Tsavo East and Tsavo West together cover about 22,000 square kilometres, roughly four percent of Kenya, and form one of the largest protected areas in the world. The Nairobi to Mombasa railway and highway divide them, which is also why they are the easiest big parks to reach from the coast.
Red elephants
Tsavo elephants are famous for their colour, which is not pigment but the park red lateritic dust that they spray over themselves as sunscreen and insect repellent. After rain they wash back to grey. The population, around 12,000, was reduced by more than 80 percent during the poaching of the 1970s and 1980s and has recovered substantially.
Tsavo East
Flat, dry and open, dominated by the Yatta plateau, a 290 km lava flow that is among the longest in the world. Lugard Falls on the Galana river is a series of rapids through sculpted rock where you can walk to the edge, and crocodile lie in the pool below. Aruba Dam draws game in the dry season. The northern sector beyond the Galana is closed to general visitors.
Tsavo West
More varied and more scenic: volcanic hills, lava flows from the Chyulu range, and thicker bush that makes game harder to see. Mzima Springs delivers 250 million litres a day of crystal-clear water filtered through the Chyulu lava, and an underwater viewing chamber lets you watch hippos and barbel from below, provided the hippos cooperate. The Shetani lava flow is only a few hundred years old and locals named it the devil. The Ngulia rhino sanctuary holds a fenced black rhino population.
The man-eaters
In 1898 two maneless male lions killed a disputed number of workers building the railway bridge over the Tsavo river, halting construction for months until Colonel Patterson shot them. The skins are in the Field Museum in Chicago. Isotope analysis of their teeth suggests around 35 human victims rather than the 135 originally claimed. Tsavo lions are still often maneless, which is thought to relate to heat and thorn scrub.
Practicalities
Both parks are on the road and rail line between Nairobi and Mombasa, which makes them a natural stop between safari and beach. Entry is around 52 US dollars per person per day. Distances inside are enormous and the roads are rough; a full tank and a spare are not optional. The best time is June to October and January to February.