"The Brightest Gem"

In honor of the first weekend we’ve had time to get out and actually see some sights, Dave and I rented a little car for excursions to some tourist sights in the historic colonial suburb of Karen and a day-break safari in Nairobi National Park south of town. On Saturday, after a small tax-free shopping spree at the UN Commissary (thanks, UNEP), we headed out to the African Fund for Endangered Wildlife’s Giraffe Centre where you can feed the ten giraffes on the grounds pellets of food right from your hand. It’s primarily intended as a learning center for children, but obviously it’s still a kick if you’re beyond age 12. Daisy had a long, dark tongue that was soft and warm and she was very gentle. Except if you run out of food, she head-butts you (as she did Dave’s shoulder) with her enormous mandible. Later, when we forayed into the forest beyond the center to see some birds, we came upon a giraffe walking the trail towards us. Significantly smaller and lighter than our fellow hiker, we didn’t know if we should run or stand our ground. We stood gawking long enough for Dave to snap this picture. Beware of spoiled or inquisitive giraffes. Their cute eyes and ears bely their strength and capability to completely overpower you.

Afterwards, curiosity brought us to the Karen Blixen house of Out of Africa fame. She wrote the novel under the nom de plume Isak Dinesen in the 1930’s and lived in the house which bears her name. It wasn’t all that interesting but the grounds are lovely, situated on an old coffee plantation below the Ngong Hills. Of more fascination were the two colonial posters hanging on the walls of the Swedo House (1912) nearby, the home of a Swedish coffee plantation manager. One advertised the Uganda Railway as “the Gateway to British East Africa: the Brightest Gem in Britain’s Cluster of Colonies.” The other one was even better, but you’ll have to go to the photo album link to see it so that you can read the text for yourselves.

At 5:30am on Sunday we picked up our friend Nora, whom I met when I was living in Morocco, for a sojourn into Nairobi National Park. The park literally lies just on the southern periphery of the city, a mere 20 minutes from our apartment. After paying the recently doubled entrance fee ($40), we headed into the park in our little rented Suzuki 4x4. After all the criticisms we have doled out on the SUV presence in Nairobi, we ate our words as we ended up depending on The-Little-4x4-That-Could due to the recent heavy rains making many parts of the roads impassable. We managed to get ourselves stuck a handful of times that morning, and navigating the roads was more of an adventure than seeing the wildlife. We saw zebras, giraffes, rhinos (too far away to get a picture), various birds, and other mammals we can’t identify exactly. At one point I stepped out of the car to take a picture of the mud caked all over us and the vehicle, only to have Nora and Dave fear that I may get attacked by a lion. Needless to say, we didn’t see any lions in the park that morning.