Trav's Travels: Nairobbery and National Museums of Kenya

On Friday, August 9th, I had to head to Nairobi (Nairobbery as it is known to some folk at Mpala) to get started on and arrange for experts to ID my insects. We caught a ride into Nairobi with Pat and Tyler's gf who were leaving. Traffic was crazy though as the drive which usually takes 4 hours took nearly 8 hours.

On Saturday we walked to the museum to drop off my specimens and meet with Laban the head of invertebrate zoology. We had packaged up all my insects and tied the boxes together as they are actually quite fragile. As we walked from the hotel to the museum, our boxes attracted quite a bit of attention (or maybe it was just Mzungus walking in the city...as is the case with my travel life in general, locals are always surprised that the supposed rich white person is walking everywhere... actually just this trip when it was raining, neither the doorman of the hotel, nor the security guard at gate 1 nor the security guard at gate 2 could possibly believe we wouldn't take a taxi to the museum instead of walking in the rain). But it was funny b/c the boxes initially looked like pizza boxes, but then when strapped up, they looked like special cake deliveries.

We only met with Laban in the morning and then in the afternoon we explored Nairobi (on foot of course). Walked downtown and saw some of the important buildings. Really nothing too interesting. Nairobi is probably one of my least favorite cities. Smoggy, polluted, super busy, no good cheap street food. But we went to the "Maasai Market" in one of the big squares and haggled really hard for some good souvenirs and gifts for our families. Having lived here, Elisha and I are pretty adept and bargaining, and I think we get quite good deals. Actually, one of my bargaining tactics here (besides not being too interested in the product) is to let them know I live in Kenya, that I've been here for a while, and that I know what prices should be and to just skip with the Mzungu price.

We had Sunday off to continue our exploration of Kenya. We considered heavily going to Nairobi national park (this is the one main, and it's huge, redeeming quality of Nairobi). The park is home to black rhinos, lions, leopards, cheetahs, and the whole range of herbivores. We were pretty close to pulling the trigger to go, but the cost just kind of held us back. So instead we took a bus to Karen, which is a suburb of Nairobi named after the famous Karen Von Blixen, the author of Out of Africa (well her pen name was Isak Dinesen). This was my 2nd adult classic type book (the first being Moby Dick) and it was one of the reasons I continued falling in love with East Africa and where a lot of the images in my mind of what E. Africa is like came from. Karen is on the complete opposite spectrum of Nairobi central. It's lush and green with nice air. It's full of rich expats with gorgeous mansions built on huge pieces of land.

In Karen is the Giraffe Manor, which is a mansion on a huge piece of property that is run by the African Fund for Endangered Wildlife. As two of the species of giraffe (reticulated and rothschild) are highly endangered, it is a breeding (and educational) center for giraffes who are later released into the wild in national parks. At the Giraffe Centre, you can go up onto platforms so that you are eye-level with giraffes and you can feed and pet them. They have the craziest tongues. So long and dextrous like fingers. If you put the treats in your mouth, some of the giraffes will also kiss you as they take the treat. So we had a lot of fun there. We also did a short nature walk that ended in a view of the Ngong hills which is one of the places that Karen von Blixen spent a lot of time at.

On Monday, I spent the whole day at the museum working on ID'ing insects and coordinating insect ID. I also attended a small conference/seminar on pollination that happened to be going on there at the time. Kath and Gavin arrived later in the afternoon and I also met with them.

Tuesday was the sad day. We went to the museum (in the rain) to finish up there and have a meeting with Kath and Gavin and a museum administrator. I then had to say goodbye to Elisha :( as she was flying home. Kath was also flying back to the UK, so Gavin and I took a van back to Mpala that afternoon.