In and Around Nairobi

My trip to Kenya wasn't just about safaris and animal conservation; I also took in some of the sights and activities in Nairobi. 

On my first afternoon after we'd all had a nap (necessitated by my 3:45 AM arrival) we went grocery shopping. Which is a lot more fun than one might expect; foreign grocery stores are always a delight. And leave it to Kenya to have shops packed full of British goods. I stocked up on shortbread cookies. I stocked up on a few other things as well, everything being cheaper there than it is here in Istanbul.

Including alcohol! In addition to the cookies and a handful of other things I also picked up a bottle of nice, imported South American red and a bottle of Skyy passion fruit vodka. Don't make fun of my vodka choices. On top of that I bought several spices. Ironic, no? that I live in a city famed for its spice markets and stores but I'm going nuts in a Nairobi grocery store over its stock. Yes Istanbul is chock-a-block full of spices...but they're all the same ones. The variety available is really limited but thanks to Kenya's large Indian population, spices in Kenyan grocery stores are off the hook. I stocked up. I also got a couple boxes of powdered coconut milk and cream. I haven't tried them yet (I'm waiting until next month when I'll get my hands on some Thai red curry paste) but they were worlds cheaper than the overpriced coconut milk here.

After grocery shopping we went to the National Museum where we didn't actually visit the museum exhibitions but the attached snake center. Who has a snake center? Apparently the Kenya National Museum. Home to a variety of snakes, turtles, alligators, crocodiles, and a really lot of flounder... I wanted to get a snake of my own and send it to my brother-in-law who is forever posting pictures of clowns on my Facebook page. Clowns are freaking terrifying, and not just the Pennywises among them. No one is that happy unless they're crazy. Apparently my b-i-l's only kryptonite is live snakes. Sending a snake from Kenya being too difficult; I continue to plot my vengeance.

Pedestrians cross willy nilly

I really had no idea what to expect of Nairobi. It was almost comforting to discover that it's a big city like any other big city: big, dirty, loud, construction, and traffic. Oh the traffic. With a population of a little over 3 million one expects traffic, but I did not expect traffic to be worse than it is in my 20 million populated city. Istanbul traffic is offset by good public transportation (there are some people who would argue the "good" there but have you experienced Metro in DC?) but there is almost no public transportation in Nairobi. The most they have are mini buses and vans, like the Turkish dolmus, but these are privately owned and as far as I was able to discover, unregulated. 

The road to Samburu

Traffic flow problems are not helped by what seems to be an utter lack of road rules and by the arbitrary roadblocks police set up. These are not to control traffic but to pull over people for real or manufactured infractions during which police shake down drivers for bribes. My friends told me this happens to them regularly and it happened twice while I was there; once in the safari van on the way to Samburu and once on my way into the airport as I was leaving. The last at least gave me a chance to admire the plains zebras who were calmly grazing in the median.

Nairobi wasn't all grocery shopping though...there was lots of other shopping to do! If you're in Nairobi, or just want something pretty (you can buy them elsewhere) go to the Kazuri Bead Factory. There they hand make and paint beads of all kinds which are then turned into jewelry or sold loose by the gram. I was particularly interested in the factory as it largely employs single mothers. There are a number of male employees as well who, they joke, are given the crap jobs (really they make all the ceramic plates, mugs, etc) but who are largely responsible for looking after the kilns. Because Nairobi is already hot enough the kilns are only fired at night and they have to be monitored constantly.

My friends also took me to glass blowing factories. I'm also a sucker for hand blown glass; I always sit to watch the demonstrations at the Maryland Renaissance Festival. Apparently the two most well-known glass factories were either one or at least worked in consort but there was a falling out and now they're separate entities; so separate that they've built a tall fence between them.

Sold by the meter

Best I can tell, we visited first the Anselm factory where I was enchanted by the cafe garden with its glass furniture and what must be insanely heavy hanging decorations. Prices for these beauties are really super reasonable too. Shipping is where you're going to have trouble. If you're lucky enough to work in Nairobi for a company that ships your things though you could make a nice little side business taking orders for people.

The grounds around the factory and showroom were really charming. I was imaging it as the setting for a Rapunzel/Hobbit crossover. Which might be something interesting to explore. Merry and Pippin were single if I recall correctly and Rapunzel did have twins...

That bird is real. And scary.

After Anselm we visited the neighboring Kitengela factory where these giant, scary birds roamed among the factory's art.

If I thought Anselm had the better grounds, Kitengela won the showroom contest. I did end up buying things from both places; a set of glasses from Anselm which had the better glassware, and a wind chime from Kitengela which had more art and novelties.

Kitengela also has several guest houses you can rent and a lovely infinity pool that overlooks Nairobi's very own safari park.

Thanks to my excellent friends I was finally able to check off one of my biggest life bucket list items: an African safari. It was an amazing adventure, one I'll never forget, and I could not have ask for better people to share it with. Thank you E&M!

Giraffe Kisses

While in Nairobi my friends also took me to the African Fund for Endangered Wildlife; more well-know as the Giraffe Center.

No adoptions here but lots of incredible one-on-one time with beautiful giraffes! One of the Giraffe Center's roles is the conservation and expanding the gene pool of the Rothschild Giraffe. You can see the difference between the Rothschild and Reticulated giraffes in my previous posts:

Reticulated:

• Regular shaped spots with clear white outlining
• Pattern often extends down the leg

Rothschild:

• Less regular pattern than the Reticulated; splotchy like the Masai giraffe
• Paler coat than the Masai giraffe
• White stocking; below the knees there is no pattern on their legs
• Only giraffe sub species with five ossicones (ie the bumpy horny doo dads) on its head
• Taller than many other sub species at 6 meters (20 feet)

Not different though are their appetites and tongues! At the Center you can hand feed pellets to the giraffes and get your hand slimy and slobbered on by their long, black tongues.

