Would you kiss your mother with that mouth? (or, Baby Animals!)

I am still feeling the ill-effects of Saturday and Sunday, in that I think I came down with a sore throat and runny nose – a genuine rhino virus (yes. I did make that pun. And I crack myself up). It is winter here, but still sad to have a cold in Africa.

After our marathon Art Caffe session on Saturday, it was off to dinner at Blanco’s, a posh Nouveau Kenyan restaurant in the tony Ya Ya center. One of our usual drivers, Kamau, picked us up and kept us highly entertained with a conversation about Mongolia. A major limitation of living here is that you can’t walk anywhere, so having a driver or two who you trust is key. Kamau has quickly earned a place in our speed dial list – and a lot of the shillings out of our wallets.

Dinner was great – a traditional Kenyan menu of stews and roasts that had been given a modern twist. I tried Tree Tomato juice (actually a little fruit that grows on vines and is vaguely tart), and had a yummy sweet potato and lemongrass soup, followed by carrot cake. Kenyans are big on carrot cake (or on serving it to expats), but they haven’t yet figured out that the key ingredient is the cream cheese icing.

We followed up dinner with a drink or two – the distinguishing factor here was the never-ending stream of Michael Jackson songs that seemed to be the soundtrack of choice for the world this weekend.

Sunday morning we overslept and barely made the morning feeding at the elephant orphanage. The David Sheldrik wildlife center is in Nairobi National Park about 35 minutes outside the city, and is home to about 20 orphaned elephants between 3 months and 3 years, a diva of a baby rhino, a couple full grown rhinos, and a bunch of warthogs. Every day at 11:00 AM the keepers trot the babies out in row for feeding, playtime and baths. The tourists obediently line up at the rope and clamor to pet the little ones. My major impression of the elephants was how small they were – barely up to my waist in the case of the littlest ones. They also blended into the landscape a bit since they were all covered from head-to-toe in the pervasive red dust of the Savannah.

The keepers also brought out a full grown rhino (impression – don’t get on the wrong side of that horn) as well as a baby rhino who looked like a red version of the baby ogres in Shrek. Like his ogre doppelgangers, baby rhino was a complete ham, running the length of the pen and showing off for the cooing crowds.

After the elephants, it was back in the car to go to the Giraffe Sanctuary, the main attraction of which was a two-story platform from which we could feed the semi-wild animals. They’re beautiful, hungry creatures, incredibly awkward and ungainly. They have disgusting rough tongues that they use to lick the pellets out of your hand (or grab it from between your lips if you are one of the brave folks we saw). We had a ton of fun taking photos and enthusiastically washing spit off our hands when we were done.

We finished off the day with a quick stop at the Karen Blixen museum (aka Isak Dinesen aka Meryl Streep in Out of Africa) and lunch in the Karen gardens. The entire estate is beautifully landscaped and manicured. It is the first place that I’ve been to in Nairobi whereI would consider bringing Mommy B (they have guest cottages too). The service was about as slow as we’ve seen, but the setting more than made up for it (almost – one of us had to catch a plane and it was a very close call getting back).