Giraffe!!!, originally uploaded by Kattaka.

On Sunday Tim, Darryl and I went to a town just outside of Nairobi called Karen to visit the Karen Blixen House Museum (author and subject of book/film Out of Africa). The grounds were beautiful but a little boring so from there we decided to walk to the seemingly nearby African Fund for Endangered Wildlife Giraffe Centre. The map in the guidebook made it seem to be only about 20 minutes away. Were we ever mistaken. Over an hour and 15 minutes later, we arrived. I am not sure how we did not perish from either the toxic, black exhaust fumes from the passing cars or the cars/trucks that caused us to nearly jump into the ditch to avoid them hurdling into us (despite the fact that we were on the side of the road). But the AFEW Giraffe Centre was totally worth the wait. What they do is act as a conservation centre for giraffes and in recent years they have substantially boosted the population of the rare Rothschilds Giraffe. The great photos come compliments of an observation/feeding tower where people can hold out hands of feed pellets and the giraffes sometimes come over for a snack. The grounds themselves are massive with giraffes wandering all over the place (with a few warthogs in amongst them) but we were lucky enough to have a giraffe come over and have a snack while we were there. VERY VERY COOL. I love those animals. They like to have their noses stroked while you feed them. Although watch out if they lick you!!!