First Day in Nairobi - Sunday 8/21

I cannot say enough about the Ngong House and their outstanding staff. I have never had such attentive service. My accommodations are perfect, the food to die for and a location that is nothing short of an oasis in the foothill of the Ngong Range. They also provided me with a car & driver to go and do whatever I wished during my stay.

On Sunday, my itinerary got changed up a bit with the delay in my luggage. I was not able to go visit the Ajax Football Team, nor was I able to take soccer balls with me for my visit at the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust for the orphan elephants. with that said, I still got to get out and do some great things including a visit to the Giraffe Centre and the Karen Blixen House both in Karen.

At the Giraffe Centre the animals were pretty far away from the main viewing area where visitors (mostly kids) feed the giraffes. Lucky for the children there was one who was hungry and willing to gobble up all the pellets given her. They do have one baby here at their centre, but again, really too far away to see with binoculars or to photograph.

From there I went to the Karen Blixen Home. The original house where she lived and what was used at the set for the movie "Out of Africa" is located on only a small fraction of the original 6,000 acres of her coffee farm. The house was restored for the movie back in the 1980's and has since been kept up as a National Landmark of Kenya.

When I arrived a young lady provided me with a brief tour of the single level home, complete with stories about Karen Blixen and her life in Kenya. No photos were permitted inside, so this exterior shot is about as good as I can provide here.

After lunch I enjoyed a visit at the elephant nursery that is operated by the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust just inside the Nairobi National Park border. Every evening at 5:00pm, donors and foster "parents" of the elephants and rhinos may make an appointment to visit for their return from the bush for their bottles and bedtime.

Elephants are milk dependent until around three years of age, and must eat every three hours. A couple of the babies laid right down for sleep, this one is Sities, an 18 month old that was orphaned at a mere seven weeks of age when her mother was killed for her ivory (illegal in Kenya and I believe all of Africa). Poaching is a big issue here, and results in many orphaned elephants and rhinos.