Food for thought...

Safaris. I'm undecided.  Having a love hate relationship with them after a week of tours.

Don't get me wrong seeing the animals is amazing and I loved it. But the method to the madness is questionable. Maybe my expectations are where it all went wrong but I expected a serene experience in a nice jeep with a couple of others where we all stayed quiet so as not to scare the animals. Instead I got a packed, rattling minibus stuffed with 9 people including two French women who talked literally non-stop throughout the trip, a bloke constantly making noises at the animals to get them to look at him, a blaring cb radio and the Nokia ringtone going incessantly from the driver's phone. This atmosphere was just so at odds with our surroundings. 

Let's take a minute to explain the CB radio. All the safari vans are hooked up to it so they can communicate with each other as to where the animals are. The result - 20/30 vans descending on the poor unfortunate animal in question and seeing who can get their van the closest to it.  Myself,  I prefer to use zoom and give them some space.

Saying that I feel like a bit of a hypocrite as I loved seeing all the animals and constantly had the camcorder in hand to record the memories.  We were lucky enough to have had one day with just myself and Ronan in the van so that was a great experience because we went off the beaten track and went a couple of hours without even seeing another tourist van.  From what I have seen luxury safaris are the only way to do it in Kenya (so you have full control of where to go and what to do), budget safaris really suck!  We have had amazing experiences on this trip but I think it could have been better minus a couple of other people in the van and a couple of hundred less in the Masai Mara!  

In hindsight, I still wouldn't have done a different holiday as these incredible memories and experiences are something I will have forever but it's just a pity at how commercialised parts of it are.

I also think there is a problem with Kenya where they just look at tourists as a walking wad of cash, this isn't just a safari issue though.  Even in the tiny, remote Maasai villages when a tourist van passes, the smallest of kids come running with their hands out for money!  Everyone asks so 'what did you bring me from your country?'  When we were chatting to one bloke he asked what did we bring him, which then translated to him wanting a coin from Ireland but we didn't have any. Then a note and we said no.  Then it just turned into him straight out asking for dollars or Kenyan schillings! Basically begging although he didn't look especially poor and definitely not homeless or anything.  We have been to a lot of countries and I haven't felt like any other country is this blatant about tourists being such a cash cow.  Tourism is one of their main industries but this is extremely off-putting to most normal tourists and is something people have been giving out about regarding Kenya as a holiday destination.

The tipping culture is also crazy where they recommend $3 - $5 per person per day for each staff member.  In the Maasai camp there were 4/5 people who could be classed as working there so if we were follow that rule we would have tipped $120 between the two of us for the first 3 nights alone before tipping the guide! 

Hakuna Matata!

11th - 14th October 2013

So we left the Masai Mara on Friday 11th and began the arduous drive to our next destination which was Lake Naivasha. Distance-wise it was about 200km but it took almost 6 hours so we didn't arrive until the afternoon despite the early departure from camp.  We checked into the highly anticipated hotel - again should have lowered our expectations.  It was one of these creepy hotels that just gave me a bad feeling - it was like a really remote hotel that hasn't had any guests in 5 years and you would expect to see in a horror movie.  So needless to say we didn't hang around for too long and just freshened up before heading down to the lake.  Here we rented a boat with the frenchies and went out on a boat safari which is really just a fancy name for a boat trip around the lake!  The frenchies were very impressed with Ronan's negotiation skills as we got the boat for half the price they were originally looking for.  Little did they know that his favourite holiday past-time is bargaining with locals for stuff! 

The boat trip was ok, it's very pretty and something different to just sitting in a van but definitely wouldn't be a must-do for anyone coming to Kenya.  We did see these hippos up close though.  The real attraction to Naivasha is the proximity to Hell's Gate, the park we are going to tomorrow.

After the boat we went back to the hotel and attempted to shower.  This soon ground to a halt when Ronan got an electric shock as he put his hand under the water to check the temperature! He wasn't even touching the metal but the electric shower is heated by an electric heater in the shower head.  Hmm safe as houses!

