5 sunny days in Nairobi

Greetings from Helsinki,

It has been a while but it’s time to tell you about my final weeks in East Africa.

At the end of my contract, I had a wonderful opportunity to spend my last weekend in Uganda kayaking the Nile with my friends. We stayed at the Wildwaters by Kalagala falls which was amazing. I did get three tsetse fly bites which to this day are itchy. I would recommend against them.

After my final Nile weekend, my mother joined me in Kampala and we browsed the best rooftop views for a few days and then headed to Nairobi. We opted to leave my luggage at the hotel in Entebbe where we were staying for our last few days after our trips to Kenya and Tanzania.

One of the main reasons we wanted to visit Nairobi is because my mom is obsessed with giraffes and Nairobi has a giraffe sanctuary right in the city. We also wanted to see the feeding at the baby elephant shelter. We decided to split our Nairobi stay into two parts since I had heard to rumours about the horrible traffic jams. Unfortunately, we selected the wrong hotel for our first few days. We stayed at Siron Place which seemed to be right next to the giraffe centre. However, while the hotel was near it was right in the middle of a big busy road which carried most of the morning and evening commute in Nairobi and we were told that what was suppose to be a 20-minute drive could take up to two hours in the mornings. I wouldn’t recommend the hotel in any other way either; the service and the location were awful and due to their mistake, we missed the elephants (which get fed for one hour every morning and cannot be visited otherwise).

We did visit the animal orphanage which is by the national park as well and was rather interesting. I got to pet a lion and a cheetah. The orphanage works for a good cause and doesn’t have any captured healthy animals, but the cages are still a little sorry-looking.

Luckily, the giraffes exceeded all our expectations, seemed happy and gave us a few kisses! They also have a nice chilled cafe at the property so you can just chill there for a while.

This is Kelly, she is the biggest giraffe around and very eager for hugs, kisses and extra food. Also, she is a very good kisser though her tongue is a little rough.

We also found some rooftop bars in Nairobi since we wanted to have a look at the city from the top. Compared to Kampala, Nairobi is very modern and green. but also much more expensive than Uganda. I was happily surprised that the pools were full of local people who love to swim! The shopping malls are advanced and people spend time in them unlike in Uganda. It was lovely for me to get some taste of western food after such a long time. I would recommend getting a local sim card at the airport and using uber to get around. The lifts aren’t expensive so rather choose a nice hotel with a good location.

I didn’t feel unsafe in Nairobi (that could just be me as usual), but thanks to my friends’ warnings, I did try and take extra care. I really enjoyed the pace in Nairobi, but like many East African big cities, you must know where you are going when you leave from the door. We visited this breakfast restaurant that was due to be 400 m from our door and really nice. Turned out to be a real hike to a small hostel which did have a funky rooftop restaurant but this and the hotels we stayed in really taught me not to trust reviews in these kinds of places; both of our hotels were rated about 9/10 and were slums and some of the cafes and bars we visited were outright dodgy.

I really enjoyed visiting Nairobi, but I cannot say that I found it particularly special. The highlight was definitely the giraffes which was good since that was the main purpose of our trip. I think with a local guide or if we were up for a partying, there would be more to see.

Thanks! Mira

#ugandakampalahumitarianworktipstravelafrica #irelandnetherlnadsfinlandhungaryitalysouthafricavietnamthailandlaoscambodiagermanytravellingadventureexploretravelbloggerswitzerlandspain #capetownsouthafricamastersdegreeexpatsbloggingfithikingsurfingdailylifeafricanlifeafricaafrikaburntablemountainlionshead #travelsunsettravelgraminstagramtravelingtravellingbloggingtravelblogwanderlustvacationasiaexploreeuropetravelglobetraveleverywhereexploreglobeadventureinstatravelv #turkeyistanbulanatoliacappadociabloggerasiaeuropetraveleuropetravelturkeyhotairballoom #timisoararomanitraveltravelblogtraveleuropedanubedeltadanubeadventurewanderlust