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Published: March 24th 2014
Back to Nairobi again and this time I went out for a day seeing the local wildlife. The hotel organised a mini van for us, felt like we were off on a safari. We went first to a baby elephant orphanage which is called the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trusts' Orphans Project. You pay a small donation on entry and can bring SMA milk. The elephants can only have this particular milk as they would not survive from having cows milk. From 10am til 11am is visiting hours and you can see the elephants being fed. The elephants literally come pounding down the hill from their sleeping pens and head straight to a milk bottle. They are massive and each elephant downs two bottles each. They are so playful, and will come over to where your standing to be petted. One of the smallest ones actually knocked one of the girls I was with over, was pretty hilarious to be there at the time. We got to see two different groups of about 15 elephants being fed. Whilst we were playing with them, we were told about how these elephants came to be here and how the trust works. Most of the
elephants have lost their mothers due to ivory poaching, it is so sad and horrific. The elephants stay at this orphanage up until the age of about 3, then they are taken to a national park and gradually adapted into the wild, then finally released. It really is amazing what they do here for these lovely animals. After here we drove over to the giraffe sanctuary. At this site you stand up on a high balcony area where the giraffes will come right up to you and you can feed them. They have these huge grey, long tongues which feel so weird when they lick your hand but its so cool. It's a done thing to get a giraffe kiss - where you put one of the food pellets between your lips and the giraffe will lick it from your face. I had been before and chickened out but this time I went for it. Pretty scary at first, but then its like going on a roller coaster - once you go on one once you want to do it again and again. The giraffe that we were feeding was called Stacey. She must have been wondering what was going
on with all the squealing from us but she was just enjoying being fed. They are so gorgeous these animals, could have stayed here all day! Such a fantastic experience!
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Tracy
non-member comment
Sounds like an amazing trip!! Loved your face when the Giraffe was getting ready to kiss you:)