With 392 square kilometers, it is justly famous for both its big game scenic beauty. It consists of five basic wildlife habitats covering open plains areas of yellow barbed acacia woodland, rocky, lava stream, thorn bush country swamps and marshes and some mountains massifs. Majestically dominating the area, rising above a saucer of clouds, is the snow capped mountain of Kilimanjaro (5895 meters), the highest in Africa. Here the pastoral and proud Masaai people herding their cattle have lived in harmony with the wildlife since days of yore. This was the local beloved of Earnest Hemmingway and Robert Ruark, where the sparkling white snows of Kilimanjaro have been a picturesque backdrop to one of Kenya’s most spectacular displays of wildlife – lion, elephant, leopard, cheetah, buffalo and hosts of plain game-making a perfect photographer’s paradise. Swamps and springs fed by underground rivers from the melting snows of the mountain, provide permanent watering places for the game while a dried up lake bed nearby produces a shimmering image in the heat.
