Twin lion safaris.Tourisim in kenya

TSAVO EAST


Tsavo East

Across the highway from Tsavo West is Tsavo East. Famous for its large numbers of elephant and spectacular herds of up to 1000 buffalo, Tsavo East has more open savannah than its western sibling.

The scrub-covered hills of the southern park have a very remote feel and the park, despite its great game, does not attract large numbers of tourists. The best game viewing is along the watercourses and at the Kanderi swamp, which is not far from the main Voi gate. Thirty kilometres from the gate is the Aruba Dam and lion are commonly spotted around here.

For a number of years only the southern third of the park was open to the public because of the danger posed by poachers, and visitors were likely to encounter carcasses of tuskless elephants. In the past the park was hard hit by poachers who slaughtered horrifying numbers of rhino, elephant and other species.

Long at the epicentre of a poaching war which decimated rhino numbers from approximately 8000 in 1970 to less than 50 two decades later, elephant numbers plummeted from 50,000 in the 1960s to 5,000 twenty years later.

Today, however, the corner has well and truly been turned and you can be treated to the sight of large herds of 50 or more elephants, which have instinctively retreated to the vicinity of the lodges where they are assured of protection.