Giraffes and mangoes (not a bizarre Kenyan recipe)

Today we had our first encounter with the famed Kenyan wildlife by visiting the Giraffe centre just outside Nairobi. The centre was created by do-gooder Americans to protect the dwindling number of Rothschild giraffes in the wild and now serves as a way of raising funds to keep introducing these giraffes back into the wild. Gareth was up at 7.30 this morning very excited but had to wait about three hours for our friends from across the city to join us (Nairobi traffic doesn’t let up much at weekends). We then took a matatu out to one of the posher parts of the city, where people live in gated communities within gated communities and all drive very big cars. Consequently we only had a cheese sandwich for lunch.Once in the centre the highlight is the feeding tower where you can go up to a giraffe’s head height and offer them some small brown pellets serving as food, which they greedily gobble up from your hand. They are beautiful, graceful animals and being able to get that close, the closest we will ever get to such wildlife, was fantastic. They have very long tongues and slobber quite a lot. Apparently you can feed them from mouth to mouth which Gareth says he might go back and do next time (it is very cheap for Kenyan residents which we handily qualify as). The giraffe safari walk that followed was a bit disappointing as the most exciting thing we saw was some giraffe footprints and some unidentifiable poo.

We ended our day scoffing down some gorgeous mangoes bought from a local market stall, the fruit and veg out here is so much more tasty than back home. I have asked Gareth if he will prepare some for me every morning for my breakfast as I am not a morning person. I think he is thinking about it……

Back into the work commute tomorrow and so looking forward to seeing what surprises the week will bring.