Enduimet Wildlife Management Area, also called Kilimanjaro West, is one of the most beautiful and dramatic landscapes in Tanzania. Situated right between the western slopes of the Kilimajaro and the Amboseli National Park just on the Kenyan side of the border the area offers excellent game viewing opportunities and unconstrained interaction with local Maasai. With undisturbed wildlife, genuine Maasai culture, spectacular landscapes, and magnificent views of Mount Kilimanjaro, Mount Meru, Ol Doinyo Longido and Ol Doinyo Orok Enduimet offers a highly authentic Tanzania safari experience.
Although there is a capturing natural beauty, the interest of tourists is still low due to the lack of proper roads. Yet the area is an untouched natural paradise. There are vast savanna plains with hunting cheetahs, dry salt pans with islands of large but bleak acacia trees, and Maasai warriors wandering along the glimmering horizon. It’s interesting to note that world famous movies like Magambo with Gregory Peck and Hatari! starring John Wayne have been shot here because Kilimanjaro West is simply no less than picture-perfect East Africa
In Enduimet you will find almost all the animals you would expect in an East African national park, especially herbivores such as zebra, gerenuk, wildebeest, Thomson‘s and Grant‘s gazelle, Maasai giraffe, eland, kudu and oryx. With that much food all around predators as lions, leopards, cheetahs and hyenas are not far away.
Enduimet is one of the few areas in Africa where impressive bull elelphants, many of whom more than 50 years old, are regularly seen. Large Elephants herds annually migrate between the swamps of Amboseli National Park in Kenya and the forests of Kilimanjaro in search of food and water, forming some of the healthiest and most balanced Elephant populations all over Africa.
Enduimet Wildlife Management Area comprises traditional Maasai land and the Maasai people have been the driving force to protect this land. The Enduimet Authorized Association which manages the area is formed by eight villages – Sinya, Tingatinga, Ngereiyani, Elerai, Ol Molog, Lerangwa, Kitandeni and Irikaswa – that are home to various ethnic groups, most of them practicing a combination of agriculture and livestock herding.
According to the Ngorongoro Conservation Area precedence also in here Maasai and their herds peacefully live together with local wildlife. The Maasai early understood that an undisturbed wildlife attract tourists and is a sustainable resource. Revenues from tourism are used to invest in wells, education and health. But unlike most national parks there are no roads leading in here, indicating how unexplored this area is and the main reason why Enduimet still is a real insider tip.
