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Amboseli in April

April is Amboseli's wettest month and its cheapest. The herds scatter onto the ranches, Lake Amboseli may hold water, Kilimanjaro hides behind cloud on most mornings, and every lodge that publishes its seasons is at its lowest rate.

If you only want the answer

April brings about 72 mm of rain, the most of any month, so the game disperses and some tracks may close. In return every lodge that publishes its seasons is at its cheapest from 1 April, Tortilis at $317 per person sharing against $715 in high season. Choose April only if price matters most.

Amboseli weather in April: the wettest month

April averages 27.6°C in the afternoon and 18.6°C at night, with about 72 mm of rain, an approximate figure scaled to the station's measured annual mean and roughly a fifth of the year's total in one month. KWS's management plan records that floods can close viewing roads and even the airstrip, and the expanding Longinye swamp has closed some circuits in the past.

The off-road ban means a flooded track cannot be driven around, only waited out. Take a 4x4, build slack into the plan, and ask at the gate which loops are open before you set off.

The cheapest month of the year

From 1 April all three lodges that publish their seasons drop to low season. Ol Tukai Lodge, inside the park, charges $380 per double room on full board against $650 in peak season, and Tortilis Camp $317 per person sharing against $715, which is 44 per cent of its high-season rate. Porini Amboseli Camp in the Selenkay Conservancy closes from 15 April to 31 May.

Park fees do not move: $90 per non-resident adult per 24 hours and KSh 600 a day for a car with fewer than six seats. Flights thin out. Safarilink's low season begins on 1 April, so only its 07:15 flight from Wilson operates, and Airkenya's Wilson to Arusha service, useful for a Tanzania combination, does not fly from 1 April to 20 May.

Where the animals go, and what stays

Most of the park's large mammals rely on the surrounding group ranches for wet-season grazing, so expect fewer animals per drive and more of them far from the road; lions normally leave the park in the wet season. The elephants are in their birth season, which peaks from March to June. Lake Amboseli, a 300 square kilometre playa that is dry for most of the year, floods in the wet season and can draw flamingos.

Kilimanjaro is at its most hidden. On modelled cloud data only about one April morning in ten has a clear summit at dawn, the lowest of the year, although Expert Africa notes that the snow on the summit is at its heaviest between March and May.

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