Some Notes from Kenya

Here’s a few notes from traveling to Kenya.

I spent most of my time in Nairobi, visiting a few friends who live there.

Many of the tourist sites are about nature and animals and are right outside the city, so there is an interesting juxtaposition with Nairobi.

A few spots I visited in Nairobi and Kenya

Nairobi National Park. I think I was a bit confused the first time and assumed you could walk through it. Nope. I did do the Safari Walk there which you can walk through.
Returned the next day for a driving tour of Nairobi National Park. Saw all sorts of animals including zebras, wildebeests, lions, giraffes and a crocodile. Seems the crocodiles are rare because even the driver who goes here every day wanted to take a selfie.
Went to Giraffe Center, where you can feed the giraffes and see them up close. Some people who are braver than me fed the giraffes out of their own mouth.

Silk Noodle, for Chinese food
Karura Forest, a nice hike, and a small waterfall and cave maybe after an hour or so of hiking.
Went on a safari — flew out through Safarilink from Wilson Airport to…. a landing strip in the middle of nowhere. This was in the “mara” — the Masai Mara area. Did several game drives — saw up close lions and leopards and a cheetah and giraffes and many more. This is set up as a conservancy, where there are tours and the guides and employees are Masai from the areas nearby. It seems to be an effort to get more land into the conservancy to expand the area for the animals, set up better interactions between animals and farmers, and also the safari companies pay to be there and employ locals. It’s a very interesting set up.

Toi Market, a bustling market, with lots of people selling clothes and all sorts of seeming second-hand items.
Maasai Market — maybe the most aggressive market I have been to on my trip so far. You could not walk a foot without someone selling you, shaking your hand, putting their arm around you or just asking you to take a look. This was selling more African souvenirs, carvings, platters, paintings. This market seems to move locations each day.
Traffic in Nairobi is horrible. I spent so much time sitting in traffic, especially trying to get to and from the national park area.
Uber works pretty well, I could get Ubers but it took much longer to get everywhere than it had predicted.
Had some chapati several times — it’s like a think rolled naan-like bread
Didn’t get to: Mamba village, spot with crocodiles. Also did not get to the African Heritage House.