How to...be a tourist in Nairobi

We hired a driver for the day and visited some of Nairobi's key tourist attractions.

At the giraffe centre we stroked and fed giraffes from a raised platform.

These giraffes (Daisy, Stacey, Lynne and Ed) were quite friendly and had very long tongues! The giraffes here are a type rarer than some of the others in Africa and the centre started as a breeding centre. Now their main objective is to provide conservation education for Kenyan school children. The money from entrance fees funds these education programmes.

The elephant orphanage rescues baby elephants from across Kenya who have been orphaned, mainly by poaching. We visited at feeding time.

 

 

An art gallery, a craft shop and lunch at Karen (Out of Africa) Blixen's coffee gardens and we felt like true tourists.

One of the last places we visited was Kazuri bead factory. Kazuri means 'small and beautiful' in Swahili and their handmade beads and jewellery live up to the name. We had a tour round the workshop which employs local women. We saw how they make the beads from clay, paint and glaze them and make them into necklaces, bracelets and earrings.

The beads are exported around the world and sold with expensive fairtrade labels. I cut out the 'middle man' and bought some beads at the factory shop!