Kissing in Kenya

July 28 2010

So we’ll get this out of the way straight away – I made out with a giraffe…a female giraffe apparently!  After checking out and managing to store our bags in the cupboard of hell that was the luggage storage room (seriously, was a very narrow room where every-one had just thrown bags in…was quite similar to a mine field, only you couldn’t actually walk through it!) we headed over to the Giraffe Sanctuary.

For as little as $66 AUD per car we organised 3 taxi’s who were our personal drivers for the day! Between four of us in each car it worked out around $15 each. A 20 minute drive and a box full of pellets later we were all feeding two magnificent giraffes.  On a very large platform we held out our hand full of pellets and the giraffes would lean over the railing and eat them all up!  They’re tongues are so massive that they tried to take my hand with them on multiple occasions!!  I had the brilliant idea after watching some British tourists to hold one of the pellets between my lips and get a kiss from the giraffe.  It basically licked my whole face, and yes there is video footage!  But apparently giraffe saliva is antiseptic so I’m good!  In a more hilarious moment Stewart went to do the same thing but was told to get a kiss from the other giraffe as the one he was about to kiss was too young…the jokes are now circulating about hitting on minor giraffes!

The Giraffe Sanctuary is part of the African Fund for Endangered Wildlife Kenya, which was founded in 1979 and aims to be the leading wildlife conservation education organization for the youth in Kenya.  The fund supports environmental education programs to help wildlife conservation efforts with special emphasis on endangered species and promoting sustainable environmental conservation.

 

Our next activity for the day was a visit to the Nairobi Animal Orphanage – where we were chased by a wild warthog.  After inching closer and closer and closer again to the animal to get both us and the warthog in the same picture it started revving its hind legs like a bull so we quite swiftly ran away!  Most amusing was the road signage as you entered the parking lot: 

The animal orphanage was not dissimilar to a zoo.  The orphaned animals housed here include lions, tigers, monkeys, cheetahs, leopards, meerkats and gorillas.

The animals are fed everyday at 2.30 except for on Mondays.  Today was Monday.  It was time to head back around 2.20, however we managed to pay the orphanage officials to let us go into the cheetah cage for a pat. So at lunch time on the day they don’t get fed, in walk 7 Australians to the cheetah cage to meet 3 of the lovely cats!!  Hello lunch!  We decided to first sacrifice our deputy contingent leader however the cheetahs were actually quite calm and placid.  Each of us went up for our photo opportunity and they actually started purring when patted!!  So re-cap of the day: kissed a giraffe, pissed off a warthog and made a cheetah purr!

11 hungry Australians all intact from the Cheetah cage headed back to the backpackers to luggage dive and get lunch.

Have you ever been up close and personal with African animals?