Welcome to Nairobi, the capital and largest city of Kenya, in the south-central part of the country. Its name comes from the Maasai phrase Enkare Nyirobi, place of cool waters, and its nickname is the Green City under the Sun. Nairobi was founded in 1898 as a depot on the railway to Uganda and replaced Mombasa as capital in 1907. Remarkably, it is the only capital city in the world with a national park inside its boundaries. Today it is a major hub of East Africa. Let's head out to meet the wildlife.
Nairobi National Park
Photo: flightlog · CC BY 2.0 · Wikimedia CommonsImagine a wildlife park almost on the doorstep of a capital city. Welcome to Nairobi National Park, established in 1946 just 7 kilometres south of the city centre. It is fenced on three sides, but the southern edge stays open so that migrating animals can move to and from the Kitengela plains. Despite its small size and closeness to the city, it holds a large and varied wildlife population and is one of Kenya's most successful rhinoceros sanctuaries. In the early 1900s, residents carried guns at night to protect themselves against lions.
Karen Blixen Museum
Photo: Daniel Case · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia CommonsAt the foot of the Ngong Hills stands the bungalow that was once home to the Danish author Karen Blixen, famous for her book Out of Africa. She and her husband bought the house in 1917 to run a coffee plantation. After they separated she stayed on and managed the farm alone until she returned to Denmark for good in 1931. After her death, Denmark gave the house to Kenya as an independence gift, and it opened as a museum in 1986, following the success of the film. Surprisingly, the film itself was not shot here.
Giraffe Centre
Photo: Samwalton9 · CC BY 4.0 · Wikimedia CommonsGet ready to come face to face with a giraffe. At the Giraffe Centre in Lang'ata, you climb a raised platform and feed these gentle giants by hand. The centre was set up to protect the Rothschild's giraffe, found only in the grasslands of East Africa. It began in 1979, when Jock Leslie Melville and his wife Betty captured two baby giraffes to start a breeding programme on their land. That programme succeeded so well that several breeding pairs have since been released into Kenyan national parks. Watch out for the warthogs, which roam freely too.
Kenyatta International Convention Centre
Photo: Original uploader was Mkimemia at en.wikipedia · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia CommonsLook up at the Kenyatta International Convention Centre, a 32-storey tower on Nairobi's City Square. When it was completed it was the tallest building in the city, although newer towers have since overtaken it. It has been counted among the leading conference venues in Africa, and it also houses a number of government offices.
Nairobi National Museum
Photo: KeMang?? · CC BY 4.0 · Wikimedia CommonsOn Museum Hill, between the city centre and Westlands, you will find the Nairobi National Museum, headquarters of the National Museums of Kenya. Its story began in 1910, when the East African Natural History Society founded a museum to study the natural world of East Africa. Today the organisation it grew into carries out research in fields from palaeontology and archaeology to ethnography and biodiversity, and looks after more than 22 regional museums, sites and monuments across the country. Inside, permanent and temporary exhibitions bring that work to life.
Maasai Mara
Photo: Danijel Mihajlovic · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia CommonsOur final journey takes us to the Maasai Mara, a vast game reserve that runs into Tanzania's Serengeti. It is named after the Maasai people, and Mara means spotted in the Maa language, after the short bushy trees dotting the plains. Lions, leopards, cheetahs and elephants live here, but the greatest spectacle is the great migration, usually around July, when wildebeest in huge numbers cross the Mara River from Tanzania. It is this migration that earned the Mara a place among the Seven Natural Wonders of Africa.
Lomakuume
