Kenya 2023: Chapter 5 - No Food, No Friendship

Paul suggested we visit the nearby Giraffe Center. The Center, along with the Sheldrick Elephant Sanctuary, were on our radar. Sheldrick offers one daily tour to feed and engage with baby elephants but had booked up very early. The Giraffe Center seemed too touristy for our tastes, but once we were in the area with no other plans than to sit at the hotel, we agreed. Paul gets a bonus for bringing tourists and he paid our entrance fee. 

The Center was founded in 1979 by a Kenyan of British descent and his American wife who sought to aid conservation efforts for the Rothschild giraffes. Its location on the western edge of Nairobi National Park means that wild giraffes, although habituated to humans, wander into and out of the property. Each visitor is given a half coconut of feed pellets and can walk out on an elevated platform. Up here, the long, sticky, slimy tongues of the giraffes caress your hand in search of a little bite to each. However, food equals friendship. Greg was nearly head-butted by a female because he was in the way and had no food. 

After purchasing some items at the gift shop, we headed up the road to the Birds of Paradise curio shop. There, in a more organized manner, were many of the same items we had seen at the Maasai market the day before. A young girl with her hair in a frizzy bun and a denim skirt became our guide to the shop. She loved that Ed spoke Swahili and they traded some information about kids. She wanted to know how long Ed had been living in Kenya and was completely floored to find out he does not. She beamed with pride and as we went into other parts of the shop, Ed was paraded before her coworkers. Once again, pricing is completely negotiable, and we paid for our souvenirs at much more reasonable prices.

 Paul returned us to the hotel at 13:00 without incident and we had lunch of coriander rice, crumbed fish, chicken tikka, potato wedges, ugali, and chapati. An afternoon nap took the edge off the deepening exhaustion that we were experiencing. Dinner was at the rooftop bar called Tazama (Watch, in Swahili). There, our bartender informed Ed that his Swahili was very good and that it was a very distinct coastal dialect from Mombasa. 

 We spent the rest of the evening prepping and repacking gear for the start of the safari the next day.