Nairobi with Family

I met my family from Seattle and Austin in Nairobi. Yes Nairobi is a big, busy and probably dangerous city. Whatever. We enjoyed our few days there. I did find the perfect hotel!
I can’t say enough good things about this hotel. It was very British. That’s neither here nor there. There was live piano at mealtimes and when he heard our accents he played Jack Johnson and Billy Joel.

(left to right) Ryan from Austin, TX, and Elaina, Jennifer and Doug from Olympia WA

We spent 8 days on a wonderful safari organized by Seraphina with Africa Dynamics out of Seattle. Not a single single detail was overlooked.

Our favorite camp was Sentinel Mara—a tented camp perched just above the Mara River. Below us were 2 pods of hippos and they snorted and giggled us to sleep every night. One hippo snortles and then the response is a “ ha ha ha ha...” it was fun to imagine their jokes about the silly humans.

All the guides were A+, the food was superb meal after meal, the camp staff were kind, interested and had their own interesting stories. Of course there was the Big Five: Lions, leopards, rhinos, Buffalo, and Elephants. While the Big Five now mostly refers to camera wielding tourists, the name comes from the game hunters wielding big guns.

The Big Five refers to those prized feisty beasts that would fight back when hunted. Cheetahs run and hippos don’t wear ivory.