15 hours ago
How to Spend 2 Days in Nairobi Before Your African Safari and Why You Should
Kenya's a long way from my Atlanta home. I made some smart choices prepping for my first-ever safari, and learned a bunch more in this vast, beautiful, welcoming country.
Each tip can open space for deeper experiences and more relationships within communities.
Tamarind Tree Hotel was the recommendation of my Capture Kenya safari company and I certainly had no reason to know otherwise.
Tamarind is 15 minutes from the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport and six kilometers from Nairobi National Park if you want to jumpstart viewing wild animals.
The incredibly kind and attentive staff were my first experience with Kenyan hospitality and generosity. Notice the welcome from every single soul; this will continue everywhere, every day.
My room had three twin beds, each with access to plug-ins for charging devices (although one took some sleuthing to find since it was behind the stack of pillows.
SheBuysTravel Tip: This whole story is "tips" but notice the Tamarind gift shop. Art in Kenya tends to repeat itself, so introduce yourself to intricate beaded earrings, necklaces and bracelets, to carvings of many animals, to soft fabrics with iconic African scenes and to ubiquitous T-shirts with images of the Big Five animals. Memorize them: lion, leopard, elephant, buffalo, rhino.
Food's lovely at the Tamarind – lavish breakfast buffet with tamarind juice to try! Patio seating by the pool and flowering trees and shrubs suited me best. Portions seemed enormous from lunch and dinner menus so consider sharing.
Get started on beetroot salad here; it'll be on every menu the rest of the trip, always in a new design or shape.
Gentle hands-on healing or deep tissue massage: affordable and available in Kenya hotels.
There were three of us traveling together – one who likes a deep tissue massage; one who likes a gentle massage and me, who falls somewhere in the middle. All three of us agreed: Our massages at the Tamarind Tree Hotel with Evelyn (who also likes being called Eve) can be called the best ever.
Proof? My arthritis-swollen left knee returned to near normal size and my stiff neck and tight hips from that long flight eased considerably.
Given the exchange rate with US dollars, I spent $65 for 60 minutes of healing, and pure bliss.
Visiting the Sheldrick Wildlife Trust in Nairobi definitely opens deeper feelings when encountering elephants on the game drives. Spend a few hours here before heading into Kenya's vast national parks.
Baby elephants whose mamas have died are brought to Sheldrick and, with near-constant attention, they can successfully return to the wild in an astonishing five years! Tsavo is the name of Kenya's national park where returns take place, if that's something to consider experiencing.
Poaching is a subject much discussed in Africa, and so is the relationship with wild animals and village families trying to raise cows, goats and sheep-and gardens.
Conversations at Sheldrick with elephant protectors and nurturers gave me perspective to then take to the game drives and indigenous communities. Like "elephants know when someone has mistreated an animal in the past" or "elephants speak to one another in a frequency humans don't hear.'
Without that teaching, I would have wondered about the deep silence on game drives watching families of elephants walking and munching.
SheBuysTravel Tip: Sheldrick offers adoption opportunities–$50 annually to support a baby elephant, complete with monthly newsletter updates. Rhinoceros adoptions also become available as safaris unfold. So do tuition payments and uniforms for children to go to school!
Game drive giraffe encounters may be close enough to see their eyeballs, but mostly they're about admiring those long lanky legs and graceful stride off in the distance.
Get close in Nairobi's Giraffe Centre. Feel the long gentle tongue by feeding little pellets to the giraffe who wander close to the fenced boardwalk.
And learn a bit about the Rothschild, Maasai and Reticulated giraffe species found in Kenya.
AFEW is the organization behind this learning center-the African Fund for Endangered Wildlife.
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