Remember to bring an alarm clock with you on Safari. Safaris are not meant to be relaxing. You have to get up very early if you want to see the animals. Get up at 5am to be on the road before 6am You drive back to the lodge for a cooked breakfast at about 9am and then go back on safari until 1pm.

After lunch at the lodge and a quick swim in the pool you go back on safari about 3pm until dusk. It is a waste of time trying to see animals in the mid day sun. Most just find some shade and go to sleep until it gets a bit cooler later in the afternoon.

A good tip is to try and locate the hippo pool on your first day. Take photos of the hippos poking their heads out of the water. Remember where the pool is located. The following morning rush back to the pool and aim to be there before 6am. Look in the distance for a brown blob moving towards you and the pool. It will be a well fed hippo who has been up in the hills chomping on grass all night returning home.

They can travel over 14 km each night. It is amazing to see them out of the water travelling at speed on their stumpy legs. You can only see this early in the morning as they leave the pool under the cover of darkness..

The entrance to Amboseli National Park is not near the main road. You drive south from Nairobi on the potholed but tarmaced Namanga Road, the A104, heading towards the Boarder with Tanzania. Some of those potholes are dangerously deep. If your tyre goes down one you could break an axel or fracture your engine's oil sump. I could not understand why there were sacks of charcoal just left on the road side. I learnt later that the locals in the country collect wood and slowly burn it in hand made large clay kilns to make charcoal for sale in the big cities as a cooking fuel.

Just as you enter the boarder town of Namanga you will see a petrol station on your right. It is on the junction with the C103 dirt track road that leads to Amboseli National Park. Take the opportunity to fill up with petrol and check the oil and water. Lock the car doors as you go topay for the petrol. You vehicle will be surrounded by locals trying to sell you local jewellery and craft work. Haggle if you want to buy but just tell them no thank you and wave them away.

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