(Southern Sun, Nairobi) to the shady restaurant. There we had a nice, lazy breakfast watched over by tall, smiling chefs in white hats. They food included everything that you could ever wish for for breakfast and a whole lot of other things as well including sweetcorn fritters, savoury rice and slices of corned beef fried like bacon. This hotel really feels like a peaceful oasis and the staff are very friendly and efficient. There were an awful lot of business people, both African and European there who were clearly having business meetings and it appears that Kenya has a thriving business environment.
Stephen spent the morning taking photos of the garden while I wandered about trying to identify all the unusual plants in the lovely gardens. I really wanted to see if I could spot any of the little singing frogs that I had heard the night before so I lurked around the fishpond for a while but they must have all been sleeping.
At 1.30 our guide from Roy Safaris arrived to take us to some places we wished to visit. His name was Moses and soon we were finding our way through the noodly traffic chaos of Nairobi. We went nearer the city centre and saw quite a lot of construction going on and passed some really nice parks full of beautiful, huge trees and extravagant tumbles of bouganvillia and other tropical climbers.They are building a skyscaper for the Inland Revenue Department and another one for the ministers of parliament. But, there are not nearly enough lanes or traffic lights on the motorway and not enough footpaths. I think we have similar problems in New Zealand.
We passed by lots of private schools which were all quite fancy and were surrounded by fences. There are two official languages in Kenya, one is English and the other in Swahili. They must have really good teachers here because everyone here speaks English exceptionally well.
Moses drove us past lots of mansions where rich people live but they were hard to see as they are all hidden away behind tall walls, and are surrounded by large gardens with hectares of lawn and gorgeous, glossy towering trees.
Soon we arrived at Kazuri, which is a pottery bead making company which employs mostly women. We had a tour through the factory and looked at all the ladies moulding, carving and painting the beads. I couldn't decide which was more colourful, the ladies or the beads they were making. This is a very good business as it provides employment, sickness benefits and a pension scheme for women who otherwise would have no income.
Next, we moved on to Karen Blixen's place. She is the lady who wrote a story about her life (autobiography) and called it Out of Africa. No-one who has read her book or watched the movie made from her book will ever forget it. The first line of her book is so famous: I had a farm in Africa, at the foot of the Ngong Hills. Ngong is Swahili for knuckles and when you look up at the Ngong Hills they really do look just like your knuckles when you clench your fists. So, we got to go and look at at her house and see the gardens (which are lovely). She is very famous and well-loved in Kenya because she did so much for the people who worked for her.
Next, we went to the Giraffe Sanctuary and got to feed and stroke lots of enormously tall giraffes. This was quite fun to do but I really did not like their long, blue tongues all that much.
The next place we visited was the Davis and Daphne Sheldrick orphanage for baby elephants. Here they raise baby elephants who have been found alone in the bush. Usually this is because their mothers have been killed. They look after the elephants and teach them how to be elephants and after a few years years they are released into the bush. I can't tell you how cute they were!
Here is a link to a video of the baby elephants coming home from their day in the bush.Their keepers bring them back to their pens each night to keep them safe and when they get close they all start running as they know it is time for their drink of milk. The man in the cream vest in the video is my husband. He is a very enthusiastic photographer.
After that it was back to the hotel to have a nice dinner and go to bed early because we had to be up at the crack of dawn the next day to catch our plane to Tanzania as our next place to visit was the Ngorogoro Crater.
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