Nothing is cuter than baby elephants...

My boss and I unexpectedly had free time Tuesday morning, and decided to do a bit of sight-seeing around Nairobi. For such a large city, from which tourists head out in all directions for various safaris, I found that it has surprisingly few things to see and do. However, two of the things highly recommended (besides the Nairobi National park safari I did the day before) is the baby elephant orphanage and the giraffe sanctuary.










We first went to the baby elephant orphanage, which is formally called the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust. A British woman, the widow of David, began rearing orphaned elephants and other animals and spent 28 years perfecting a suitable milk formula and caretaking strategy to successfully rear baby elephants, which until the age of three are milk-dependant. Every day from 11am-12pm visitors are allowed to come and watch the babies get fed out of bottles while their caretakers talk about each of them and how they became orphans. There are currently 21 orphans under the age of 2 years at the orphanage. Once they reach the age of three, the caretakers begin the long process of introducing them to wild herds of elephants in other parks, with the hope that eventually (sometimes after a year or two) the herd will accept the young elephant into their family.






Us visitors gathered around a loosely fenced pen, and watched the keepers lead a long line of adorable baby elephants down from the forest where they were practicing foraging to the feeding pen. It was amazing how fast the babies could down the giant 2 litre bottles of milk. And it was amazing to see how close they were to their keepers- one female baby kept wrapping her trunk around her keepers arm and waist as he gave his (clearly rehearsed and memorized) monologue on information about the baby elephants. We supposedly got lucky with a “small” group of visitors since it was a working day. The babies were very pushy- pushing into each other and the keepers and clearly craving contact. We were able to touch them as they came up along the fences, and practiced drinking water from large wooden buckets. It was truly one of the most adorable things I’d seen, and I learned a lot from the keepers. For instance, about half of the orphans’ mothers were victims of poaching, but the other half had almost all fallen down various wells dug by humans in their first few days of life and were thus rescued.










From there we went to the Giraffe Centre, created by a Kenyan conservation organization to educate Kenyan children and other visitors about Kenya’s wildlife and environment. Here, visitors get to feed the endangered Rothschild giraffes cereal pellets and learn all about giraffes in a cute little wooden auditorium. Watching baby elephants and feeding giraffes was certainly a great way to spend the morning.

Nairobi National Park: Yeay Lion!

This morning I went on my final safari in Nairobi National Park, which, as it may sound, is literally butting up against the outskirts of Nairobi and offers a rare chance to see the outline of African animals with Nairobi high-rises behind them in the distance.

It's still a national holiday today for Easter, so there were very few other cars in the park. Unfortunately, it was a very cloudy morning and most of my pictures did not turn out very well, nonetheless, you can clearly make out the three new animals I was able to add to my list of those seen on safari: ostrich, rhino and Lion!







We were driving on the side of a hill looking down onto the plains, and my driver was saying how when you come upon a herd of zebras or impala and none of them are eating but all looking in the same direction, there is either a cheetah or lion there. Just then, we come around a bed and notice a herd of zebras all staring intently in one direction. Far off towards where they were looking, a herd of impala was staring nervously back in the direction of the zebras. And right in the middle of the two herds was a young lion, sitting there trying to figure out what to do. Clearly the lion was screwed, both herds were intently watching it. So finally it turned and made its way directly towards us and actually crossed right in front of us on the road and into the thick bushes on our right, where the rest of the pride must have been waiting.





The crazy thing about this was, the car stopped behind us had four tourists, and of course they decided to get out of the car to see the lion better. the occupants in the car in front of us and my driver all pleased with them to get back in, and finally, begrudgingly they did. When the lion passed the road and went into the bush, the bush starts literally on the side of the road, and it would have taken all of two seconds for one of its family members to have jumped out and attack the idiots standing outside their car. It reminded me of all the stories over the years of stupid tourists at Yellowstone National Park and Glacier National Park in Montana that had been killed because they tried to pet a buffalo or get up close to a moose or Grizzly. I guess anywhere in the world, there are stupid tourists to be found.





I was also very excited to see rhino and Ostrich, and I was surprised at how BIG they both are, even more so than they appear on TV. All in all I felt so lucky to have seen a lion, and also felt it was very special to be seeing rhinos at this park, as my parents were doing the exact same thing here in Nairobi around 32 years ago. I grew up watching the slide shows of my parents travels in Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and all through Africa. It is truly a dream fulfilled to be walking in my parents footsteps through Africa.




On the way back to my hotel, we drove past the entrance to Kibera, the famous giant slum of Nairobi. According to Wikipedia, Kibera (which is a Nubian word for forest or jungle) is a neighborhood and division of Nairobi, Kenya. It is the largest of Nairobi's slums, and the second largest urban slum in Africa, with a population estimated at between 600,000 and 1.5 million inhabitants, depending on the season. It is a little smaller than Central Park in New York City, but is home to more than a million people -- most of whom lack electricity and running water. Kibera accounts for less than 1% of Nairobi's total area, but holds more than a quarter of its population. Insane. Ban Ki-Moon visited Kibera, and Kibera has been the sight of an amazing amount of NGO work and research on public health topics ranging from sanitation to HIV to sex work.