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Mount Kenya National Park has great and fascinating variation
in flora and fauna as the altitude changes.
The Animals: Kenya is noted for its big game which
ranges especially over the dry, thorn bush country in numbers
varying greatly in accordance with migrational movements from
the plains of the Serengeti in Tanzania, but game is plentiful
year round and huge herds of zebra, antelope and gazelle range
over the open plains.
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The large carnivores include lion, leopard, cheetah and wild
dog. Hippos and crocodile are common in most of the large
rivers, swamps and lakes. By the lake shores are flamingoes,
pelicans, heron, ibis and ducks.
The mountain streams are well stocked with trout; ngege
is the principal fish in Lake Victoria.
Kenya is bordered in the north by Sudan and Ethiopia, in
the east by Somalia, on the southeast by the Indian Ocean,
on the southwest by Tanzania and to the west by Lake Victoria
and Uganda.
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Kenya is notable for its' geographical variety. The low-lying,
fertile coastal region, fringed with coral reefs and islands,
is back by a gradually rising coastal plain, a dry region
covered with savanna and thornbush.
At an altitude of about 1,524 m and 300 miles inland, the
plain gives way in the southwest to a high plateau, rising
in parts to 3,048 m, in which about 85% of the population
and the majority of economic enterprise are concentrated.
The northern section of Kenya, forming three-fifths of the
whole territory, is arid and of semidesert character, as is
the bulk of the southeastern quarter. In the high plateau
area, known as the Kenya Highlands, lie Mt. Kenya (5,200 m),
Mt Elgon (4,322m) and the Aberdare Ranger (rising to over
3,963 m).
The plateau is bisected from north to south by the Rift Valley,
part of the great geological fracture that can be traced from
Syria through the Red Sea and East Africa to Mozambique. In
the north of Kenya, the valley is broad and shallow, embracing
Lake Turkana (160 miles long), while further south it narrows
and deepens and is walled by escarpments 610 to 930 mtr high.
West of the Rift Valley, the plateau descends to the plains
that border Lake Victoria.
The principal rivers are the Tana and the Athi, flowing southeast
to the Indian Ocean, the Ewaso Ngiro flowing northeast to
the swamps of the Lorian Plain, and the Nzoia, Yala and Gori,
which drain eastward into Lake Victoria. Low plains rise to
central highlands, divided by the Great African Rift Valley.
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Kenya
is situated astride the equator. It has numerous parks and
reserves, for example the popular Amboseli National Park and
the Masaai Mara National Reserve, the latter a popular destination
as the film “Out of Africa” was filmed in this beautiful
area. 
