The majority of tourists visiting Kenya do not want to spend much time in Nairobi. They arrive at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, check into a hotel, sleep a night and the following day they go directly to the safari parks, and the city is just a nuisance of a gateway between the airport and the wildlife. I can see the urge well enough – after all, they went to see elephants and open skies, not traffic and shopping malls. To write off Nairobi that fast is to miss one of the most interesting, most multifaceted, and most genuinely surprising African cities.
I was born here. I was brought up in these streets, I was fed in these markets, I was schooled in these neighbourhoods. And still I have new things to love about this city whenever I come back after being away. Nairobi is an anarchic and imaginative and very alive in a way that no safari park can ever imitate and it should not be just a one night stopover.
A national park within the city.
We may begin with the most remarkable fact about Nairobi, that which never leaves first-time visitors in mid-sentence: the city has an entire national park within its borders. Nairobi National Park is only seven kilometres away in the central business district and within its 117 square kilometres, there are lions, cheetahs, rhinos, giraffes, buffalo, zebra, wildebeest, and more than 400 species of birds all in clear view of the city skyline. The sight of a giraffe walking majestically over the plain with office towers in the background is one of the most surreal and uniquely Nairobian images in the entire continent of Africa and something that I never underestimate regardless of how many times I view it.
Nairobi National Park morning game drives are superb and the park is much cheaper to access compared to the major safari destinations that are far away. It is not an alternative to the Masai Mara, but as a city stopover or a brief stay in Nairobi, it is an amazing and readily available wildlife experience. The Kenya Wildlife Service has direct entry fees and visiting information.
The Sheldrick Wildlife Trust elephant orphanage.
One of the most touching and popular wildlife experiences in Kenya is located on the border of Nairobi National Park. Since 1977, the Sheldrick Wildlife Trust has been rescuing and rehabilitating orphaned elephants and other wildlife, and the Nairobi Nursery is the center of their activities as well as a tourist attraction, with one hour of free time every day. Young elephant orphans (some of them just weeks or months old) also come out during the visiting hour to feed and play, under the watchful eye of the keepers who essentially act as their surrogate families.
It is both heart-rending and joyful in a manner that is hard to prepare. They are animals whose mothers have been poached or killed by humans, and who have been raised with a gentleness and professionalism that is remarkable to observe. The experience of seeing a keeper bottle-feed a small elephant calf as it leans into him with all its trust is the type of experience that re-calibrates your perception of both elephants and human dedication to conservation. Reservation has to be made in advance via the Trust site and the visiting hour gets occupied very fast during the high tourist season.
Food, culture and the neighbourhoods to visit.
The food scene in Nairobi has changed drastically over the last ten years and nowadays the city has an amazing variety of eating out options that would be the envy of any large city in the world. The Kenyan traditional cuisine – nyama choma, ugali, sukuma wiki, pilau, samosas in the roadside kiosks – is the base, and it is good and very satisfying. However, Nairobi now also boasts of great Japanese, Indian, Ethiopian, Middle Eastern, and modern African cuisines, as well as a booming craft coffee culture that is fueled by the country owning great single-origin beans in places like Nyeri and Kiambu.
Westlands, Kilimani, and Karen are the most lively neighbourhoods to eat, drink and explore the culture. Karen – named after Karen Blixen, the Danish writer who lived there in the early twentieth century – is a much more relaxed and green area, with its own boutiques, farm-to-table restaurants, and the Karen Blixen Museum housed in the house where she lived and wrote Out of Africa. On a clear day, the Ngong Hills stand behind the museum and the entire place is spacious and peaceful which is a refreshing contrast to the vibrancy of central Nairobi.
The Giraffe Centre
The Giraffe Centre in the African Fund for Endangered Wildlife, near Karen, has a breeding herd of the endangered Rothschild giraffe – one of the rarest giraffe subspecies in the world, of which there are less than 800 in the wild. Tourists are allowed to feed the giraffes by hand on a raised platform that is at the same level as the giraffe, a ridiculous and simultaneously wonderful experience as the long, dark, prehensible tongue of the giraffe is one of the stranger and more pleasant aspects of nature. The Giraffe Centre is among the best wildlife experiences in Nairobi among families who travel with children.
The Maasai Market
The Maasai Market is the place to visit in case you want to bring home something that is truly made in Kenya instead of the imported tourist goods. This mobile market relocates to various areas of the city on various days of the week – usually located at the Yaya Centre on Fridays and the Village Market on other days – where they sell beaded jewellery, wooden carvings, woven baskets, fabric, leather goods and artwork created by artisans around the country. The quality is mixed and negotiation is anticipated and an experience. Come in with patience, sense of humour and a clear picture of what you are prepared to pay.
Allow Nairobi two or three days to go out on safari. Go with an open mind, not in a hurry, and it will offer you something truly unexpected, a city that is both infuriating and fascinating, that will frustrate you and delight you in equal measure, and that will offer you a framework through which to comprehend Kenya that no game drive alone can give you.
