Giraffe feeding

---

After a long day of traveling we finally arrived in Nairobi very jet-lagged and tired, so it was a huge relief to be met by our driver to take us to our destination. We are staying with family in Kenya and are being very well looked after. From staying in cockroach-ridden flea-pits, it was heaven to arrive in a beautiful house in gorgeous settings, with clean sheets and hot water.

Our first day was spent sleeping and catching up. I cannot begin to describe how good it was to eat home cooked food and sleep in a clean, comfortable bed. Also the biggest of all luxuries, a long, hot bath.

The biggest attraction in Kenya is obviously the wildlife. We planned to spend the day visiting some of the sights around Nairobi so first stop the elephant sanctuary. The sanctuary is the only one of its kind in Kenya, I don’t know about the rest of Africa and is only open for one hour a day between 11-12. They rescue abandoned and orphaned baby elephants and re-habilitate them to be released back in the wild. We saw twelve baby elephants at feeding time and were given a huge amount of information about the animals and how they work to release them.

One story almost made me cry about an elephant they found whos mum had been killed by poachers (yes the ivory trade is still alive and well). As elephants are very sociable animals the baby elephant was so lonely that he was found tagging along with a herd of cows. It has a happy ending though as he looks well now and is being looked after by the lovely people at the sanctuary.

The elephants are fed sma baby milk as they cannot digest cows milk. This is a costly business as a young baby elephant drinks thirty pints a day! It was great watching the elephants who were adorable and its nice to see the good work they do there. They also had two baby black rhinos but they have to be locked away when visitors come as they are not so friendly. Looking through the fence at one of them he looked like he could, and would kill us if given the chance.
I was shocked to hear that poaching is still a problem, who actually buys ivory nowadays? Although I am reassured that its not as big a problem as it once was and there are lots of things in place to put an end to it.

Next stop was the Karen Blixen museum which is the house that she lived in surrounded by beautiful gardens and a very overpriced restaurant. Karen Blixen was a painter, writer and plantation owner, most famous for “Out of Africa”. Not having read the book or seen the film it went a little bit over my head but we had a friendly guide who filled us in.

The gardens are used for events and things and whilst we were there a wedding was taking place. We were walking past when the bride arrived and it looked like so much fun. She had to dance down the aisle with all the women following her whilst the men sang. A little bit like the end scene in dirty dancing. Loads of fun.

From there we went to the giraffe sanctuary where you can get up close and personal with them. There is a platform where you feed them pellets which they eat out of your hands. The guard convinced us that it was a good idea to put one of the pellets between our lips so that the giraffe will give you a kiss. Their saliva is anti-bacterial I was told but it still isn’t very nice when they slober all over your face with their tongue. Not an experience I want to repeat. Steve however seemed to like it.

The giraffe is an amazing animal and so cute. They have huge eyes with big fluttery eyelashes and goofy faces. They can grow to eighteen feet, that’s three times the size of Steve! When the babies are born they are already five feet tall, can you imagine giving birth to something that big? Also snuffling about by their feet were some warthogs who are surprisingly cute.

We had a great day and were left eager to see some animals in the wild.

---

Comments

[tanya tribbell]

karen blixen
its odd you saying about that karen, i found the book out of africa on the train one daty, i havn't read much of it though....