Today was like a day at Disney: crowded, but delightful. We loaded our bags in the van for the final time and headed to Nairobi National Park. The queue to enter the park was a mess. Even with advanced reservations the employees were manually recording information. Thankfully, everyone spread out once past the gate.
For being directly next to the city, Nairobi National Park is big: over five times larger than Forest Park in Portland, or for my Canadian friends, just under 2/3 the area of Salt Spring Island.
The park is sparsely populated compared to other areas we’ve been. We drove a while without seeing much, then serendipity paid a visit when we were one of two vehicles to see two white rhino grazing right by the track. Leaving after other vehicles start to arrive, we then came upon three black rhino. Black rhino can be quite aggressive, and they left in a hurry when some vehicles tried to get too close. I wish more people would use binoculars instead of trying to film with their cellphones. (Yes, I know, easy for me to say with the long lens, but getting too close isn’t safe for the animals or people, and it spoils the the encounter for everyone else!)
We spent the rest of the time cruising for birds. Our luckiest find was a secretary bird making a nest at the top of an acacia tree. It was hilariously awkward.
The event Soren has most anticipated is the feeding of young orphaned elephants at the Sheldrick Wildlife Trust. It is open to the public from 11-12 every day. We had reservations as it is generally very popular, but once again the entry process was slow. Thankfully Stanely’s persistence got us in on time. The elephants were a delight. Nothing but joy can come from watching elephants drink from bottles and then slop around in mud. A+
Afterward we had some tasty food at a food truck, then headed to the Giraffe Center. This was another experience that was incredibly crowded, but I’m so happy we did it! Each person is given a little cup of pellets and then you feed them one-by-one to giraffes. One giraffe tried to eat straight from my cup when I wasn’t looking and another shaped its tongue into the perfect pellet receptacle.
To finish our time off Stanely took us to a couple of fancy malls. Both required passing through metal detectors for entry, probably due to the 2013 mall terrorist attack that left 71 dead. One had great ride-on toys for kids plus zip lines at different heights. If we were self-driving I probably would’ve done something else, but the malls were a nice low-key way to keep us occupied.
Our flight left at midnight so we arrived at the airport with several hours to spare. Security was tedious. First we had to get out of the van and go through a metal detector while the van was inspected. After saying farewell to Stanely and before checking in, we entered a long outdoor queue to have our luggage screened and passed through another metal detector. After checking in, there was yet another luggage screening and body scan before getting to the gate. To top it off, apparently Amsterdam doesn’t trust incoming flights, because we had to have the luggage re-scanned and go through yet another body scan (plus pat down) to transfer to our final flight.
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