Elephant Orphanage/Giraffe Center

What a wonderful adventure we had today!  We had no plans so we decided to surprise the kids and take them to the Elephant Orphanage.  It is only open from 11-noon every day so we did not tell them about it until we were almost there (of course we had to ask for directions since google maps does not work so well here!).  Here is a look at the traffic we sat in as we headed out this morning about 10:30 a.m...

I believe this is pretty standard.  It was actually much worse on the way home, there was no empty space between the cars.

The Elephant Orphanage is right next to the Nairobi National Park, a game park in the city.  This place rescues baby elephants that have been abandoned by their mothers or their mothers have died.  Their goal is to release the elephants back into the wild, so they allow limited interaction with people.

Nathan did not like them too much at first but he slowly warmed up to them.

Of course the big kids said this was the best surprise ever!!

So, I need to back up a bit...this was the first animal Nicholas spotted as we walked into the park...

Can you guess what this is?  First, I cannot believe he saw this critter!  It is rather small and was in a ditch covered by a grate and we were just cruising along.  It is a dung beetle and was rolling his ball of, you guessed it, poop!  We also saw a few unlucky ones squished in the parking lot on the way out.  

The next stop was the Giraffe Centre.  The Rothschild giraffes are part of a breeding program here, apparently there are very few of them left.  These creatures are amazing!  So gentle and social.

We were able to feed them and pet them.  It was a wonderful experience.  It took Nathan a bit more time to warm up to the giraffes but he was very happy to pet the tortoises.

Tim did a great job driving us around town and he is doing much better at shifting gears and avoiding Matatus.