Our driver was supposed come between 6:30 and 7 am to take us to Amboseli National Park. He came in just a few mins before 7 am. I was impressed that our group was ready by 6:30 am and waiting downstairs. Headed out after loading up our bags packed for the next 3 days. Our Nairobi apartment was kind enough to hold the rest of our bags when we would come back. We had technically checked out of the apartment.

We asked our driver about breakfast and I don’t know if he hadn’t expected it. We stopped at a very ok western food kinda place 1 hr into our drive. Ok food – American style pastries etc. and then there was a chai too – it was ok. From there we continued our drive. The country side is a lot like rural India, shacks, huts and children waving at us 🙂 surprise, lo and behold, we passed giraffes and zebras grazing on the side of the road! You don’t have to go to a national park to see these animals!!

We reached amboseli at ~ 2 pm. Perfect timing for lunch. Absolutely loved elephant gorge camp, our stay for the next couple days. So beautifully done! Integrates so well with nature. While our host was walking us through property rules, I spot an elephant on the property! Later I saw a whole herd of them, sipping water not more than 50 feet from the dining area of the camp. Don’t remember what we got for lunch, I was the designated accent translator for the seniors in my group 😊 the rule on this property was that you could never walk by yourself from main hall/dining to your room. You always needed someone from the camp to escort you as wild animals roam freely and anything unexpected could happen.

After lunch, we headed to our rooms. 3 separate rooms for the 6 of us, rithvi with me, Tanush with his grandma and the two septuagenarian friends together. I absolutely loved the room! So beautiful!

We choose to head out for a game drive at 4 pm, after resting for a bit. The camp was fairly close to the park, 30 mins. The drive was dusty for sure, I wore a mask but that didn’t quite help. Amboseli is known the herds of elephants, they migrate from Tanzania this time of the year and we saw a lot! We were lucky and got to see them close up when they crossing the road. We saw other animals too, usual giraffe, zebra, wildebeest. The star feature was seeing a pride off lionesses – 7 or 8 of them sitting together. A lot of people got wind of where they were and there were at least 50 other jeeps/vans around us with many of them holding lenses thrice the circumference of my hand while we clicked pics with our iPhones 😂

It was a fun drive and we headed back to the camp. Rested in our rooms for a bit before getting back to dining hall. You summon someone to walk you by ringing a bell outside your room. They were always very prompt. Dinner was good. I appreciated them accommodating and making chicken strips for Rithvi, very American style. The speed of bringing food is not American though, takes 2-3 times longer. This wasn’t only at the camp, everywhere including Nairobi. Good day and got the bed for a 5 am start the next day. Had shared our orders for breakfast which was going to be packed and loaded into the jeep tomorrow morning.