My “Into Africa” Journey

The name Amboseli comes from a Maasai word meaning salty dust. This may sound a bit contrived, given the fact I got to stand before the majestic Mount Kilimanjaro, but when I think back to my visit to East Africa and going on safari in the Amboseli National Park, including the drive from Nairobi through the Kenyan countryside, I have to say my most vivid memory is the spectacle of the African sky.

It may seem like the greatest of hyperbole to say the horizon extends-out forever but as the picture below shows, it does. It’s a picture of colleagues standing on the Serengeti either in Amboseli National Park or just before we entered the park with a Tanzanian skyline in the background. It truly was quite difficult to see where the ground ended and the sky began because the horizon was so far in the distance and the land so commingled with the sky.

Even though Mt. Kilimanjaro is technically in Tanzania the best view in East Africa is from within Amboseli, which is in Kenya. The park is 392 sq km or 151 sq. mi in size. At the core is an 8,000 sq km (3,100 sq mi) ecosystem that spreads across the Kenya-Tanzania border. (encircled with green dots on the right side of the Tanzania border on map below)