Dinner was rank, we are both starved.  Getting to the stage where I'm looking forward to choosing what and when I eat and when I can go to the toilet but this isn't until the tour ends on Monday!  Ronan also started to feel unwell while in the dining room. His eyes were watering like crazy and he started to feel sick.  We reckoned it was the fumes from the gas heaters which were keeping the food warm as he spent more time than I did up around the buffet deciding on whether he could stomach the food or not.  Again we made a swift exit!  

The next day was Saturday and surprise surprise we were up early! Today's itinerary involved a visit to a national park called Hell's Gate.  We arrived to the park around 8am to hire bicycles!  This park is largely predator free (only a couple of cheetahs) so it's all walking or cycling!  It was a refreshing change to be out of the van for a few hours.  

Thank god for the trusty Lonely Planet anyways as it gave sound advice about trying out the bikes before handing over money.  Between the 4 of us (me, Ronan and the frenchies) we tried maybe 10/12 bikes.  I got one with no gears and a dodgy pedal and Ronan had dodgy brakes, stubs for pedals and one wheel bigger than another. Besides these obvious faults the bikes were just shit anyways!  Anyways we were there so early we had first pick and these were the best they had.  But it was only a 16km ride so how hard could it be, right?  One of the French girls couldn't find one that suited her so she decided to walk and so then there were 3.  

The scenery was stunning! It totally blew me away and it was amazing to see the animals so close.  

The road was mostly downhill with no cars and took almost an hour as we kept stopping to take photos of the zebras, baboons, giraffes, wildebeest and antelopes along the way.  Suddenly the path ended near the end and there is a big dirty motorway in our way with lorries zipping past.  Yes they did - they cut a road through a national park.

Our destination was to reach the Lower Gorge.  This is basically a narrow canyon which was originally made by glaciers and has been carved out by water and erosion over the years (at a very impressive rate of 10 inches a year).  I had assumed that we would be standing at the top of the gorge having a wee glance down before heading on our merry way.  The park ranger was telling us about the price of a guide and we said we would just take a look ourselves but he insisted that we should get a guide for the 45min hike. Hike, what?? was my reaction but we went for it and thank god we did!  

We literally hiked down the side of the bedrock into the gorge! Ronan was wearing his light holiday shoes with no grip on the bottom and I was wearing €3 penny's canvas shoes which were equally bad.  Not appropriate at all!  

I don't have any photos of what we climbed down as I was trying not to fall to my death but it was crazy what we had to do to get down there.  I think if I had read about it before I went, I mightn't have done it but it was spectacular!  Ronan took a video clip of parts of it but only after the worst part was done.  The guide was very good and told us exactly where to put our feet that was safest.  Safest not safe!  At the same time it was incredible!  I have never been to a canyon before and this was just stunning.  It's so vast it's hard to believe so really glad we did it and it wouldn't have been possible without the guide (which we thought was just another way to get money from tourists).

The bike ride back was another story.  It was an uphill struggle with cars and buses passing and throwing up dust clouds, terrible bikes and the midday sun all conspiring to make it as tough as possible!  Sweaty and dusty we washed up as best we could back at the national park base before boarding the van again and starting the next stage.  We stopped for lunch about an hour away from the park in the same terrible place we ate yesterday (yes still starving afterwards) before collecting another 3 people.  And then there were 7. And 6 window seats.  And so begins Seat Wars but I had a plan for tomorrow!

After lunch we started on our journey again.  It was about 2hrs back to Nairobi where we called into the city to collect the food and chef for the next phase.  The rest of the guys used this opportunity to complain (justified complaining as their trip had abruptly being cut short by a day and half) about the problems with their trips to the agency.  I don't know why but everything takes so long in Kenya so we were waiting around Nairobi city centre for ages.  We hadn't gone into the city centre previously (our concession to the family who were worried about us coming to Kenya was to avoid the city) and as we thought, it's just like any normal city centre so we didn't feel like we were missing anything.  

