Out of Gigiri, Part II: The City Centre and Nairobi National Park

So last Saturday, I finally went to downtown Nairobi. Some fellow interns and I decided that we'd spend the day at Nairobi National Park and checking out some of the markets downtown.

Nairobi National Park is literally right outside of Nairobi -- you can actually see the skyline from a lot of the park. But the park is relatively large -- about 45 square miles -- and it has quite a bit of wildlife (more species of birds that the whole UK, and four out of the Big Five -- leopards, lions, buffalo, and rhinos -- no elephants, though). We didn't really see a ton of wildlife, but more on that later...

You can't walk through the park, and none of us had access to a car, so we jumped into a matatu, having read that you can hire a car and driver to take you through the park once you get there. After switching matatus in downtown Nairobi at what I can only refer to as a matatu mosh pit, we were on our way to the park. (I've discovered that matatu drivers and "conductors" don't actually get a salary, they are paid a portion of the money they make from the fares that they collect on their routes. So, at the beginning of the line for a matatu route, there are a whole bunch of empty matatus, but no real line for which one gets start the route first, so the conductors run around trying to to gather up enough passengers for their individual matatu so that they can start driving. We were at a place where multiple matatu routes started, so let me tell you -- it was nuts!)

Anyway, we found our way onto the right matatu, got to the park, and asked one of the rangers if he could tell us where we could find someone to drive us through the park, and he brought us over to Elvis, who said he could take us through the park. So, we negotiated a price for him to drive us through the park for 2 hours, and we set off.

Almost.

In order to pay the admission fee to the park, we had to go through a very long, involved process. First, we had to get a rechargeable card, kind of like a SmartTrip, or the cards you use in laundry machines. Then, we had to go to the building next door and put money on the card, this took quite a while, as there seemed to be something wrong with the machines that the tellers were using to add money to the cards. Then, we got into the car, drove to the gate, and gave the guard our cards, who then ran them through another machine, to make sure we had put the right amount of money on them, and then waved us through the gate (without giving us back the cards). The whole process took at least half an hour and left us wondering, why couldn't we just pay the guard at the gate? I suspect that the answer has something to do w/ record-keeping and making sure that all park entry fees actually go the park, but I'm not sure.

So once we made it into the park, it was clear that Elvis had no idea where he was going. There are a bunch of dirt roads winding through the park, and there are markers at most intersections/junctions pointing out different routes and points of interest, but we didn't have a good map (Elvis had no map, we just had the small one in the Lonely Planet). So really, we kind of drove around fairly aimlessly for a couple of hours. That's not to say it wasn't cool, though -- the park itself was beautiful, and we did see some animals. It wasn't a great time of year or day for wildlife viewing in the park, but we did see lots of ostriches, a huge herd of impala, and a giraffe and an impala that were very close to us.


However, as we were driving, we kept coming to marker number 29, but from different directions. There were 3 different roads that converged at 29, and I swear we came at the intersection at least twice from each road. We kept coming to 29 even after Elvis told us that he was heading for the exit. Now, I'd like to take this moment to pat myself on the back for not panicking at this point. Hey Grant, do you remember how I was freaking out when we were lost in Manuel Antonio National Park when kept coming to the same sign, but from different directions? This was a somewhat similar situation (although it wasn't getting dark yet), but I didn't freak out -- I was able to help Elvis navigate our way out of the park. (Memo to Kenya Wildlife Service -- "Main Gate" or "Exit" might be a good thing to put on those directional markers.)

Anyway, we successfully made it back downtown and spent some time checking out one of the markets there. The word that sums up the experience of downtown for me is "exhausting" -- everyone keeps coming up to you and trying to get you to buy something (especially in the markets). But even just walking down the street, people come up to you and ask, "taxi, madame?" "matatu, madame?" Now, I was coming down with a cold at this point, so maybe that's what made it so tiring, but I have to say, even after a very fun day, I was glad to get back to Gigiri.

OK, so this weekend, I'm going camping in Amboseli National Park, which is down by the border w/ Tanzania (it has lots of elephants, and has a really good view of Kilimanjaro, so hopefully I'll have fabulous photos to share on Monday). And after learning our lesson with Elvis, we're going with an established safari company. Have a good weekend everyone and type to you Monday!