I’m a gal who loves words and these last few days have found me speechless, or maybe worse, pretending I speak Swahili…
Last we chatted our Monday plan was local sites in Nairobi. And so after a great buffet breakfast (good mix of local and traditional choices) we headed out to an elephant orphanage. As the pictures will show, we were right up close…a small rope separating us and 10 baby elephants. The orphanage helps babies without families due to natural (drought/famine) and not so natural (poachers) reasons. The care given to these elephants is extraordinary. Each has a handler who stays with them until they are ready to go back into the wild..and when I say, “stays with them”, the meaning is literal. Handler and elephant sleep together. The Mr. was very moved, maybe not moved enough to move into the shed, but impacted no doubt. In some ways these small orphan babies make out better than their human counterparts as they are fed, housed, and cared for; not a daily certainty for some citizens of Nairobi. Before I go deep, on we go to a giraffe sanctuary.
Oh wait, tourists from the orphanage are headed to see the giraffes, who wants to get caught up with that riff raff…let’s detour to an artists cooperative. Various artists and mediums…wood, beads, fabric, are represented under one roof and as we are learning, everyone shares part of their profits with the community at large. We descended like locusts and rummaged from room to room. At one point one of the African ladies sat down, exhausted, clearly we Americans do not understand pole pole..meaning, slowly. Negotiations complete, maybe a Tusker beer for good measure, we rerouted to the giraffe.
Not sure that my pictures will do it justice, but think Jurassic Park…big trees…and bobbing and weaving amidst the trees..giraffe. In my opinion, and it is my damn blog, these creatures scream darling. Those big eye lashes and the sweet face, wild animals no doubt, but I was swooning…and cannot imagine them in the true wild. 
From the giraffes, we split up, some went on to the Karen Blixen museum, some went back to the hotel. The driver who took we “Blixies” described it as “history stuff” when we asked what was there, and after our tour, Ryan noted, “that’s all you need to get a museum, be a failed coffee farmer?”. Both hilarious comments and astute analysis. I’m glad we went, Karen Blixen impacted the community (and a great role for Meryl Streep – not everyone gets to kiss Robert Redford) but the museum is not a must stop. Clearly time for that drink on the veranda!
Dinner was at a fabulous place called Tamarind; the kind of dinner when you switch seats, interrupt conversations, get loud, sing happy birthday to people you don’t know, and have a waiter who goes along for the ride. For dessert, each of our plates was personalized.
Mine…enough said.
And again we split up the group for the ride home, some went back to the hotel, some in search of bottled liquor reinforcements for our days ahead. Let me remind you, it is now 11:30pm-ish on a Sunday night in a predominantly Christian country. Where in the holy hell did we think we were sourcing booze. Use your imagination people, comical and crazy to say the least. The only thing more funny was the translation of, “no, not three shots, three bottles”.
Hooligans safely returned with thoughts of tomorrow.
Hope to see you along the way.