I learned a lot of interesting things about giraffes here. For example, unlike the elephant which really does have a long memory, giraffes have limited short term memory and forget things within minutes. heir memories are so short that after five minutes of running away from a predator they'll forget why they're running and stop to graze again.

Even if a lion catches up it's apparently not much of a problem. Giraffe leg bones are solid, they have no marrow. I was able to handle a leg bone and it was shockingly heavy. They use these solid legs for kicking other animals. A well-placed kick is not just a deterrent but could even kill another animal.

Possibly most amazing is that giraffes can delay giving birth for up to three months. I've never bee pregnant but my first reaction to hearing this was horror. With a normal gestation period of 15 months (!) why on earth would any creature want to delay that?! So they can give birth in a safe, predator free, hopefully vegetation rich area. That did not even occur to me. Brilliant.

Kisses from Lynn

The Center is home to nine giraffes, two bulls and seven cows that have lived there for their entire life. They do breed but calves are released into the wild at the age two. The Center is partially responsible for raising the amount of Rothschilds in the wild from just a few hundred to 1200...which still makes them endangered. Because the nine have been here for their entire lives though they are very accustomed to people and eagerly eat pellets from your hand; just be sure to hold the pellet properly or you could lose a finger!

And then there's Lynn. Lynn is 18 and is one of the friendlier giraffes; she gives kisses. If you hold a pellet gently between your lips she'll use her mobile, flexible lips to take it from you. Thankfully, on many levels, there is no tongue involved! Something I've never realized though is that giraffes have very whiskery chins. So no slobber but I did get a little whisker burn!

Spotting Stripes On Safari

In addition to be the home of reticulated giraffe, Samburu is also the only place to see the Grevy's Zebras. Thanks to the book Lauren got me I know all about the differences between plains and Grevy's zebras! For example, Grevy's are the largest of the zebras, the bellies are stripe-less, and they're actually asses, not horses.

We'd briefly seen a zebra on our way into the park but the following three game drives were all zebra-less. By the time of our final morning drive we'd seen lots of giraffes, elephants, lions, sooo many types of antelope, birds, monkeys, wild pigs...but no zebras. I was a little worried it wasn't going to happen until, still riding our elephant/lion spotting, M (who was the best of us at spotting animals) pointed out a couple zebras. A couple zebras that turned out to be stragglers of a large mixed herd!

The other half of the mix were Thomson's Gazelles which we also hadn't seen yet. One in particular seemed to have been waiting for us and posed for all he was worth.

I was busy clicking away at the zebras when I was distracted by two of the gazelles. We really had some amazing luck on our game drives. E&M told me that on most of their previous drives they spotted a few animals here and there but not groups like we were seeing. And groups meant a lot of great interaction: playing babies, fighting giraffes, and now fighting gazelles!

I spent a lot of time with my camera glued to my eye but I also spent a fair amount of time just looking. They were breathtaking; completely mesmerizing. I could have stood in that van and watched them forever. And yet, I couldn't help but think...those lions were really really thin; maybe we could go back and try to herd them this way. Zebras and gazelles are sweet but I always cheer for the lion during the hunt.

And unbelievably...there's still more to come!

In the Jungle, the Quiet Jungle...

I did some prep before going to Kenya. In addition to earmarking and reading all the pages in the safari companion that covered the animals I could possibly see, I also watched The Ghost and the Darkness and The Lion King. I was a little bummed to not be going to Tsavo but at least I was hitting the ballpark being in the right country and all. E&M told me I was the most prepared guest they'd had in their two years there. Considering part of my prep was watching a Disney musical that's just kind of sad.

Knowing how much I wanted to see them, E&M were very insistent with our guide that we find some big cats. And we struck gold our first evening game drive. We'd been driving for a while and had seen plenty of antelope when our guide got word there was a cub hanging out on its own so we raced over too see him. Maybe a year or so old, still young enough to have some spots and need its mother anyway, the little guy was on his lonesome calling for mama.

During the time we watched him mama didn't show but the net day during our epically long morning drive we found the whole family. Well, the family minus the lion, no manes in sight other mine which had been ripped apart by wind and dust, but several lionesses and cubs.

I doubled checked that we weren't actually allowed out of the van. E visited me a few months ago and asked if there were anything from Kenya I wanted her to bring and now seemed a great moment to get myself the lion cub she didn't bring me. I'm sure Sherlock would appreciate the company.

On our final morning drive, on our way out of the park, we spotted some elephants moving in the distance (I was in physical pain over my lack of a telephoto) and stopped to watch them. In an odd way it was almost more amazing to see them passing in the distance than it was to be surrounded by them the day before. While draped over the top of the van, awestruck by the elephants, I caught a sudden movement in the foreground and M and I both pointed at the same time. Lions! Likely the same pride we'd seen the day before.

You can almost see the elephants in the background

While watching the lions we noticed a large group of Guinea fowl tailing the pride. Apparently this is something that prey do. They actually follow predators around so that they always know where they are. Given the closeness with which the birds were following and how thin the lions were we couldn't understand why they didn't just snatch themselves a couple for a snack. Guinea fowl can't fly so I don't imagine they'd present too much of a challenge to lions. Plus Guinea fowl are ugly annoying birds (which I know from experience because my dad thought they were cool so we had a bunch on the farm mingling with the chickens) so really the lions would be doing everyone a favor if they ate them.

We didn't get lucky with any other cats so my next safari will be to "hunt" down cheetahs. We did, thanks to M's super sharp eyes, get a fleeting glimpse of a leopard our first night out but it was gone before I could get my camera in position.

Up next...zebras!