Kenya Panorama

Our journey starts as we travel to the vast Tsavo region. Together Tsavo West National Park and Tsavo East National Park make up one of the largest animal sanctuaries in the world. The terrain encompasses huge plains and an interesting geological landscape such as cones, outcrops and lava flows resulting from historic volcanic activity. The area has a wide variety of wildlife including lion, cheetah, leopard, buffalo, hippo, elephant, oryx, eland, zebra, giraffe, spotted hyena, kongoni, waterbuck, impala, duiker and klipspringer.

The tour stays first at Kilaguni Serena Safari Lodge. The lodge overlooks a waterhole and has uninterrupted views of the plains and the stunning Mount Kilimanjaro in the distance. The waterhole is considered to offer the finest terraced savannah game viewing in Kenya, and at night you can listen to the sounds of herds of buffalo and elephant grazing outside your bedroom.

Activities at Kilaguni include game drives, bush walks accompanied by the resident naturalist, sundowners, bush dinners, tribal dances and excursions to Mzima Springs or a rhino sanctuary.

After two nights in Tsavo the tour continues to Amboseli National Park, home to large herds of elephants whose population is one of the few in Africa that has been spared from poachers. Predators in the park include hyenas, jackals; lions, leopards and cheetahs. Birdlife in abundance flourishes particularly in the marshes and swamps. Over 420 species have been counted within the park as a whole including 6 species of vulture, 12 species of heron and 10 varieties of eagle.

With an awe-inspiring view of Mount Kilimanjaro, Amboseli Serena Lodge is set inside a grove of Acacias within the boundaries of the National Park. The lodge offers a restaurant, bars and a swimming pool. Game drives and excursions are taken from the lodge to observe the wealth of wildlife in the surrounding area.

We then travel back via Nairobi for an excursion to the Giraffe Center and a meal at the famous Carnivore restaurant before spending a night at the city’s Tribe Hotel.

The next morning we set off for the Samburu National Reserve. This offers a breathtaking sun baked landscape surrounded by mountains – to the west, the sheer sided slopes of majestic Ol Olokwe Mountain form a perfect back drop to any photograph. Animals commonly seen are elephants, lions, cheetahs, grevy zebras, reticulated giraffes, gerenuks, buffalos, oryx, grants gazelles, dikdiks and waterbucks. There are over 350 varieties of birds. These include the famous somali ostriches (distinguished by their unique purple / blue legs during mating season), kingfishers, humming birds, eagles, guinea fowls and vultures. The reserve is also home of the Samburu tribe, cousins of the Maasai, who share the same nomadic, cattle-herding existence and a strict adherence to their age-old rites and customs.

The tour continues to the Aberdare National Park – an area of 767 Km2 covering the higher areas of the Aberdare Mountain Ranges of Central Kenya. The topography is quite diverse with deep ravines that cut through the forested eastern and western slopes. Animals easily observed in the park include; the black rhino, leopard, baboon, black and white colobus monkey and sykes monkey. Rare sightings include those of lions, the golden cat and the bongo- an elusive forest antelope that lives in the bamboo forest. Animals like the eland are spotted and melanistic serval cats can be found higher up in the moorlands. Bird viewing is rewarding, with over 250 species of birds in the park, including the Jackson’s francolin, sparry hawk, goshawks, eagles, sunbirds and plovers.

We then move on to Lake Nakuru National Park. Lake Nakuru was crowned a national park in the sixties and – in addition to its attractive lakeland scenery – it offers opportunities to see lion, leopard, black rhino, hippos, giraffe, reedbuck, waterbuck, hundreds of species of bird and much more.

The tour concludes at the Maasai Mara National Game Reserve – a magnificent landscape of open plains bisected by the Mara River and its tributaries, and punctuated by marshes and forests. This reserve supports the highest density of game to be seen anywhere considering its size. During the seasonal migrations, the reserve is home to up to a million wildebeest and an equally impressive number of zebra that move into the area from the neighbouring Serengeti National Park, in Tanzania. The reserve is home to all the “Big Five” and it is also possible to observe; baboon, eland, ostrich, bat-eared fox, jackal, and the rivers abound with hippos and crocodiles.