive, we saw a couple of giraffe, some elephants and some water buffalo. There are a handful of places to stay in this park, and most of them are lodges – five-star hotels that have traditional rooms and that are the ultimate in luxury. Our accommodations, however, were in tents, which was a lot of fun. It felt more like we were roughing it (but not so badly) and out there as explorers conquering the bush.
Early the morning after Christmas Day, we set out in the car and drove first in the direction of Mombasa (southeast from Nairobi) and then south toward Kenya’s border with Tanzania. The first place we visited was Amboseli National Park, which boasts Mt. Kilimanjaro as its close neighbor right across the border in Tanzania. We saw the peak’s top only on the last morning we were there, but we didn’t get to see the “icing on the wedding cake” – the mountain’s familiar cap of snow. Most of the time, the rain clouds hid the top of the mountain.
We stayed at a tent camp on the far edge of the park, which meant we had to drive across the length of the park to get there. Even on that drive, we saw a couple of giraffe, some elephants and some water buffalo. There are a handful of places to stay in this park, and most of them are lodges – five-star hotels that have traditional rooms and that are the ultimate in luxury. Our accommodations, however, were in tents, which was a lot of fun. It felt more like we were roughing it (but not so badly) and out there as explorers conquering the bush. 
Each “room” was its own separate, large canvas tent (big enough for you to stand up in) under another, more sturdy (thatch) roof structure. Inside the tent was a double bed, and the back third was divided off and had a real working sink, toilet and shower (with hot water only in the morning and evening at scheduled times). In front of the tent was a small stone porch where you could sit. All of our meals were eaten buffet-style in a dining hall/restaurant building behind the main building. There was also another building that was the bar. The camp even had a swimming pool, but the water was cool. Because every meal is a buffet, and there are many dishes to choose from, you eat very well at these type of places and stuff yourself at each meal. The trouble is, however, that much of your time is spent in a sedentary state, or else you’re riding around the park in a vehicle, so you don’t have much opportunity between meals to get hungry or burn off the full meal.
At these sort of places on up to the luxury lodges, hotels and resorts, as soon as you step into the lobby area (usually an open-air area), they give you a glass of fruit juice (usually with chunks of fresh fruit in it) and a small wet towel to wipe your face off. When we arrived there on the 26th, it was just in time to eat lunch. One usually takes an afternoon game drive before sunset – when it gets cooler in the day again for the animals to come out and eat. The other good time to go out on a game drive is in the cool of the morning at sunrise. So this was our routine, following the daily schedule of the animals – wake up early and immediately go on a game drive, return to the camp and have breakfast and shower, then nap, relax, read, go swimming, eat lunch and do all the same in the afternoon before going out again around 4:00. When we returned around sunset, we enjoyed sitting in the bar as it got dark and hearing the crickets start their nighttime noises.
In this game park, if you drive yourself there in your own car (an SUV or 4x4 is really needed), although many people (tourists from overseas) fly there, you can then drive yourself around the park yourself to see the animals and come and go around the park as you please. Otherwise, people hire vehicles to take them on the regular, scheduled drives, and this gives you an expert guide who knows how to find the animals and is sometimes told by other guides via the radio in the car good places to go to see animals. But the trick when you drive yourself around is just to follow the guided tour vehicles, which is okay with them. So we went out on our couple drives a day. The park has a varied landscape. In addition to the above animals, we saw plenty of impalas and other similar deer-type animals, plenty of wildebeests, warthogs, a hippo, plenty of baboons, and we think we saw a leopard, although they’re hard to spot during the day. The birds in these parks are also amazing to look at. During one afternoon game drive, on the way back to our camp, we came upon a small herd of elephants, and there were a handful of vehicles parked on the road watching them. The elephants crossed the road and went among the other vehicles, very close to them. We in our car several yards back watched these elephants with both fear because they can be very dangerous animals and with fascination at getting so close to them.
We stayed at this tent camp two nights, which was plenty. On the second morning, we headed out to another game park – actually a small(er) privately owned game reserve surrounded by the country’s largest game park. After driving all morning, we arrived at our second place, an oasis of luxury in the middle of nowhere practically (although we did pass through some very poor and run-down small towns getting there, which makes the luxury at this place and even greater contrast). This place was a lodge – more of a traditional luxury hotel. Our rooms were all in one building that surrounded a beautifully kept garden with ponds and a swimming pool. As at the last place, the meals were buffet and were full and wonderful – every lunch and dinner is a four- or five-course meal.
Because we were too tired of driving all morning, we didn’t go out on an afternoon game drive at the second place, but we waited to go on a nighttime drive, which isn’t allowed in the government-run game parks. We left at 9:00 and were back at 11:00. We didn’t see any big animals on this after-dark drive (except for a sick elephant that was lying on the ground), but we did see a tiny bush baby (it was funny how quickly it could climb around a tree and then how far it could hop on the ground), plenty of impalas, foxes and a serval cat. The guides kept us out a half hour later trying to find some real game, but there was none out for us to see.
We had similar difficulty spotting the game the following morning when we went out ourselves. This second park is in a very hilly area, and the vegetation is so much greener and denser. At one point, a guided vehicle passed us on the road as we were driving slowly and just about to give up on spotting anything. The driver motioned for us to follow, and we quickly headed off in one direction, most of the time going well over the speed limit of the park. Toward the end of this frantic wild goose chase, as we actually left the private game sanctuary and went past the sign the said “No trespassing”, we came to a place where a handful of other vehicles were clustered. And there, in the distance, we saw a large lion, a lioness laying over to the side, and near them, two cubs. We all sat there for several minutes looking at them, simply in awe. Seeing a lion in the wild while on a visit to a game park is the biggest prize – and it was an even bigger bonus to see the whole family! And on another late-morning game drive, trying to find some giraffe, we stumbled upon a family of elephants.
