We stayed with a great couple, Chris and Shalini, in Nairobi. Thanks to them, we had a wonderful couple of days in Nairobi, visiting downtown Nairobi, Karen Blixen’s house, the animal orphanage and having insightful conversations about the current political state of the Middle East and Africa. Unfortunately, we forgot to take a photo with Chris and Shalini!
We walked around downtown Nairobi during the afternoon. The first thing we noticed was the city center was buzzing with activity- we were warned that there is a huge crime problem there, but nothing happened to us. After the relative poverty and low numbers of people we saw in a “big city” like Arusha in Tanzania, Nairobi was a definite change! It felt great to be in the hustle and bustle of a big city once more. We would recommend going to the Java Coffee House in downtown Nairobi for their great frappes and snacks- which we were thrilled to eat after the relatively bland food we got up on Mt Kili. We also managed to drink a cold Tusker or two with the happy hour crowd at Simba Pub- delicious!
Next morning, we hired a taxi and set-off to visit Karen Blixen’s house (the author of “Out of Africa” - Karen is played by Meryl Streep in the movie). Her house has been turned into a museum and was also used as a film set for the movie. We saw portraits of all the major players in her life- Denys Finch Hatton, Bror Blixen, as well as some artifacts including the coffee factory out in the back. We had lunch on the lawn of the adjacent Danish consul’s residence (which has been gifted to the Kenyan government as a historical monument). We saw mostly Europeans having lunch there. Apparently the area (also called Karen) is home to many Europeans that remained behind in Kenya to continue working their farms and businesses after independence.
After that, we went to the Nairobi National Park’s animal orphanage. This was a fantastic opportunity to see cheetahs, hyenas, lions, ostriches, wild cats and many other animals. The animal orphanage, as its name suggests, houses animals who have been orphaned at a very early age (sometimes as little as 1 week old) and who would not have survived otherwise.
Since it was nearly closing time and most of the visitors had left, we were allowed to go inside the cheetah pen and play with the cheetahs (three 1-year old cubs). They were quite tame and very cute. It was quite amazing to do this after having seen wild cheetahs roaming the floor of the Ngorongoro crater only a few days before!
One of the most memorable things we saw was the ‘shouting match’ of a hyena and a lion– they were housed in adjoining cages – the hyena got very nervous every time he walked close to the lion’s cage and started laughing with nervousness – in response, the lion started roaring and then all the lions in the other cages started roaring as well!.
After the animal orphanage, we visited the giraffe center. It was fun to feed the giraffe although the giraffes kept trying to head-butt all of us for some reason! They also had a bunch of warthogs scrambling around, trying to avoid being trampled by the giraffes.
A bunch of schoolkids arrived at the giraffe center around that time they had great fun screaming their heads off whenever the giraffes or warthogs got too close!
We managed to make it to a mall to buy some books and also chanced into an art gallery which had some great artwork by Ruth Nyakundi, a local Kenyan artist. We were able to have an ‘up close and personal’ chat with her and her husband (also an artist) and ended up buying some of her paintings.
Given the hectic pace of events, we were unable to make it to the Ngong Hills, which is known for its nice hiking areas and is also where Denys Finch-Hatton is buried. Our taxi driver told us that we should not go there without an armed escort as the place is very dangerous. We were also unable to make it to Carnivore, which is a restaurant in the Ngong Hills which serves game meat (lion, zebra, ostrich etc.) although we've heard that they are not serving too much game meat these days, instead serving lots of bread, chicken, lamb and pork prior to serving a few pieces of game meat. Not surprisingly, Smruti was very happy about not having to go to Carnivore!
On to South Africa!
-Dev & Smruti
Thanks for the trip down memory lane! You two were stomping around my old hood. When you drove to Kili from the airport you passed the tree that was the turn-off for my tent camp a few hours drive in the bush! The National Museum of Kenya (NMK) is a block from 'Carnivore'.
Keep the posts coming! Love hearing about the travels. :)
Posted by: Benjamin | Sunday, December 05, 2004 at 12:19 AM