AFRICA - Nov 13, 2010

This morning we left Nairobi to go on the actual safari part of our trip. This is the jeep and driver that we had for the first few days of the trip. Because we would be traveling with 6 people in this jeep and be gone for 6 days we had to travel light. We left our main luggage in storage at the hotel and packed a duffel to take for the remainder of the trip.
One thing about Nairobi is the traffic. It was terrible. It moved very slowly, they had progressed in ownership of cars faster than the road projects could keep up. Certain times of the day and areas of the city it seemed to not be moving at all. There were no sidewalks, just dirt or mud where the people walked and set up businesses. These next two pictures give you an idea of how it was all over town.
As we left Nairobi the landscape was beautiful. there were lots of nurseries and interesting trees everywhere. There was beautiful landscaping everywhere. The central part of Kenya is all at high altitude and the weather is very pleasant. Where the soil is good the people grow everything....vegetables, coffee, tea, cacao, bananas, pineapples. There are tons of floral greenhouses ( it is the second largest exporter of flowers globally). Where the soil is not good for growing they use it for grazing animals.

From Nairobi we headed to Abedare National Park. We stopped at the country club for lunch and to leave our luggage again. We were to spend the night in a place called The Ark(which I will talk about next post). The Ark has very small rooms and we were told we could only take a backpack with the few essentials for overnight with us. So it was arranged for us to leave our bags at the country club.
The view of the valley from here was amazing, and the landscaping was beautiful.
Here we saw our first "pumba" warthogs. This mother and babies were right beside the road. Of course we saw many more later in the trip.
After lunch, we boarded our jeeps and headed to "The Ark" for a chance to see animals at night.

AFRICA - Fri. Nov. 12, 2010 Part 2

After lunch we visited Kazuri. the word means "small and beautiful" in Swahili. It began as a tiny workshop experimenting in making handmade beads. It started with two African women but the founder realized that there were many other single mothers and women in the villages around Nairobi that needed work. So it grew to quite a large workforce. It is mostly a charitable organization that supplies work for these women in the villages.
All the beads are made by hand in this workshop.
Here are two of the women working on making beads. The women were all very happy and seemed to love their work.
This woman was putting the wires of hand made beads in a kiln to be fired.
Off to the side was a smaller workshop that make Potteryware. They make and hand paint dishes and vases and all sorts of pottery. These people were very friendly and welcoming of our visit.Next we went to the David Sheldrake Elephant Orphanage. This place rescues baby elephants that have been orphaned for whatever reason and raises them to return to the wild. They have keepers that stay with the elephants 24/7, that includes sleeping with them. Each day they are fed from a bottle in addition to foraging for food. We got the opportunity to feed them.

They take about a quart bottle of milk and guzzle it down in about 10 seconds. Then they want more. They are so cute, very friendly, but quite large for babies. Most of the ones we fed were about 1 year old. They try to return them to the wild as soon as they are able to take care of themselves.

Here is a picture of the bottles ready to feed the elephants when they come in.
This is one of our group feeding an elephant. They really come after the bottles.
Here I am petting one while it was being fed. They have fairly tough skin with very stiff bristly hair.
After they finish the bottles they begin to forage on the bushes around them.
They also made it possible to adopt baby elephants. When you adopt they send you updates on its progress towards release and also pictures that you can enjoy of your elephant. This helps with the cost of running this organization.

Then we returned to the hotel for the evening and to prepare for leaving on safari the next day. This was to be our last night in a regular hotel until we returned to Nairobi. Here are a couple of pictures of the hotel we stayed at and the grounds. Everything was very lush and beautiful.

This tree had a cactus intertwined with it that Mike was completely fascinated with.

AFRICA - NOV 2010

Finally I am starting my Africa trip. It was an amazing trip and we enjoyed ourselves very much. I had wanted to go on Safari in Africa since I was a little girl, so I was very excited to take this trip.

We arrived in Nairobi, Kenya on November 11, 2010, check into our hotel and got a briefing as to what to expect for the rest of our trip. The next day Friday, November 12, 2010 was a free day. There was an optional tour offered of Nairobi that we decided to take. We are really glad that we did as we saw things we would not have seen on our own.

The pictures from this day are ones that Mike took. Unfortunately, or rather stupidly, I erased the entire first days pictures from my camera. We are glad that we each had a camera so that we at least had the pictures that Mike took.

The first thing on our tour of Nairobi was to the Rothchild Giraffe shelter and breeding farm. These giraffes are one of 3 types of giraffes but they are the only ones that are endangered. The Rothchild family set up this farm to try to save these beautiful animals.

When we arrived there were a number of school groups there on field trips. They were so cute and so well behaved. when they walked they held onto each other so as not to get separated. As you can see in this first picture we also took Flat Stanley along for the trip thanks to our grandson, Kenny.
There was a platform where you could feed the giraffes. They were so soft and so gentle. It was really fun to see them up close.
After we left the giraffe farm, we went to visit the Karen Blixen home. This is the author of the book "Our of Africa". She is an English lady who went to Africa with her husband to start a coffee plantation. The home was beautiful as were the grounds.
Following the home we went to a restaurant associated with the coffee plantation and had a delightful lunch.

Tomorrow I will tell about the afternoon where we feed baby elephants and visited a bead factory.