Two on the tear in Nairobi

Cyrus picked us up at 7.15, after a hearty buffet breakfast and we headed off on our day tour of Nairobi- determined to pack in as much as we could.

Down to the Big 3

First stop was at Karen Bloxen’s house (of Out of Africa fame). It is a beautiful stone building designed by a Danish architect and made from stone imported from Sweden. Only The exterior of the building was used in the filming.
The gardens are beautiful with views of the Ngong Hills. I could almost hear Robert Redford’s gramaphone echoing through them.
“I had a farm in Africa, on the edge of the Ngong Hills”


From there we went to the Kazuri bead factory. This factory was established in 1975 by Lady Susan Wood and two African women to offer a way for African single mothers to support themselves. It now employs 300 women. The beads are ceramic. The clay is processed and the beads are rolled, fired and decorated/glazed by the women. Absolutely beautiful (both the beads and the women). We toured the workshop, it was lovely to see the women chatting and laughing away as they worked. I did feel the need to make a few small purchases – David forced me ?

We then headed to Giraffe Manor- where the Rothschild Giraffes (currently only 500 left in Africa) are being preserved. They are just magical creatures- I can now say I have been kissed (slobbered on) by a giraffe! They did assure me that giraffe saliva has antiseptic properties…..

On the way to our next stop we heard an almighty clunk as something in the car snapped. David and six other guys pushed us the couple of hundred metres up the road to the mechanic. I sat up in the back like the Queen of Sheeba. Now sitting in the car while much debate is going on about the root cause….stay tuned.
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Plan B- Cyrus organised transport to our lunch venue -Carnivore.

A bit of a local icon this restaurant serves meat of every imaginable origin. A bit like yum Cha of meat- they bring around racks of meats straight off the charcoal grill.
Meats consumed (by us): lamb, beef, pork (in a number of variants), rabbit, ox tail and ox “balls” (not sure if they are what the name suggests but the tasted like offel). Also had ostrich, crocodile, chicken and turkey. All in small portions, but as you can imagine we came out of there feeling much rounder than we went in.

Returned to our hotel in an absolute food coma- knowing that we should be using their gym but opting for sleep and a G&T instead.

Food coma

One last G & T for the road

Now for the big task of packing….

2 thoughts on “Two on the tear in Nairobi”

  1. Naomi, I am so glad you saw the Kazuri bead factory, I have been eyeing these off on Etsy. There is a lady in WA who makes lovely necklaces only from Kazuri beads!
    Looking forward to hearing of all your adventures when you are home and settled.

  2. The house is now a national museum of Kenya. It is Karen Blixen Naomi. The Ngong Hills looks like the hand knuckles. That was the beauty Karen saw and admired.

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