Eventually we were on the road again.  Destination was Amboseli - another national park but with the special addition of Mount Kilimanjaro (highest mountain in Africa).  However starting the 4-5 hour journey from Nairobi was pretty off-putting considering it was 4pm (and the journey started at 12pm after we left Hell's Gate).  It was an uncomfortable, hot, tiring journey.  Eventually we reached camp at 8.15pm.  Remember we collected the chef and all the food in Nairobi - this meant a one hour wait for dinner as be had to cooked when we arrived!  Time to get our stuff organised and have a cold shower - great!  The camp here was nice in that we had a double bed and it was slightly cleaner and brighter than the previous camp.  Dinner was pretty bad again so we have hardly eaten anything for days at this stage!  We had good craic with the new additions to the group - a Portuguese/Indonesian couple and an American guy.  Anyone else feel like our one week safari is a crazy mish-mash just shoving people anywhere with a spare seat in a van?!  The lights were going out at 10pm so we had very little time to organise our clothes so bit of a panic after dinner!  I think myself and Ronan had our latest night on camp this week where we stayed up till 11pm watching tv on the tablet computer.  Party animals!

Sunday morning after a disappointing breakfast (but a spectacular view as Mount Kili was there as soon as I stepped out of the tent) was a full day game drive in Amboseli National Park.

This park is famous for the elephants as there are 1200 of them in a small space so you are guaranteed sightings of large groups of animals.  The most famous picture of the park is with elephants with Mount Kili in the background and that's the shot we were all here for!

When the van is stopped at the gates to all the national parks in the mornings, it is suddenly swarmed by the Maasai trying to sell stuff, like jewellery, masks, spears etc) to tourists.  This morning there were about 8 sellers and Filippa just wanted to buy everything! It was hilarious watching her buying more and more stuff and the more she bought, the more sellers that appeared!  

I implemented a seat rotation plan as Filippa & Indra had spent all day yesterday and most of their previous safari in the crappy backseats (worst seats in the house).  Myself and Ronan went down the back after lunch and I was super blatant to the frenchies and said 'You and you (pointing at them) are here (pointing at the seat) tomorrow' as they hadn't been in this seat for any game drive in the previous 5 days and we had more than done our stint. They had went with the ignorance defence as in that they couldn't speak English so that was sorted!

We had lunch at a high viewing point with amazing views of the park but no animals coming to see what we were eating like in the Mara.  When we had walked up to the top there was a very posh tour up there drinking red wine from proper glasses all laid out on a tray!  I was annoyed as my packed lunch consisted of white bread sandwiches (I had told them I can't eat white bread and they had accounted for that in the days previously) that I couldn't eat so guess what, still starving!  Thank god we had brought biscuits, crisps and nuts with us or I would be gone off my head altogether!  It's not healthy but they are keeping me going for these few days. 

We saw so many elephants that I couldn't even count! They were really close up and loads of babies as well.  There was one especially protective mother that Simon had to keep backing the van away from as she kept stamping her foot and was getting angry but they are so massive we couldn't make any sudden movements to leave either in case she saw us as more of a threat so that was a little tense!  

We also saw two cheetahs fully out in the open which is unusual as they are usually more hidden as well as loads of the usual animals like gazelles, antelopes, zebra etc.  We got back to camp around 5 so time for showers and packing up before dinner (again not great but I did eat spinach and potato so not a total fail).  This evening energy was pretty low around the table, everyone was tired and I think the general feeling was of being done with safaris.

The last safari day was Monday 14th! Again another long drive on the agenda so plenty of time on my hands at the moment.  We started at 5.30am where myself and Ronan for up for sunrise and took some great shots of Mount Kili before we left the camp at 6.30am.  Bear in mind that we are going to bed so early that getting up at 5.30am is still giving us a full nights' sleep!  At 6.30am we had our last game drive of the trip where we had hoped to see lions and get the typical view from Amboseli National Park.  Unfortunately we had no such luck and the best thing we saw was some ostrich sex.  Hmm finished the trip on a bit of a low really!  

