Progress to Nairobi was good for some and not so good for others. Those of us on the Star bus arrived at the David Sheldrick Elephant Sanctuary in time for its one hour opening window. Unfortunately though those members of our party on the minibus were not so fortunate and found themselves driving around Nairobi with a driver whose geography and navigation skills were not good leading to them missing out on the Elephants but having time to order a slap up lunch at Java Coffee House as a consolation - really good after a staple diet for the last two weeks of rice, potatoes and pasta. The salads, burgers and chips were well received!
The elephants were amazing, the sanctuary rescues orphaned elephants who would otherwise die without their mother providing them with the essential milk they need to survive for the first couple of years of their lives.
In silence we watched captivated as the elephants played in their roped in enclosure just meters away from us. They rolled around in dirt, played with water and balls, and were fed their milk (SMA follow on baby milk) from bottles by their keepers. Throughout this the chief keeper told us about the programme to help the elephants to recover from the trauma of becoming orphaned and ultimately to reintegrate them into the wild once they were old enough and ready. The stories of how each elephant became orphaned was heart wrenching but the work done by the sanctuary was inspiring.
The sanctuary only opens for one hour a day to keep human contact with the elephants to a minimum so they do not become tame but also allowing them to raise much needed funds for the amazing work they are doing.
From here we moved to the Giraffe sanctuary and were stunned into silence as we fed giraffes from the palm of our hand - something we would never have dreamed of doing.
Some of us were even brave enough to put the food pellets in our mouth for a giraffe kiss! Again the aim of the sanctuary is to breed the Rothschild giraffe and increase their population in the wild. The group consensus was that the giraffe sanctuary won hands down over the elephant sanctuary - something to do with being able to feed the giraffe's we suspect. After a final bit of shopping we made our way to Nairobi airport and we write this sitting patiently waiting to board our flight back to England.
It has been an amazing and fulfilling 2 weeks spent with great company and we will take away treasured memories with us. We are sad to be leaving but looking forward to returning home to see our families.
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