Back to Nairobi

We flew to Arusha, stopped for some last minute shopping and then drove to Nairobi. Things went well until we got into Nairobi when traffic came to a virtual stop. Our driver finally managed to get onto a side road and circled around to approach our hotel from a different direction. We spent about two hours in this traffic jam.

Today was a sleep-in day. We did a quick walk around downtown to reach the former locations of the U.S. embassy. On August 7th 1998, the embassy was bombed a truck loaded with explosives. The embassy itself was severely damaged, but an office building near-by completely collapsed

during the explosion. 212 people died, mostly Kenyans and 4000 were injured, many blinded from glass shards, others with severe concussions, broken limbs, etc. They had a superb

documentary about the explosion, how they determined who was responsible through forensic evidence and some lucky breaks in the case. This was all planned by Al-Qaede and financed by Bin Laden, a precursor to the World Trade Center 3 years later.

Memorial to those who died at the U.S. Embassy bombing

This afternoon we went to the Nairobi Museum. Its highlights included a large collection of birds of East Africa, a room of mammals (just a subset of what we had seen), the most complete

collection of early human skulls in the world and a display of the stage of life in Kenya as you grow up in the tribal traditions.

We ended our tour with a farewell dinner at a Brazilian restaurant with a selection of local meats including crocodile.

Our farewell dinner

So how do we summarize this trip? We certainly saw more animals than in our last Safari, including all big 5 (Elephant, Cape Buffalo, Lion, Rhino, and Leopard). Going through the herds of migrating animals in the Serengeti was special. We also saw 181 species of birds according to our bird expert, Gail. But the highlight of the trip had to be Cheetahs, the 3 chases we witnessed as well as the hour of watching those six cubs. I'd recommend this trip to anyone who likes nature.