We then returned to camp around 8am for breakfast (terrible but what's new - all I could eat was spuds)  before packing up and beginning our last mammoth road trip in Kenya.  We are transferring to a large city on the coast in the east called Mombasa.  If we went to Mombasa directly from camp I estimate it would take about 4.5 hours.  Unfortunately we had to go back for 2hrs towards Nairobi (west) to meet our transfer to Mombasa so I reckon it's probably going to take closer to 7hrs.  We literally drove in the complete opposite direction that we needed to be going in.  Seriously frustrating!  

Our transfer to Mombasa was being done by our own agency.  We hadn't seen our agency since pickup on the first day and we had been transferred out of their van within an hour.  So imagine the answer he got when he asked how our safari was after blatantly selling us to another, cheaper company!  We had a discussion for about 30mins where nothing got resolved but he will get back to us.  We wanted a partial refund or I am giving a terrible Trip Advisor rating as we did not get what we paid for.  Watch this space!

Eventually at 12.20pm we started the journey to Mombasa.  We had been in the van since 9.30 this morning going backwards.  We stopped for lunch and it was delicious! It cost €1 (the company treated us though!!) and was the first decent bite we had in days but just proves good food is not expensive! 

This is our last long road journey though as the next couple of places we are going the journey is only an hour and we are flying back to Nairobi for our flight home.  We have spent a lot of time on road journeys for the last few days which is less to do with the distances involved and more to do with the strange way that Kenyan time manages to slip away in a haze of pick-ups and drop-offs of friends, getting water, getting petrol, stopping for random chats etc....

Into the Wild

8th - 10th October 2013

The safari guide collected us from the Wildebeest camp at 8.30am on Tuesday 8th. Following this we changed vans twice, stopped about 5 times for the various drivers to do various errands, got petrol twice and picked up more and more people along the way.  It became clear to us that the company we booked with had sold us to another company and we were basically tagging along with their group. This sucked for two reasons - firstly the group was weird and second there were 8 people in the mini-van thing.  Any notions I had about a cool jeep and hoping that there would be a group of 4 at most was gone! The safari companies guarantee that everyone gets a window seat but this was not the case as there are only 6 window  seats and 8 people.

We were a funny bunch - a Spanish/Argentinian couple on honeymoon, an American man who has lived in South Africa for the last 4 years and doesn't intend to return to the States again, two strange French women and a Mexican priest! Communicating was difficult as the French ones only had schoolgirl English and the priest only spoke Spanish. So the honeymoon couple were the only ones who could communicate with the priest and Ronan spoke pigeon French and pigeon English to the frenchies. 

We stopped for lunch along the way also and as per usual at this stage, the bloke working in the shop asked us where we are from and when we said Ireland, he said 'John O'Shea - I like him'. So random but he's a Sunderland fan and apparently John O'Shea is captain of Sunderland as well as second choice Ireland captain.  You learn something new every day.

We arrived to the camp around 3.30pm.  The accommodation was pretty grim and I totally forgot to get any photos unfortunately. It was a permanent tent structure which looked a little like the tent from the Wildebeest on the outside but inside had no such level of luxury.  It did have a bathroom area at the back of the tent and electricity for a couple of hours a day so I guess it was ok. 

On the first day we were expecting a half day game drive but our first view of the Masai Mara was at 4.30! However it ended up being worth it as we had a very productive two hours with giraffes, a cheetah, elephants, a pride of lions with a wildebeest they had just killed  and all the game animals like zebra, antelope, impala, gazelle etc. We also got amazing shots of the lions with the kill and elephants in the background.  This is apparently extremely rare to get elephants and lions so close so we were very lucky. There was also a beautiful sunset over the Masai Mara so it was all in all very successful. It was then back to the camp for dinner and bed by 10pm as that's when the electricity was turned off.

