Karen and Carnivore

Embiggened as I was by getting the local bus from Nairobi airport, I decided to again get a local bus out to the Nairobi suburb of Karen. My main point of interest was the giraffe sanctuary there, but also the Karen Blixen house which the guidebook said was worth a visit.

I had a bit of trouble trying to figure out how on earth the local buses work here, as it's all a bit hectic and manic. But with the help of yet another friendly local we hopped on the right bus and headed off. Most people combine the giraffes and Blixen house on a half-day tour with one of the safari companies, but it all seemed to be quite straightforward to do it yourself, and we had a small map of Karen from the information office in the airport - but ominously it had no scale.

But the bus was nice and comfy and the friendly conductor guy said he'd tell us where to get off for the giraffe's, so I sat back and relaxed. As it turned out we passed right by the Karen Blixen place on the way, but I was more interested in the giraffe's anyway, and thought we could walk back afterwards, but it turned out that the scale of my little map was actually really small, and the giraffe's were miles away. Also, the conductor told us to get out at the wrong place, and we needed to continue walking for ages before we finally found it (more friendly locals needed to direct us).

But the place itself was brilliant. It's actually quite small, but very nicely built, all in natural woods and outdoorsie. They had 12 giraffes there and a few warthogs, which I can only assume were there to provide a startling degree of contrast to the gorgeously graceful giraffes - Jasus but those poor buggers surely must be the ugliest on gods green earth, he must have a lost a big bet with the devil or something the day he created them.

But the best thing is that you can feed the giraffes yourself, and hug them and pet them and just really interact with them. They seem to have eyes the size of tennis balls (googley reference there) and an amazingly relaxed, calm nature - I could have stayed there all day!

On the bus on the way back to Nairobi we passed a sign for the famous Carnivore restaurant. Again, this is something that more tourists do as part of a package, or else charter a taxi at extortionate rates - but here we were passing right past it on the number 24 bus which cost us 20 cent each. So right there was our plan for the following morning and afternoon - we'd get the same bus again, hop off at the Karen Blixen house for a gander, catch the next bus and hop off at Carnivore for lunch, and catch the bus again to get home. And that's exactly what we did... half-day package trips me arse.