Amboseli National Park
Amboseli National Park, formerly Masai Amboseli Game Reserve, is
in Kajiado District, Rift Valley Province in Kenya. The park is
39,206 hectares in size at the core of an 8,000 square
kilometres ecosystem that spreads across the Kenya-Tanzania
border. The local people are mainly Maasai, but people from
other parts of the country have settled there attracted by the
successful tourist-driven economy and intensive agriculture
along the system of swamps that makes this low-rainfall area
(average 350 mm) one of the best wildlife-viewing experiences in
the world. The park protects two of the five main swamps, and
includes a dried-up Pleistocene lake and semi-arid vegetation.
260 kilometres from the capital city Nairobi, Amboseli National
Park is the third most visited game area in Kenya after Maasai
Mara National Reserve and Nakuru National Park and the visit can
easily be done in a weekend. In 1883, Joseph
Thompson was the first European to penetrate the feared Masai
region known as Empusel (meaning 'salty, dusty place' in Maa).
He, too, was astonished by the fantastic array of wildlife and
the contrast between the arid areas of the dry-lake bed and the
oasis of the swamps, a contrast that persists today.
Amboseli was set aside as the 'Southern Reserve' for Masai in
1906 but returned to local control as a Game Reserve in 1948.
Gazetted a National Park in 1974 in order to protect the core
this unique ecosystem, it was declared a UNESCO Man and the
Biosphere Reserve in 1991.
Amboseli National Park is famous for being
the best place in Africa to get close to free-ranging elephants.
Other attractions of the park include opportunities to meet
Masai and spectacular views of Mount Kilimanjaro, the highest
free-standing mountain in the world. Bongo Safari choice of Safari camps and Lodges in Amboseli National Park
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