Wednesday was an annoying, dusty, tiring affair where everyone was just a little fed up.  We had a full day game drive where we saw some cool things like vultures with a kill (a gazelle) and watching that was like something from a David Attenborough show.  The others weren't too interested and just told the driver to go.  We saw a leopard which is a rare enough sighting but the gloss was taken off this by the fact the poor thing was terrified by being chased and then surrounded by about 30 tourist vans.  In the afternoon we went deeper into the park which was good as there were less tourists but also didn't yield many results so everyone was just tired and fed up by about 3 so we just went back to camp.  

It's tiresome constantly competing with people for the best seats and elbow space.  We found the Frenchies unbearable, constantly taking the best seats, refusing to go into the back ones and consistently popping their heads into our photos.  Ronan wasn't happy at all with the fact that he would have a perfect shot only for someone's hair and shoulder to pop in!  And you can imagine how subtle he was about it!

All day everyone was just shouting, calling the animals, the cb radio was going constantly and the fecking Nokia ring from the driver's mobile never stopped.  I just felt like roaring at everyone to shut up for 5 minutes!! 8 hours is a long time to be packed into a small space with 8 others!  There was quite a lot of tension anyways as everybody felt hard done by and had problems with what they thought they were getting and what the tour actually offered so lots of complaining to the guide also.  Lunch was cool though, they had packed lunches for us so we had a picnic blanket under a tree and all sat out eating in the wilderness of the Savannah!  Just as we sat down a hyena dashed out of a nearby bush and a baboon started circling. The guide had a slingshot in hand to ward off any unwelcome visitors!  It was so surreal!  

Today was funny also as we went to the airstrip to use the toilet (toilets are in short supply on the Savannah and unlike the salt flats a quick pee around the back of the bus isn't an option!).  Anyways the airstrip was full of rich people in the lovely fancy safari jeeps that I had imagined we would be in. Oh the innocence!  These people were flying in and out of the Mara as they had too much money to justify their time in a dusty, bouncy bus for 6 hours! Lucky them I say!  They were all sporting the latest safari camouflaged fashions which I thought was hilarious considering they are following the animals from the safety of massive noisy jeeps - not exactly sneaking around and ducking in the undergrowth so camouflage isn't really necessary!  This was our mode of transport, the jeeps were better but not exact fading into the landscape territory!  

We later visited one of the luxury lodges for a toilet break and they are incredible!  They are 5 star resorts with Internet access, private waterholes for the animals with a tunnel viewing point and if you are lucky (or paying enough) a pool! How the other half live, eh?!

We did an early morning game drive on Thursday morning (6am-8am) with the full group before 4 of the group went back to Nairobi.  At breakfast Ronan made a joke which was in bad taste involving starving children in Africa and the Mexican priest snorted and burst out laughing.  Ok so the fact he thought it was funny considering he's a priest was one thing but the small matter that he maintained for 3 days that he couldn't speak English was another! Then as he was going said 'nice to meet you' to me! Moral of the story - trust no one even members of the cloth.  Actually thinking about maybe he wasn't even a priest!

Anyways with the group halved, this left myself, Ronan and the frenchies.  The frenchies decided they did not want to do a game drive this day as per the itinerary so they stayed at camp while myself and Ronan went off on Thursday afternoon. We had the whole van to ourselves so it was like being on a luxury tour with our own private driver. Totally awesome!  We went completely off the beaten track and saw some really cool things like hippos, migrating wildebeest, elephants very close up and the piece de resistance was getting really close to 4 adult male lions!  

At about 5pm Simon got a call that his friend was driving a van of tourists and was stuck somewhere in the park an hour away so he had to transfer me and Ronan to a different van which was going back to our camp about 6.30.  The van we were transferring to was near a gathering of elephants so we drove up to the new van and had to get out of one and into another. Ronan was faffing about looking around him while between the vans and the driver was shouting at us to hurry up and get in the van as it was dangerous!  In the new van we met a Belgian couple who I think are the most interesting people we have met on all our travels - they have spent the past three years cycling around the world on a tandem bike! We had a great evening chatting and trading stories back at camp.  By the last night the camp felt like home despite my initial disappointment at the grimness of it and we had been pretty well fed most of the time which is always a bonus.  Little did I know how I would be craving the food from here as I spent the next 4 days hungry!

