Kilimanjaro, the shining mountain, floats in a wreath of cloud above the vast South Amboseli plains – also part of Kilimanjaro National Park ecosystem. Although most beautifully distinct from Amboseli National Park in Kenya with the finest wildlife photo opportunities in the foreground, Mt. Kilimanjaro is actually in Tanzania because, when the boundary was drawn as a straight line between German and British Colonial Territories, Kilimanjaro was allocated to Germany, although this necessitated drawing a kink in the border. 

This was not, as popularly assumed, a whimsical gift from the English Queen Victoria to an indulged German nephew, but diplomatic compensation for the British claim to Mombasa. Although dense vegetation is sparse on the Amboseli plains both on the Tanzanian and Kenya border of the Kilimanjaro, with just primarily palm trees and acacias, the grass is richly nourishing due to volcanic ash. 

It is relished and sought after by herds of zebra, wildebeest, buffalo and elephant. The arid savannahs stretch away above an underground water table supplied by the glaciers on Mount Kilimanjaro which, at 5895 meters, is the highest mountain in Africa, and also the tallest free-standing mountain in the entire world. In 1995, J M Grimshaw from Oxford University, N J Codeiro from Moshi, C A Foley from Princeton University explored the Kilimanjaro wilderness and wrote a journal called “The mammals of Kilimanjaro” that documented a staggering presence of 154 mammals species. 

Varied terrestrial fauna are present to be seen on your Game driving of the western sector of Kilimanjaro National Park, including warthogs, hippos, impalas, dik diks, zebras, elephants, buffalos and giraffes as well as less common elands and gazelles. Cheetahs, lions and leopard are much in evidence as well as jackals, hyenas, monkeys, baboons, and mongooses. But the ecosystem is fragile and vulnerable to overgrazing. 

Mount Kilimanjaro National Park provides an amazingly diverse series of habitats as it rises from the pastures and bushlands of the native Maasai people to the boundary of the 1668 sq. kilometer (641 sq. miles) national park at approximately altitude of 800 meters. Here, melt-water streams from the summit nourish a lush belt of tropical forest where some of the healthiest elephant herds in the entire continent roam at will, matriarchs with their attendant daughters, granddaughters and great-grandchildren, accompanied by enormous, lumbering tuskers over 50 years old, their heads dragged almost to the ground by massive ivory tusks. You may be lucky enough to spot the endangered Abbott’s duiker among a supporting cast of antelopes and primates. 

With such a diversity of habitats, Birdlife International records 179 avian species in the area. It is a superlative destination for an East Africa birding trip especially during the wet season. Montane forest gives way to alpine meadows until at 4000 meters, the landscape changes to weird, towering stems of giant lobelias in a sea of soft heather. 

Above this haunting scenery, there are only mosses and lichens clinging to the rocks, before snowfields lead to three craters, Mawenzi and Shira, which are dormant, and Kibo, the summit, where gas fumaroles are intermittently active, although the last major eruption was almost 200,000 years ago. If you would like to challenge yourself to summit the highest peak in Africa, go on with Mapaka Safaris