2017/09 Part 2 Amboseli - Sat arrival at the Lodge |
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We came to the Iremito Gate into the park and were immediately besieged by a gaggle of Masai 
women trying to sell necklaces and other handicrafts. They were pressed against the windows and very insistent. To make matters worse, Nzuki said the park’s computer system was down and they couldn’t process our park permit until it came up. The gaggle eventually gave up and sat in the shade under a tree. Nzuki moved us inside the gates and into the shade too. Eventually all was sorted out and we were on our way.
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Nzuki said we had plenty of time before lunch at the lodge ended so we could stop for any wildlife we met before we reached the lodge. Our first stop was to look at the weaver birds’ nests. The weaver 
bird builds his nest around branches rather than on top of them, possibly because this allows him to hang the nest on the outmost branches, away from heavy predators. There are dozens of different species; these are white-browed sparrow weavers. Some trees carried twenty or more nests.
We saw lots more birds, most too far away for pictures, Common on the ground were two types of ibis, the black and white sacred ibis and the iridescent glossy ibex, both 
familiar to us from Australia. This grey-crowned crane was new, large and quite spectacular, with a crown that looked almost like a halo.
The most common animal on these plains was the wildebeest, also called the gnu in some places. Remember Flanders and Swann with their song “You really ought to k-now w-ho’s w-ho. I’m a g-nu”? These are one of the species that migrates to and from the Serengeti, though these animals in Amboseli stay within the park. They are often intermingled with 
zebras; both animals are hunted by lions so they respond to each other’s warning signals when lions are about.
The marshy areas were dominated by elephants, some half submerged. The white birds are cattle egrets, picking up insects disturbed by the grazing herds. As we moved into wooded areas we could see the damage that elephants can do with trees pushed over and 
ripped apart so they can get to the upper branches.
The Amboseli Serena Lodge nestles in one of those wooded areas and it is surrounded by an electric fence to keep the elephants out. As it takes about 3000 volts to deter an elephant we stayed well away from the fence too! We were subject to a security check too on arrival but not on any subsequent entry. 
The lodge, styled after a Masai manyatta or village, has a large communal area with dining room, bar, pool, and shop. The rooms are in single story terraces with walkways populated with flowering shrubs, birdlife, and vervet monkeys. We were warned to close our balcony doors when going out or we’d find the monkeys would come in and rip our luggage apart.
As we’d found at Ole Sereni we only had to take one step with a suitcase or bag before a hand would take it away and carry it for us. And then a broad smile for a tip of course, but we had come prepared with US dollar bills and 100 shilling notes for that purpose.
The room was large with bold animal art. Our bed was overlooked by a buffalo and festooned with mosquito nets, though I don’t think we ever saw a mosquito in the room. We did see a large millipede and a spider or two. I accidentally squished something large with my bare foot but it was beyond recognition. There was no TV but the WiFi was good enough for mail 
and Facebook
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After lunch we were pleased to see that we could walk through the woods between the lodge and the fence. Monkeys were out foraging on the grass. The trees are mostly acacias but you can see candelabra trees in the background; these look like giant cactus, but they are actually a type of euphorbia, and related to poinsettas. There were plenty of birds in the shrubs but the only one that strayed into focus was this white-browed scrub robin.
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Amboseli Serena Lodge (3.01) |
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It was time for our afternoon “game drive”. To me that suggests an army of beaters driving the game towards the hunters and their guns. Happily, that’s not how it works in the safari world. Instead, it means a drive, looking for game animals and trying not to disturb them. We’d made it clear to Nzuki that we were interested in everything, not just the “Big Five”: lions, leopards, elephants, buffalo, and rhino. He said he’d had clients who were only interested in lions, others just in birds. That was why we’d opted for a more expensive private safari rather than risk sharing one.