By Ilene Cox

Africa is and always has been one of my favorite travel destinations.  I love animals and I love to see them in their natural surroundings.  With this said, I have to share with you my amazing trip to Africa this past August.  I have been on safari several times in the past eight years with my more recent trips to Botswana, Zimbabwe, Zambia and South Africa.  I had not been to East Africa for over 15 years and decided it was time for a trip to Kenya to see the Wildebeest migration and to Rwanda for a Gorilla trek. I started planning this trip in February 2010; July and August is peak season in Kenya, and the permits for Gorilla trekking are often sold out a year in advance.

In the past my safaris have all been animal related; seeing the “Big Five”, visiting large animal herds of elephants and zebra, finding packs of wild dogs and learning about the amazing variety of birds that are indigenous to the Africa continent.  This trip I wanted more --- I wanted to learn about the Maasai culture, so prominent in both Kenya and Tanzania.  I wanted to see camps that were ecologically friendly and camps that were concerned about wildlife conservation.  Of course, I also wanted to see “The Great Migration” where over a million Wildebeest and Zebra cross the Serengeti (Tanzania) into the Great Rift Valley to the fertile plains of the Maasai Mara (Kenya).

We started our trip in Nairobi, Kenya.  If you asked me to describe Nairobi in 25 words or less, I would say “traffic jams” (makes Cairo and Los Angeles look easy) and a city in desperate need of city planning.”  Even looking at a map doesn’t help!!!

When I was in Kenya 15 years ago I visited The Giraffe Center, an educational facility built to teach Kenyan school children about wildlife conservation and give tourists an opportunity to come into close contact with a giraffe and to actually be able to feed a wild animal.  The Center is located on the grounds of a family estate called Giraffe Manor, a large manor house turned into a boutique hotel in the 1930s with giraffes roaming freely and even sticking there heads in the front door or your bedroom window.  I had never seen anything like it and vowed that the next time I visited Kenya, I would stay at Giraffe Manor ---- and we did.

Amazing.  Giraffe Manor is the home of several Rothschild giraffes, a large family of wart hogs, and a small family of dikdik (very small antelopes).  The giraffes all have names and definite personalities and really do stick their heads in the windows when you are having breakfast or are right there when you open the front door.  The original manor house has six ensuite bedrooms and the Karen Blixen family unit that can sleep a family of five.  Recently, another small manor-style house was added to the property which has four ensuite double rooms and a large living room.  Reservations need to be made several months in advance (for a group of five or more rooms I would suggest making reservations 18 months to two years in advance).  The cost --- expensive; but it does include three wonderful meals daily including wine and mixed drinks, sundowners and appetizers on the Terrace and complementary laundry service.  Well worth the cost.

We spent two wonderful days at Giraffe Manor.  During our stay we visited an elephant orphanage which is part of The David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust.  Apparently, the Elephant culture is quite complicated and calves that are orphaned under the age of three have a low survival rate and were rarely able to be reintroduced into the wild.  Through the tireless efforts of Dame Daphne Sheldrick, the widow of David Sheldrick, they found a suitable milk formula for the very young calves and combined with a lot of TLC from their “keepers”, over 85 newborn and very young elephant orphans have been successfully reintroduced to the wild.  We visited the Nairobi nursery and it was fun watching several young elephants splashing in the mud pool and rolling in the dirt.

Another excursion was to the Kasuri Bead factory where ceramic beads, jewelry and pottery are handmade by women from the surrounding villages.  The beads are unique, all handmade and hand painted and strung together to make beautiful necklaces, bracelets and earrings.  I particularly liked the fact that the factory provides employment for so many women, mostly single mothers.  After the tour we all had fun shopping.  We definitely helped the local economy!!!

While in Nairobi we also visited the Karen Blixen Museum.  Karen Blixen was a Danish writer (also known by her pseudonym, Isak Dinesen) who lived in Africa for many years and became internationally known for her memoir, Out of Africa.   The movie version starring Robert Redford and Meryl Streep, definitely Romanized  Karen Blixen;s years living in Kenya along with the relationship between Karen Blixen and Denys Finch-Haton.  The museum features wonderful photographs from Karen Blixen’s early days and has several pieces of furniture from her original homestead as well as props from the movie. 

We all hated to see our time in Nairobi come to a close.  Giraffe Manor is fabulous and we all thoroughly enjoyed feeding the giraffes and relaxing on the beautiful terraces surrounding the manor house.  We were challenged getting to the airport because of the dreadful traffic but finally made it to Wilson Airport, the charter airfield, for our flight to our camp on the outskirts of Tsavo National Park in southern Kenya.

Join me next week at Campi ya Kanzi for our introduction to the Maasai culture and some really great Italian food.