After about half an hour we took a quick look in the gift shop and headed off to Karen Blixen’s house. Blixen, who was Danish, lived in Kenya from 1913-1931. She left Denmark to marry her first husband who wanted to establish a coffee plantation on land that he purchased. The marriage did not go well and they divorced in 1925. In the meantime she had met Denys Finch Hatton, big game hunter, with whom she had an affair that lasted until he was killed in plane crash while on safari in 1931. The coffee plantation had failed by then due to some mismanagement, a fire, world recession, and the fact that the land is really too high to grow coffee. Her book about her experience under the pen name Isak Dinesen became a best-seller and movie starring Meryl Streep and Robert Redford.
The grounds and house are now a museum providing guests a reasonably accurate picture of life during those years. The house is filled with artifacts and pictures and the grounds include some of the machines used to produce the coffee. The house is rather small by modern American standards, but well-appointed for tours.
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| Old machinery used for roasting coffee |
We finished our house tour a bit earlier than expected so our guide suggested a visit to the Kazuri Bead Factory. The factory opened some 20 years ago to provide an income for unwed mothers. Today, it employs over 100 women and a few men making beads and jewelry. They have a gift shop on-site and sell all over the world through stores such as 10,000 villages. We purchased several items as Christmas presents and a couple of things for Linda’s personal collection.
Our final stop for the day was at the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust: Haven for Elephants and Rhinos. We had read books by Diane Sheldrick about their work in Africa so we were anxious to visit here. We had also donated $50 to this trust as part of the cost of our trip thanks to Mango Safaris, our travel agent for this trip. With this money we became “parents” of Luggard, one of the orphaned elephants at the haven. We arrived at 5:00 pm in time to watch the animals return to their pens for the night after spending the day in the wilderness of Nairobi National Park which abuts the Trust land. The youngsters arrived right on time trotting past the line of proud parents. The head keeper named each animal as it passed by, but did not name Luggard. Nor did he name the elephant John and Cherie Briggs had adopted.
Of course, we asked what had happened. Lugard had been shot in the hind leg by poachers and was permanently injured. Because of that, he is slower than the others and would be pushed and shoved as they rush back for the night. He gets to come in to the pens earlier by himself to avoid that. Briggs’s elephant had already been released into the wild at Tsavo East, one of Kenya’s national parks. Each of the elephants is released after four years. We were surprised to learn that the trust doesn’t do anything special to prepare the animals for life in the wild. They release them in the vicinity of an elephant family that will eventually take them in and care for them - a real adoption. Even though Luggard will always be a bit slow, they expect that he will do fine once he is adopted. He will be released next year.
They also provide homes for rhinoceros although we only saw two. Maxwell is a blind rhino who is about 13 years old. He won’t be released into the wild and can expect to live the next 25 years or so in his pen. The other rhino we saw was only a few days old and seemed to be progressing nicely. Unfortunately, she died a few days after our visit. He had appeared to be healthy, but succumbed to some ailment in only a few hours and even with the veterinarian’s work, they were unable to save her. Rhinos are solitary creatures, so they are released into an area where they will have plenty of room or where they are strong enough compared to other rhinos in the area to protect themselves.
It is sad that this kind of effort is necessary, but with the continued presence of poachers and the unwillingness of nations like China and Vietnam to crack down on the smuggling, the animals need this kind of support to preserve the species.
We finished the evening with dinner at Tamarind, a very nice restaurant in one of the warehouses used by the Blixen coffee plantation. Looking around the restaurant, we noted that about 80% of the patrons were white. We were told that the Karen neighborhood is one of the nicer areas of Nairobi and very popular with diplomats and government officials.
The next morning we left early for the airport and our flight to Ol Pejeta and our first safari camp. On our drive it soon became evident why tours avoid driving in the downtown area of the city. Even though this national airport was only about half the distance it would have been to the international airport, it took us twice the time as it had two nights before. And this was without any accidents. Wilson Airport is one of Africa’s busiest because it handles all the national and regional flights out of Nairobi. Each small airline has its own small terminal building. Our guide took us to the door and helped us load our bags right onto the security belt right inside the door before he had to whisk away to his next gig. We had been told that they would weigh every bag and perhaps even our bodies to make sure we were not over the weight limit. Technically, we were limited to 33 pounds including all our carry-ons. Any passenger over 220 pounds is supposed to be paying for two passengers. I had taken both cameras, lenses, and binoculars out of the camera bag hoping that would leave us close to the 33 pound limit. Then they only weighed out checked luggage. When Linda realized that, she added her back pack to the checked luggage and we entered the small waiting room to await the call to our flight.
Our plane was a 20 seat Cessna with only about 12 passengers so Linda and each got our own row. I spend part of the flight talking to a travel agent from Toronto who knows Suzanne, our agent from Mango. On the 90 minute flight, we took a few pictures of the landscape and noted the small farms that make up most of the land beneath us even as we approached the Ol Pejeta Preserve where we would spend the next three days. As long as the population keeps growing, the pressure will continue to open up more wilderness for more of these small farms, necessary to provide both jobs and food for the growing population. It’s not a promising situation for the wildlife that brings us to this beautiful and fascinating continent.
