As I am typing this into the laptop, I am on the bed, with my right foot up on a pillow, covered with ice. I fell down the hotel (http://www.summithotels.com/hotel_horizontal.cfm?id=17025) stairs after dinner (no, I was NOT drinking!! Only water!) and badly twisted my ankle. Anyway, I think it’s just a sprain so I am trying not to worry about it….We had an excellent day today. We hired a private driver/guide for the day, for the 3 of us. Douglas picked us up and drove us out to David Sheldrick’s Elephant Orphanage (http://www.sheldrickwildlifetrust.org/), which is in the Nairobi National Park. They take in orphaned elephants (mainly caused by poaching or starvation of the mothers) and nurse them for an indefinite period of time, the keepers even sleep next to the babies every night for months! Then they accompany them to Tsavo National Park, where they stay with the babies until they can find them a herd of elephants who will take them in. Every morning for an hour, the keepers take the babies out in the orphanage, so people can see them, touch them, and learn about them. It was fantastic, their skin is actually quite hard with spiky hair all over it. (Baby animals of any kind are so wonderful to see.) Shane adds this: It was also interesting to note that there still existed a form of hierarchy amongst the orphaned elephants, especially as they were all orphaned at such a young age of only a couple of months. The male babies stay with their mothers, under normal circumstances, for 15 years, and the baby girls will stay with their mothers forever.
After that, we drove out to Giraffe Manor where they take in orphaned Rothschild’s Giraffes and rear them as well (www.gcci.org/afew/afew.html). We hand-fed them and took heaps of photos. Around the giraffes were a bunch of warthogs as well. The tongue on a giraffe is 45cm long and a bluey grey colour. They stick it right thru the fence to get the food pellets. Excellent experience! Except after hand feeding them, you almost need a shower to clean up!!
Then off to Kazuri (http://www.kazuribeads.co.uk/), a bead making cooperative. This is a successful bead and pottery factory, hiring over 100 Kenyan women and older girls, to give them jobs and a way to support themselves. It was very interesting to see the factory and the workers, beautiful products.
Later that afternoon, our guide drove us around Naroibi, pointing out significant buildings and areas, and we also saw Marabou storks (huge carnivorous birds who defecate on their own legs to keep warm in colder times, and have a wingspan of 2.5 metres- don’t you just love Lonely Planet guidebooks??). Shane took photos (from a distance) of Kibera, a huge slum containing over 300 000 people in tin rooved shacks (featured in ‘The Constant Gardener’ recently).
All in all, an excellent day, and we felt very safe with our guide. Tomorrow, onto the Ark Lodge for some game viewing. Our safari begins!
Note: the money is a bit of a pain. Here we use both Kenyan shillings, and American dollars. So we need to memorise the exchange rate for these, compared to both Canadian (for Mum) and Australian (for us) dollars. Slightly confusing!! Maybe I should have a drink after all….. Actually earlier I tried a Tusker beer, very tasty. Although we managed to get wireless internet in our room for our laptop, the connection is VERY slow, it took me almost an hour to upload 7 images onto my blog…..I think it may only get worse as we get away from the major centres…..so keep your fingers crossed.
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