Out and about near Nairobi – 12 June 2010

Our final day in Nairobi was spent with a driver taking us to the Elephant Orphanage and the Giraffe Centre. Even after seeing the real animals in the wild, this was a different look at these animals.

The baby elephants have been rescued from different situations, and are raised here until they are able to be released back into the wild. The keepers sleep with the babies, feed them every 3 hours, night and day, from large elephant sized bottles, help them throw dust over themselves. In fact, they teach the baby elephants everything they would normally learn from their mothers.

The Giraffe Centre was a close up look at five giraffes. A tall viewing platform allows visitors to feed the giraffes with animal pellets. The sight of a slobbering giraffe up close, is a bit daunting, but in the informative lecture given in the Centre, we learnt that giraffe saliva it a very effective antiseptic and antibiotic. So there is no danger posed to those hardy souls who opt to feed the giraffes mouth to mouth!! However reassured, we still washed our hands after the giraffes had slobbered over them.

We then asked the driver to take us to a shopping centre, to visit their Saturday market. It's not a large market, but we all found items that we wanted to purchase.

The real highlight of the day was dinner at the Carnivore Restaurant This is rated in the guide book we had, as one of the top 50 restaurants in the world. It was certainly a fun experience. A set price covers a three course meal, the feature of which is the main course, where a constant round of waiters offer different meats cooked on the open circular fire. The meats ranged from lamb, pork, chicken and beef to crocodile, camel and ostrich meatballs. The meat is brought to the table on swords or skewers and carved directly onto your plate. The salad for seven of us was the size of a salad for one at a normal restaurant. This is definitely not a place for vegetarians, but for the carnivores, it's a really fun experience.