April 10, 2013

Today will be our last day in Kenya. We are taking a two hour boat trip on lake Naivasha and walk on Crescent island where the movie "Out of Africa" was filmed.  Animals were transported from the Masai Mara for the movie and left there.  Crescent Island is a peninsula and while beautiful in my opinion not really worth a detour. We have been staying two nights around Naivasha but one night for visiting Hell's gate and doing a short boat tour is in my opinion sufficient. 

lake Navaisha, Kenya

After lunch we continue our road towards Nairobi.  At a stop on the rift valley view point we stumple upon the Chinese delegation leaded by the vice chairman of the people's congress. They were in Kenya for the inauguration of the new Kenyan president Kenyatta which took place on April 9th, 2013

We have plenty of time as our flight back to Brussels only leaves around midnight. We thought of visiting the Karen Blixen museum but it is closed for renovation. We therefore go to the Nairobi giraffe center instead. This is not really worth a visit as there is only one endangered Rothschild giraffe around, the others are near the hotel "giraffe manor" . There may be people (definitely not us) willing to pay a fortune to stay at the giraffe manor to have a giraffe appearing at your window while having breakfast. Probably we should have gone to Nairobi National Park instead.

giraffe center Nairobi

Mombasa road in Nairobi is crowded. Water levels are high and it is difficult to pass through.

For the first time we really notice that it is rain season in Kenya. We have read in the newspaper that tourists were stranded in masai mara because of floods so it was the right decision to focus on Samburu.

Just before a roundabout our car gets stopped by several police officers. A few minutes later, the car with president Kenyatta is passing just in front of us and he waves in our direction. Jackson does not let me take photographs (my camera is too big too hide for a discrete photo anyhow)....but a few streets further street vendors are selling portraits of president Kenyatta so not entirely the real photo but the best I could do.

We go for diner at Pampa, a Brazilian restaurant where we meet up with Jackson's wife and his youngest daughter.  The food is excellent here (definitely the best meal in Kenya). It is nice to get to know his family and to spend a wonderful last evening together in Nairobi. Too sad that  the gold chain of Jackson's wife was snatched off her neck on the way to the restaurant.

Jackson and his family drop us off at the airport, unfortunately time to say goodbye. We hope it will not be too long until we are back in Kenya and see Jackson and his family again.

 

We are not flying Swiss on the way back but SN Brussels direct so that makes the flight time shorter and we have an excellent flight back home.  As April is low season in Kenya you can find cheap flights that time of the year.

We had a wonderful trip and can highly recommend Jackson as a guide. If you think about visiting Kenya, have a look at  Jackson Mbithi's company's website is  http://www.adventuretravelkenya.com/