Discover: Tsavo East & West National Parks
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Covering almost 21,000 square km (8,108 square miles), the combined Tsavo West and Tsavo East National Parks is Kenya’s largest protected game area. They are two different parks with different ecosystems: Tsavo West features wooded and hilly volcanic landscapes, while Tsavo East is flatter with scattered bush on more open plains. They are administered separately, have separate entry fees, and are split geographically by the Mombasa Highway—the main A109 road between Nairobi and Mombasa—and the railway that runs more or less alongside. Both stretch for about 130 km (80 miles) along the highway, where several park gates provide access to the west and east. It’s impressive that just a few miles away from the constant thunder of motor traffic on Kenya’s busiest road is some of Kenya’s best wildlife viewing.
Tsavo West National Park
Tsavo West covers 7,065 square km (2,728 square miles), a little less than a third of the total area of Kenya’s national parks. With its diverse habitats of riverine forest, palm thickets, rocky outcrops, ridges, mountains, and plains, it’s more attractive and certainly more accessible than Tsavo East. Magnificent landscapes of heavily wooded hills dominate north, where most safari lodges and game-viewing tracks concentrate.
→There’s evidence of volcanic activity everywhere in the park, mainly where ancient lava absorbs the rainfall. In one spectacular spot, this rainfall, having traveled underground for 40 km (25 miles) or so, gushes up in a pair of pools at Mzima Springs in the north of the park. There’s a submerged hippo blind here, but the hippos have gotten wise to tourists and often move to the far side of the pools.
→Because of the fertile volcanic soil and abundance of water, the park is brimming with animal, bird, and plant life. There are large numbers of elephants, and you may see lions and cheetahs—especially in the dry season when the grass is low.
→A Tsavo west safari guide will spot out the spotted hyena, buffalo, the beautiful Masai giraffe, and all kinds of antelope, including Thomson’s and Grant’s gazelle—the prettiest of the antelope.
→The birdlife in the park is outstanding, with more than 400 species, including eight types of hornbills.
9 DAYS | Kenya
Wildlife, Game Drives, Guided Nature Walk
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Tsavo East National Park
The 4,535 square miles (11,747 sq km) Tsavo East National Park is the larger of the two Tsavos. It has a relatively harsh landscape of scrubland dotted with huge baobab trees photographers will rave in the glorious natural light beyond the vast plains stretching to the horizon.
The oasis banks of the Voi and Galana rivers, and the enormous Aruba Dam, built across the Voi, attract game and birdlife galore that Kenya safari adventurers will revel. You’ll see herds of elephants and buffalo, waterbuck, and all kinds of animals coming to drink at the dam.
Another fascinating feature in the park is the 180-mile-long Yatta Plateau, one of the world’s longest lava flows. It runs parallel to the Nairobi-Mombasa Highway and is 3 to 6 miles (5 to 10 km) wide and 1,000 feet (305 meters) high. Mudanda Rock, a 1.5-km (2-mile) outcropping, is a water catchment area. You’ll see plenty of wildlife coming to drink at the dam below.
The park became infamous in the late 1890s because of the “Man-Eaters of Tsavo,” a pride of lions that preyed on the Indian migrant laborers building the railway. More than 130 workers were killed; the incident was retold in the 1996 thriller, The Ghost and the Darkness, starring Val Kilmer.
There’s a lot of game in this park, including zebra, impala, lion, cheetah, and giraffe, and rarer animals such as the oryx, lesser kudu, and the small klipspringer antelope, which can jump nimbly from rock to rock because of the sticky suction pads under their feet.
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