Nairobi
Nairobi
One of Africa’s major cities, Nairobi is the UN’s fourth “World Centre,” East Africa’s commercial, media and NGO hub, and a significant capital in its own right, with a population of approximately 3 to 4 million.
Little more than a century old, it has real claims to Western-style sophistication and displays enormous vitality and buzz. On the surface the city accepts everyone with tolerance, and, in any downtown street, you can see a complete cross section of Kenyans, every variety of tourist, and migrants and refugees from many African countries.
If you plan to stay in Nairobi for any length of time, you’ll soon get the hang of balancing reasonable caution with a fairly relaxed attitude - thousands of visitors do it every year. If you’re only here for a few days, you’re likely to find it a stimulating city.
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Access to Mount Kenya and other attractions
Apart from being the safari capital of the world, Nairobi is an excellent base for Kenyan travel in general.
It takes barely 2 hours to get to the great trough of the ravishingly beautiful and austere Rift Valley, and the slopes of Mount Kenya, an extinct volcano some 3.5 million years old and Africa’s second-highest mountain. To the coast, it’s as little as 6 hours by road, an overnight train journey, or an hour’s flight.
Elephant Orphanage
You can visit Daphne Sheldrick’s Elephant Orphanage which is today the most successful orphan-elephant rescue and rehabilitation program in the world and one of the pioneering conservation organisations for wildlife and habitat protection in East Africa.
Nairobi National Museum
Nairobi National Museum has some impressive and unusual artefacts and artworks. The Great Hall of Mammals features examples of a giraffe, an elephant, a buffalo, a zebra and many others. Displayed is the skeleton of Ahmed, the most famous of the giant-tusked bull elephants of Marsabit, in the north of the country.
The unique interest of the Nairobi museum also lies in the human origins exhibit, where palaeontology displays are housed.
Nairobi National Park
An excellent day-trip, literally on the city’s doorstep, is Nairobi National Park, a wildlife attraction where you would expect to find suburbs.
The Giraffe Centre
The Giraffe Centre is a non-profit making organization whose main objective is to provide free conservation education for school children and the youth of Kenya. As 90% of its funds are derived from tourists' entrance fee collected, and from the sales in the gift shop and teahouse, by visiting them you are making a valuable contribution towards this education.
The Karen Blixen Museum
The Karen Blixen Museum provides historical material of European settlement and cultivation in East Africa, and is associated with the life of Baroness Karen Blixen, who lived in this house from 1917 -1931.
The museum also served as the setting for the film based on her well known book ‘Out of Africa,’ written under the pseudonym Isak Dinesenand.
