Visiting Kenya: Part 1

Aug 16, 2019

Kenya in East Africa has always held a special place in my heart, and I think it is because that is where I experienced my first safari. But I also believe it is because of the people and the adventures you experience while you are there. On this visit, I wanted to experience some areas of the country that I had not had the opportunity to visit in my past visits to Kenya.

You arrive into Nairobi, which is changing so quickly. It is amazing the amount of industry that has come into the city since I was there four or five years ago. We stayed a couple of nights at one of my favorite properties, the Emakoko, located in the Nairobi National Park. The lodge is family-owned and consists of 20 cottages placed on the cliff overlooking the park where you will find all types of wildlife. They have several healthy black and white rhinos in the park along with lions and plains animals.

It gives you the feeling you are on safari, but you are still located in the city and close to the airports. It is also located near the suburb of Karen where you will find the Giraffe Manor and Centre, Karen Blixen’s home, the David Sheldrick Elephant Orphanage, and good shopping.

After an early breakfast, we made our way to the Nairobi Wilson airport and boarded our small aircraft to the Amboseli National Park, which is famous for its elephant population. Our accommodations for the next two nights were Tortillis Camp Amboseli. The tents are large with lovely views overlooking a water hole and Mount Kilimanjaro in the background. Unfortunately, the snow was almost gone from the tip of Kilimanjaro, but it is still majestic when the cloud cover clears.

When I have traveled through Africa I have always enjoyed the bird life but was surprised to find such good viewing in Amboseli. They have a great concentration of birds, including flamingos, which was fun. And the elephant population was amazing! The elephants are protected 24/7 by rangers and researchers who are obviously doing an awesome job because we saw several elephant bulls with very long tusks. What a beautiful sight.

After our visit to Amboseli, we made our way to the Chyulu Hills, which you will find out more about in my next blog.

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Nancy Decker Davidson