For the 3 days in the Masai Mara the local tribe here, the Maasi, are wandering in and out of the campsite all day, every day and have been constantly trying to get us to visit their village since we arrived.  We discovered this is because they charge 1,000ksh/€9 for the pleasure!  It looked like a hoax for tourists so we didn't bother and we heard bad reports from other travellers.  The Maasi are very distinctive in that they wear red blankets, wear heaps of beaded jewellery and have massive holes in their earlobes because of huge pieces of jewellery.  Funny on our last day when one of the blokes thought all the tourists were gone and landed in wearing trackies, hoodie and wellies! Go figure!

Aside from that Hakuna Matata is everywhere here. It means no worries and you might know it from the Lion King but it is basically what the Kenyans say when you have a problem or a complaint about anything!  Nothing gets solved but everyone remains friends!!

Also I'm loving my first holidays with no glasses! 

DISCLAIMER: All photos from these blog entries are from my iPhone.  There isn't an Internet connection in Kenya that would be able to upload the photos from Ronan's camera.  I will do a full photo blog post when we get home with the best of the rest! 

In To Africa

5th - 7th October 2013

So here we are again (yes we should have been more forward thinking in naming the blog but no changing it now!). A full year since we got home from our honeymoon and our first holiday since. Although this trip is a paltry 3 weeks in comparison to last year. I wasn't sure whether I was going to do the blog again until a friend mentioned it and then I didn't think about it again. I've been a bit busy ya know, with the moving into our new house a week before we left and starting a new job a month ago. However as soon as the first leg of our journey was complete I found the blog was writing itself in my head so here we are! I must confess that I am one of these people who seems to constantly narrate on their lives in their heads...anyone else do this or just me then?! 

Anyways we left Ireland on Saturday 6th Oct at 9pm to fly to Nairobi via Abu Dhabi.  We were flying with Etihad and it was refreshing to saunter straight up to the check-in desk and get boarding passes and bags put through for the full journey. No queuing, no hassle.  The anti-Ryanair. 

We didn't have much time to kill in the airport at all and by the time we got food and had a drink it was time to go to the gate.  Huge improvements made in Terminal 2 since we were last there and a bit more shopping time wouldn't have gone astray!  Despite the late hour of the flight, we got the obligatory dinner within an hour of being airborne.  The difference here being that we were provided with a full menu and choice for dinner and drinks! And got a free vanity bag with an eye-mask, socks, toothbrush, toothpaste etc.  It all felt very luxurious.  I don't know how Ronan managed it, but he ate his second dinner in 3 hours! It was really tasty for airplane food but i couldn't manage it! We also got 3 seats between the two of us for the whole journey so we both got a bit of sleep. It was only 7 hours between Dublin and Abu Dhabi so the flight passed quickly enough and it was one of the least turbulent plane journeys I've ever done so thumbs up all round.

So much room to snooze!

Dinner menu and vanity case

Things took a bit of a nose dive from Abu Dhabi on, nothing too bad but just Abu Dhabi airport was a complete cattle mart. There wasn't a nice vibe around the airport and it just didn't feel comfortable. Dreading spending 6 hours there on the way back as even finding somewhere to sit is an experience! The plane from Abu Dhabi was smaller, squashed and I had a really tall guy sitting beside me so I had even less room than normal. However it was only 4 hours so could be worse. I was hungry by this stage and had been anticipating breakfast as it was early morning so the 7am fish and potatoes was hard to stomach.  The flight was pretty uneventful bar one moment where we dropped out of the sky a bit!