I had been “on safari” at other game parks in other African countries before, and Sarah had visited the famous Masaii Mara game reserve on her first trip to Kenya last year. So both of us had seen the wild animals of Africa before. We enjoyed going to these parks and getting outside Nairobi to see other parts of the country. And we enjoyed the luxury of the accommodations. But this gave us a good chance to evaluate what Kenya has to offer (a lot of parks like this to visit) and what types of places we’d like to visit while we’re living here. We like very active vacations and would prefer to visit a city where we can be out doing things and seeing places all day over the large amount of time one spends just relaxing at the camp/hotel when one goes to a game park. But now we’ve been there and done this in some of the best, nicest and most luxurious places and parks.
At these sort of places on up to the luxury lodges, hotels and resorts, as soon as you step into the lobby area (usually an open-air area), they give you a glass of fruit juice (usually with chunks of fresh fruit in it) and a small wet towel to wipe your face off. When we arrived there on the 26th, it was just in time to eat lunch. One usually takes an afternoon game drive before sunset – when it gets cooler in the day again for the animals to come out and eat. The other good time to go out on a game drive is in the cool of the morning at sunrise. So this was our routine, following the daily schedule of the animals – wake up early and immediately go on a game drive, return to the camp and have breakfast and shower, then nap, relax, read, go swimming, eat lunch and do all the same in the afternoon before going out again around 4:00. When we returned around sunset, we enjoyed sitting in the bar as it got dark and hearing the crickets start their nighttime noises.
In this game park, if you drive yourself there in your own car (an SUV or 4x4 is really needed), although many people (tourists from overseas) fly there, you can then drive yourself around the park yourself to see the animals and come and go around the park as you please. Otherwise, people hire vehicles to take them on the regular, scheduled drives, and this gives you an expert guide who knows how to find the animals and is sometimes told by other guides via the radio in the car good places to go to see animals. But the trick when you drive yourself around is just to follow the guided tour vehicles, which is okay with them. So we went out on our couple drives a day. The park has a varied landscape. In addition to the above animals, we saw plenty of impalas and other similar deer-type animals, plenty of wildebeests, warthogs, a hippo, plenty of baboons, and we think we saw a leopard, although they’re hard to spot during the day. The birds in these parks are also amazing to look at. During one afternoon game drive, on the way back to our camp, we came upon a small herd of elephants, and there were a handful of vehicles parked on the road watching them. The elephants crossed the road and went among the other vehicles, very close to them. We in our car several yards back watched these elephants with both fear because they can be very dangerous animals and with fascination at getting so close to them.We stayed at this tent camp two nights, which was plenty. On the second morning, we headed out to another game park – actually a small(er) privately owned game reserve surrounded by the country’s largest game park. After driving all morning, we arrived at our second place, an oasis of luxury in the middle of nowhere practically (although we did pass through some very poor and run-down small towns getting there, which makes the luxury at this place and even greater contrast). This place was a lodge – more of a traditional luxury hotel. Our rooms were all in one building that surrounded a beautifully kept garden with ponds and a swimming pool. As at the last place, the meals were buffet and were full and wonderful – every lunch and dinner is a four- or five-course meal.
Because we were too tired of driving all morning, we didn’t go out on an afternoon game drive at the second place, but we waited to go on a nighttime drive, which isn’t allowed in the government-run game parks. We left at 9:00 and were back at 11:00. We didn’t see any big animals on this after-dark drive (except for a sick elephant that was lying on the ground), but we did see a tiny bush baby (it was funny how quickly it could climb around a tree and then how far it could hop on the ground), plenty of impalas, foxes and a serval cat. The guides kept us out a half hour later trying to find some real game, but there was none out for us to see.
We had similar difficulty spotting the game the following morning when we went out ourselves. This second park is in a very hilly area, and the vegetation is so much greener and denser. At one point, a guided vehicle passed us on the road as we were driving slowly and just about to give up on spotting anything. The driver motioned for us to follow, and we quickly headed off in one direction, most of the time going well over the speed limit of the park. Toward the end of this frantic wild goose chase, as we actually left the private game sanctuary and went past the sign the said “No trespassing”, we came to a place where a handful of other vehicles were clustered. And there, in the distance, we saw a large lion, a lioness laying over to the side, and near them, two cubs. We all sat there for several minutes looking at them, simply in awe. Seeing a lion in the wild while on a visit to a game park is the biggest prize – and it was an even bigger bonus to see the whole family! And on another late-morning game drive, trying to find some giraffe, we stumbled upon a family of elephants.
I had been “on safari” at other game parks in other African countries before, and Sarah had visited the famous Masaii Mara game reserve on her first trip to Kenya last year. So both of us had seen the wild animals of Africa before. We enjoyed going to these parks and getting outside Nairobi to see other parts of the country. And we enjoyed the luxury of the accommodations. But this gave us a good chance to evaluate what Kenya has to offer (a lot of parks like this to visit) and what types of places we’d like to visit while we’re living here. We like very active vacations and would prefer to visit a city where we can be out doing things and seeing places all day over the large amount of time one spends just relaxing at the camp/hotel when one goes to a game park. But now we’ve been there and done this in some of the best, nicest and most luxurious places and parks.
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