It was a very short night for sleeping but by 7am we were ready for our pickup by Vincent & Tony from Gamewatchers in the Norfolk Hotel Lobby for our early morning game drive in the Nairobi National Park - this is just 10 minutes from Nairobi's City Centre - well, it's 10 minutes on a Sunday morning when there are no traffic jams!
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| SPOONBILL |
Lots of Nairobi locals visit this park on the weekend and at 730am there were many private vehicles entering the park along with us and several other Tour Company safari vehicles. There were a few local Maasai warriors in their traditional red robes and beaded necklaces, head dresses, bracelets singing and posing for photos - for a small donation! There is also a Nyama Choma (Kenyan BBQ) restaurant and bar called RANGERS at the Park entrance - a pleasant quiet location for enjoying a meal overlooking the Park and watching for any animals wandering by. The park entrance fee for the day is $40USD for non Kenyan residents, and we soon had our tickets and were in the park looking for wildlife.
Nairobi National Park is a treasure with 117 sq km and a wide variety of animals. There are 3 distinct environments which replicate Kenya, each with the animals and birds that live in those areas - the savannah, the forests and the wet marshlands. Within 10 minutes Tony our driver guide, spotted a serval cat trotting down the trail - what a wonderful spot! In all our years visiting Kenya, we have seen so few serval cats and this was a beauty -with wonderful colouring but our sighting was short since the serval cat took off into the long grasses and was soon blending in so well he was hard to follow. The backs of his ears have bright white spots which look like eyes to confuse anyone trying to follow him! They can jump 6 feet straight up in the air and are excellent hunters
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| WHITE RHINO EATING GRASSES |
We spent until 1pm (over 5 hours) on the game drive and really enjoyed it. It was quite an amazing experience being in the wild with all the wonderful animals and birds, and at times we could see the high rises of Nairobi on the horizon. We saw lots of rhinos, both white and black, which was quite a bonus. The rhinos are rigorously protected by the KWS Kenya Wildlife Service since their horns are so valued by Asian markets and poaching is a huge problem. The animals we saw during the drive included; buffalo, cox harteebeest, male (black) and female (brown) ostrich, Burchill's zebra, Maasai giraffe, impala, Thompson and Grant's gazelle's, bush back antelope, hippos, crocodile, and vervet monkeys. Then there were the birds: white headed vulture, spoonbill, Egyptian geese with 5 babies, shrike, hammerkopf ( a small bird that builds himself a massive nest!), grey headed heron, red billed duck, superb starling (beautiful iridescent coloured feathers), and the blacksmith plover. There were lots of zebra and they wandered in a long line to walk into the lake and have a good drink, as well as roll in the dust on their backs kicking their legs and feet into the air to get rid of the various flies and bugs - in other words, a zebra bath! It's almost as if there is a sign since every zebra that took his bath took it at exactly the same dust spot! We also saw a beautiful gekko in an acacia tree - his brilliant blue head (which he can change the color at will) showing up against the green acacia leaves.
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| BURCHILL'S ZEBRA |
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| BUSH WALK JAN AND ERIC KWS RANGER |
We stopped for a bush walk with Eric, a tall KWS Park Ranger, and had the thrill of spotting a large rhino Momma and her tiny 3 day old baby in the river - just a quick look as Momma surfaced and looked at us, followed by two tiny little eyes and nose of the baby right afterwards! Along the river there were several acacia trees just flattened along the river banks - we asked Eric if this was due to the river flooding or elephants, who do a lot of damage to trees. Eric said that there are no elephants in the Nairobi National Park (elephants need too much space and cause conflict with the human population around the Park) and earlier this year in May there had been a huge flood and the river rose very fast and flooded which caused the acacia trees, which have a shallow root system, to be pushed over by the fast flowing water.
The scenery in and around the Nairobi Park is quite spectacular - to the West are the Ngong Hills (you may remember Meryl Streep in the Out of Africa movie and her love of the Ngong Hills). In the Maasai language Ngong means knuckles, and they look just like the knuckles on your hand, there are 7 knuckles as you look towards the Ngong hills. To the East of the Park are the Mua Hills, towards the town of Machakos. We were doing the game drive in a large safari jeep with 6 passenger seats (plus driver and guide) with an open roof - the day had started very cool and we were glad we had brought along a sweater but by 10:30am it was very warm and sunny and we certainly had pink noses and cheeks by the end of the day!
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| POACHED ELEPHANT TUSKS BEING BURNED IN KENYA |
A sober visit was to the memorial area in the Park where a massive stockpile of over 10 tons elephant ivory, valued at many millions of dollars, was burned by President Arap Moi in 1989 ago. This was to confirm Kenya's position against the illegal poaching of elephants in kenya and refusal to profit from ivory consficated in the recent years. An additional 5 tonnes of ivory were burned in 2011. Poaching of elephant ivory and rhino horns is a major ongoing issue in all of Africa due to the high demand and high prices that these items fetch in Asia.
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| NAIROBI TENTED CAMP LOUNGE TENT |
We visited the Nairobi Tented Camp which sits right in the Park, and about 5km (as the crow flies) from the Sheldrick Wildlife Trust. We called in around 1pm and had a brief tour of the 8 tents by the Camp Managers followed by a lovely light lunch (quiche, green salad, pasta salad followed by berry tart) efficiently served by John the Maasai waiter. The camp is very much like a Porini Camp with spacious but basic tents, and a large and open lounge tent and mess tent. The staff are all Maasai who are taught the skills needed to work in the camp. The location is peaceful and not for one minute do you feel that you are camping on the edge of the huge city of Nairobi. You can land at Nairobi International Airport and 30 minutes later be enjoying a drink under the stars with all the animal and bird sounds of the wild life around you sitting around the camp fire.
After lunch we exited the Park at the nearby Langata entrance in the district of Karen - this is the district where many of the popular destinations are located that tourists will visit while in Nairobi, the Sheldrick Wildlife Trust, Giraffe Centre, Kazuri Beads, Karen Blixen Museum, Matt Bronze Studio and many others. At the entrance the Park Rangers check you out after verifying your paperwork and passes to ensure that all is as it should be.
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| HEMINGWAYS NAIROBI |
Our last stop of the day was to meet up with James and Anne from the Hemingways Collection and see the new Hemingways Nairobi being built in Karen and due to open before the end of 2012. This is a very special property with 46 suites on 10 acres. The buildings footprint is just 2 acres with 8 acres left as gardens - this will be luxurious with every need anticipated and looked after before the clients even know what they want - put this on your bucket list when you next come to Nairobi! One amazing feature is the big screen TV in each room that majestically rises out of a large early 20's style travel trunk, and then disappears with the flick of the remote so that you can enjoy the uninterrupted view outside your window. Right next door is the Nairobi Polo Club with beautiful animals grazing serenely in their pens.
It was close to 5pm when we arrived back at the Norfolk after a very full and interesting day in Nairobi. After removing the dust of the day, we had a stroll over to the Thorn Tree cafe at the Stanley Hotel and enjoyed a dinner of Pili pili Tilapia fish, and Chicken Tikka - even though both of us kept falling instantly asleep at the table as jet lag caught up! There is a very strong Indian influence in Kenya, so lots of great curries and other dishes to be sampled.
We fell into bed before 9pm and were instantly asleep!
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