And Now For Something Completely Different

Our journey into some of the more depressing areas of Eastern Africa took up Friday and Saturday, leaving us with Sunday to process it all.  A few of the other volunteers and I decided that we needed something tangible to do rather than just sit around feeling depressed and guilty so we took Kush (works for Fadhili, the organization we’re working for in Kenya) up on his offer to drive us around to visit the various animal sanctuaries and other attractions to be found in Nairobi.  In hindsight it perhaps would have been better to have found our own way around as we each had to pay 1100Ksh ($11 ish) to the driver, but it was an all day excursion and finding buses to take out to the outskirts of Nairobi and then back to downtown would have been kind of a pain.

We started by visiting a giraffe sanctuary somewhere near the middle of nowhere at the very edges of the city proper.  Of all the animal sanctuaries we visited, this was the best.  We got to get really close to the giraffes and even got to kiss them (most action I’ve had in months, shit).  Now of course I mean we just fed them pellets from our mouths.  There was no bestiality, don’t worry (ok minimal bestiality).  For sure reason the ATM didn’t let me take cash out that morning which was kind of a pain because the gift shop had some really cool souvenirs at surprisingly cheap prices. I had my eye on a chess set but that turned out to be $120, woah fuck off.  Everything else was reasonable however, but, alas, I did not have cash to throw around.  I’ll be back though, and I did manage to get some shopping done at the Masai market later in the day, so it’s all good.

Next was an elephant/rhino sanctuary.  I think that it’s probably a really cool place but it was super crowded and the hordes of people took away from the experience a bit.  We arrived right at feeding time, which might have had something to do with the crowd, but it was still cool to see.  This place was a sanctuary for animals that had been orphaned by poachers and for me, it was really interesting/disturbing to read some of the facts they had posted.  Long story short: fuck poachers.  Fuck them in their greasy little faces.  Anyway, we stayed for long enough to see the elephants getting fed and to check out the baby rhino for a bit, but we all agreed that it wasn’t that exciting there and left pretty quickly.  I did, however, get to see an American woman argue with someone in the gift shop area about the exchange rate of the Kenyan Shilling to the American Dollar which was pretty entertaining.  She was getting royally screwed, which was kind of sad to see from a staff member of an otherwise excellent organization, but she had the good sense to walk away.  I mean come on dude, you work for a group of people who rescue animals orphaned by poaching, show some morality.  

The next stop was a sanctuary for crocodiles and a few other random animals (a couple camels, an ostrich, and a giraffe).  This place was really expensive and, honestly, I didn’t feel too good about being there.  It felt like less of a sanctuary and more of a zoo.  Our tour guide (who we didn’t need really) kept poking the sleeping crocodiles to make them react.  It was cool seeing them snap at the stick or whatever but honestly it kind of pissed me off.  That was short lived though so I didn’t have to make an ass of myself by saying something.   On the other side we got to hold a baby crocodile, which was sketchy as hell.  I had to make sure to keep my thumb right on top of his head so he didn’t try to bite my hand off, and I have no doubt in my mind that he easily could have.  He didn’t seem to mind us handling him so I felt ok about that, but all things considered I definitely wish that they didn’t mess with the animals there just for the tourist’s amusement.  I mean, seeing dozens of full-sized crocodiles from five feet away is exciting enough, I don’t need them getting pissy with the guides just for my entertainment.   We took a tour around the rest of the park where we were pressured to ride a camel for 200Ksh.  We passed because, uh, yeah who cares.  If I’m going to ride a camel (which I wouldn’t anyway) I’d do it across a desert on an epic journey or something, not for a few minutes around a dinky little pond.  The pond in question was shaped like Africa though so that’s pretty cool I suppose.  As the tour came to an end I was a little worried that our guide was going to ask for a tip.  Now this would have been insanely awkward because we paid 800Ksh each to get in which was way too much to begin with, so I was not about to tip this guy.  Thankfully he didn’t and we moved on.

After lunch we headed into the heart of downtown Nairobi to see the Masai market and the monkey park.  Those who have been following my posts will have read about my first experience in the Masai market and how pushy the people were, leading to an ultimately unsatisfactory visit.  Well I was ready for it this time and managed to get rid of the overly polite, self-proclaimed “tour guides” rather quickly and had a much more pleasant time as a result.  I even bought some stuff.  I guess I can’t say what because they’re Christmas presents but let me just say that I got a good haul.  The biggest thing I bought was from this hilarious older man who was fat and needed a cane to walk.  Paddy did most of the haggling as he had his eye on the same thing but it was still quite fun.  He had a great attitude about haggling prices, unlike most of the proprietors who acted offended when you tried to low-ball them.  At the end, we each ended up paying 750Ksh for the item(s) in question, down from 2500.  Not bad, but we definitely could have done better.  There was a woman on the opposite side of the market who we had worked down to 500 for virtually the exact same item, but this guy was sweet and we wanted to give him our business.  That’s the thing that these people don’t realize (oh god “these people” sounds so racist, not what I mean though) about interacting with us mzungus: at the end of the day, we’d rather give our cash to someone who is genuine and enjoyable to do business with.  Sure, we could have saved a couple of bucks by buying the pieces from that other woman, but she was a bitch and rubbed us the wrong way.  So, no moolah for her.  Live and learn (except they don’t, and the same people who were over-the-top pushy will be just as pushy the next time around).  Overall, trip number two to the Masai market was a success.

Our last stop of the day was to the monkey park, an open space where you can hang out with monkeys and feed them peanuts in the heart of downtown Nairobi.  I thought it would be a big enclosure or something but no, it was just a park where monkeys hang out.  They’re free to come and go as they please.  We each bought two small bags of peanuts at 20Ksh at the entrance and headed in to the park.  Now, monkeys are smart, really really smart.  I was warned that they recognized the packaging of the peanuts but was still played like a fool.  After about two minutes, I was out of peanuts.  One guy stole my entire second package within the first thirty seconds.  They’re sneaky man, I tell you.  Regardless, it was still a lot of fun and I will definitely be back.  We spent fifteen minutes or so hanging out with the monkeys, trying to get them up on our shoulders with varying levels of success.  We all would have loved to have spent longer there but Kush and the driver were getting antsy and so we had to leave.  It kind of pissed me off to be honest; we each paid them 1100Ksh (five of us) so we should have been allowed to take our time.  I will go back later though without guides and spend a couple hours there.

So, that’s Sunday.  Not as exciting as Friday and Saturday, I’ll grant you that, but it was nice and low-key which was just what we all needed.  All in all, it was an absolutely exhausting weekend but I’ve never experienced so much in such a little time.  I feel that, between seeing the slums for a couple of days and hanging around Nairobi for a day, I saw the real Kenya.  It’s an interesting country to say the least, and one with numerous problems plaguing it. 

This next weekend I will hopefully be climbing Mt. Kenya so the next post should be pretty cool (I hope).  I don’t have the money to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro (the cheapest I could find was $1200, no thanks) but apparently Mt. Kenya is almost at big and really underrated so I’m happy about that.

As always, I hope you enjoyed my ramblings.  Until next time my peoples. Thanks for reading.