A long standing family friend and photo buddy, Ann and I stayed at the Elewana Tortilis camp for the last two nights of our Amboseli trip organised by Wild Eye. This camp is located on the south western side of Amboseli National Park near the Kitirua gate in a private conservancy. The Tortilis Camp faces south west looking out to Mount Kilimanjaro. It overlooks its own private wildlife conservancy, Kitirua, which extends over an area of 30 000 acres.

“I believe in adventure, self-discovery, the open road and the adventure.” ~Marc Adamus

One of the special features of this camp is that it is away from the busy eastern side of the park. The camp is named after the distinctive flat-topped Acacia Tortilis tree and is situated in a forest within its private conservancy.

The Elewana Tortilis camp provides easy access to Lake Amboseli which, at the time we were there, was dry. Lake Amboseli is popular for photography because it offers panoramas of vast open plains, scenic sunsets, and views across to Mount Kilimanjaro. In the morning heat you can see mirages across the dry lake bed. In the middle of the day the heat haze creates shimmering images of mammals such as giraffe and zebra crossing the lake bed. You may even see a Masai herdsman driving his cattle across the lake bed to access valuable grazing areas in the north western section of the park.

Late in the afternoon, especially when the cumulus clouds buildup, the sunsets can light up the sky making it very colourful, moody and dramatic. There are times when the wind blows stirring up dust and creating some other-worldly scenes.

“Light makes photography. Embrace light. Admire it. Love it. But above all, know light. Know it for all you are worth and you will always know the key to photography.” ~ George Eastman

In the Kitirua conservancy there are a few shallow pans that slowly evaporate rather than seep away due to their deep clay base. The water attracts wildlife and a wonderful variety of birds.

The dry lake bed can offer exceptional panoramas with wildlife, especially elephant herds traversing its vast flat open bed. The dry lake bed connects the grazing plains on the north western side of the lake to the life-giving, spring-fed swamps in the south eastern side.

“The sky is an infinite movie to me. I never get tired of looking at what’s happening up there.” ~ K. D. Lang

Currently, there are approximately 1 400 to over 2 000 elephants in the broader Amboseli National Park ecosystem. While some estimates place the core park population around 1 400 to 1 600, the total cross-border population using the area reaches up to 2 000.

Lions are often found in the long grass at the swamp side of the dry Amboseli lake. The long grass provides the lions effective cover when hunting wildlife crossing the lake. This young male appeared to have been left behind by his pride.

A lone young male lion is vulnerable in this area as there are a few packs of hyaena.

The Amboseli basin was formed during the Pleistocene epoch when the area was covered by a lake. During repeated, massive glaciations and global temperature fluctuations associated with this epoch, vast deep deposits (up to 70 metres) of lacustrine silts and clays were laid down, reducing the relief of the topography and constricting drainage. (Source: UNESCO).

“There’s a beauty in the wide open spaces that allows room for dreams to grow.” ~ Kirby Larson

Lake Amboseli is a seasonal, predominantly dry, and highly alkaline lake basin. It transforms from a dusty pan into a shallow, water-filled lake during the rainy season. Its water attracts massive herds of elephants, pods of hippos, and a large variety of waterbirds. This lake is 21 kilometres long and its width varies from five to ten kilometres. The length of the lake lies on a south-west to north-east axis. It extends over the western side of the park and beyond the park boundary in the western section north west of the Kitirua gate. Although this lake seasonally fills during the long rains, it never gets deeper than 600mm.

In Amboseli National Park, the long rains occur from March to May. The short rains typically take place from November to December. The long rains are wettest in April and this is the period when Lake Amboseli is likely to fill up.

Mid-morning we saw a Masai herdman driving his cattle across the dry lake bed towards the grassland north of the lake. The heat haze created mirages and shimmering long distance images.

” To me, photography must suggest, not insist or explain.” ~ Brassai

It is worth stopping in the middle of the dry lake bed because of the special kind of silence you will experience only interrupted occasionally by dust devils. It is worth getting out of the game vehicle to lie on your stomach to get low perspective images of mammals especially a herd of elephants crossing dry cracked clay lake bed.

” I believe the world is incomprehensively beautiful – an endless prospect of magic and wonder.” ~ Ansel Adams

Amboseli ecosystem offers a delicate balance of ecological corridors and dispersal areas, connecting the Amboseli National Park with adjacent group ranches and neighboring conservation areas like Chyulu Hills, Tsavo West and Kilimanjaro West in Tanzania.

The exceptional intersection and coexistence of ecology and the indigenous socio-culture of pastoralism is what has made the ecosystem recognised as a UNESCO Man and Biosphere Reserve in 1991. Amboseli landscape is internationally renowned for being one of Kenya’s ‘conservation jewels’, because it is one of the few places where humans, livestock, and wildlife have co-existed for centuries.

Explore, seek to understand, marvel at its interconnectedness and let it be.

Have fun, Mike