We arrived to Kenya International airport expecting high security in light of recent events but it wasn't the most secure looking airport I have ever been in! The immigration desk was basically a line of desks in a row.  A bloke beside me was sent into the arrivals lounge to the ATM to get money for his visa and then returned to the immigration desk to pay so in effect he could have just left once he went to the arrivals lounge! There were a few blokes with guns alright that looked pretty menacing but that just about covered it. 

Ronan got his bag fairly quickly and we had to wait about 20mins for mine.  Considering shopping wasn't top of our agenda for our time in Nairobi this was causing me some worry but it eventually arrived!  I can't understand how it's always mine that we are waiting for though. Ronan reckons it would be better for mine to get lost as I can wear his clothes but he can't wear mine?! Go figure!

As we were leaving the airport the lady at security asked us for a form, which we didn't have as we had given our all our forms into the immigration desk. So she asked a couple of times for some form that we didn't have so she just said 'ok' and let us through! Glad they have heightened the security anyways as it must have been terribly lax before!

We had organised an airport transfer through our camp as we heard Nairobi airport is notorious for scams for tourists on arrival so said better be safe than sorry. We arrived to the Wildebeest Eco Camp in late afternoon and we were pleasantly surprised to be shown to our lovely, luxurious tent with a bed, electricity and even bedside lockers which we don't have in our own bedroom at home yet! We had booked this camp as an average 3 star hotel in Nairobi was about €200 a night whereas this camp was only €39 for a tent with shared bathroom.  It was akin to glamping in Teapot Lane. Fabulous! The location was out of the city centre but in one of the more affluent suburbs that tourists are recommended to stay in.

Roughing it in Kenya!

Inside our tent!

View from the breakfast table

We had a some food, a short snooze and a shower and just chilled around the camp for the rest of the evening. We had dinner there and a couple of drinks.  We had said that we weren't going to do much in Nairobi with the security risks and we would just chill at the camp on the Monday and relax but in our typical style we couldn't just sit around doing nothing. We didn't set an alarm but woke early after about 11 hours sleep. After breakfast we decided to get a taxi to the elephant sanctuary (the David Sheldrick Trust) where they rear young elephants who have been orphaned. They are orphaned for a variety of reasons but usually because of humans poaching the female elephants for their tusks. The elephants stay in the sanctuary for up to 3 years after which they are released to a national park and observed for a further 7 years before finally been properly released to the wild at age 10.  They live to about 70 years old so still substantial time as wild animals.  There were 3 groups of elephants brought out to the viewing public. The babies were only about 4-5 weeks old and very nervous so they were only out for about 5 mins.  The next group were aged between 6 and 18 months and were more playful. The final group were between 18 months and 3 years.  These were the most boisterous group and constantly playing or fighting.  During part of their games they ended up spraying mud all over the crowd so our clothes/faces/cameras got covered. Should have taken a photo but didn't!

Four weeks old

Feeding a seven month old

18 months old

Then we went to the Giraffe centre. This place is a novelty as it is one of the few places you can hand feed giraffes.  You are on a raised platform so are at eye level with the giraffe.  They headbutt you for food if you don't feed them fast enough.  It's cool for the first couple of minutes but there are only a few times you can give a giraffe pellets before looking for something else to do! But there was nothing else there!

Watching for a headbutt!

Then it was back to camp to change as we were covered in mud from the elephants before heading out to the Karen Blixen Coffee Gardens where we wiled away the afternoon with dinner, cocktails and coffee! Pure bliss.  If anyone has seen the movie Out of Africa they will know who Karen Blixen is and the Kenyans are obsessed with her naming restaurants, coffee shops, gardens, museums, parts of the city (basically you name it) after her. There ends our two nights in Nairobi without actually seeing the city! 

Next step - safari, what Kenya is all about!

Top 5!

Nicole's Top 5

... in no particular order

Halong Bay
Easy Rider trip
Angkor Wat
Inca Trail
Iguacu Falls

Close 6th was the Salt Flats

Ronan's Top 5

Varanasi
Halong Bay
Easy Rider
Inca Trail
Iguacu Falls