We started this morning at a much more civilized hour; we didn’t have to leave for our first stop until 10 AM… YEEAAAH!

The first place we visited was the, David Sheldrick Wildlife Trusts’ Orphans’ Project (http://www.sheldrickwildlifetrust.org/). This project is headquartered in Nairobi National Park which is only 7 km (about 4 mi) from Nairobi’s city centre. This project serves orphaned Elephants and Rhinos – to save, nurture, and eventually release them back into the wild. Currently, there are 20 orphaned Elephants in the program ranging from around 6 months old to 3 ½ years old. All but one of these beautiful creatures were orphaned through the actions of poachers. The project also is caring for several Rhinos. Each orphan is assigned a human surrogate-parent who stays with them and night and day – they are bottle-fed with formula every 3 hours 24/7. At approximately, 3 to 3 ½ years, orphans graduate to the next phase in their rehabilitation. They are transported to a non-public area of Tsavo East National Park. This is where they really learn to be Elephants; in a process that takes years, they are taught the behaviours and social skills necessary for them to be successfully released into the open park.

The project is open to the public for only one hour each day; during the 11 AM feeding. If you are lucky, one of the little guys will come over and snuffle you with their trunk while you give him a good scratch behind the ear. Even on the youngest, their hide is unbelievably thick and feels much like petting a warm piece of thick rubber conveyor-belt.

Getting the supplies ready.

Big babies, big bottles.

Here come the little guys.

Complete with blankie.

Enough for everyone.

Comforting the little one.

Eles love tongue-rubs.

Eron and little guy.

Little guy and us.

Wanna play ball?

Time for the 2 year olds.

Elephant-pile?

Big 2 year old baby.

Be afraid, Mr. Ball.

Ele howls.

Ele hugs.

Goosed by an ele.

Greedy, greedy.

How to deal with hecklers.

Picture of bliss.

Leaky nose.

Sooooo tired.

A runny nose?

Giving you the eye.

Wrestling.

Pesky.

Home for an ele and his keeper.

Rhino pen warning sign.

Sleeping orphaned White Rhino.

Rock Hyrax: closest living relative to the ele… Really!

Our second stop was at the, African Fund for Endangered Wildlife (Kenya) Ltd. Giraffe Centre (http://giraffecenter.org/). This centre, also located in Nairobi, is a nature education and rescue centre dedicated to the preservation of the endangered Rothchild Giraffes. Visitors are encouraged to interact with and hand-feed the resident Giraffes. To facilitate this, visitors stand on a second story balcony which places them at eye level with the adult Giraffes.

The Giraffes are remarkably gentle with their mouths and will willingly pick food right off your palm. If you get up close, don’t be surprised if you receive a Giraffe-kiss. And watch out, these guys have a tongue more than a foot long… it feels warm, rubbery, and covered with a cross between velvet and emery cloth… oh, did we not mention the coating of thick, slightly slimy saliva….

Eron and Kellie.

Eron gets a Kellie-kiss.

Impressive….

Kellie eating out of Eron’s fingers.

Gentle nibble.

Rothchild Giraffe

Cheeky Giraffe.

After lunch, we headed off to the, Utamaduni (http://utamaduni.com/). It is essentially a large arts and craft emporium. Their concept is to donate a portion of the proceeds to Kenya’s wildlife and other charities. The emporium features more than a dozen rooms each dedicated to different specialty items such as Maasai crafts, Kisii stonework, baskets, kitchenware, African fabrics, children’s items, and bronze statues.

Next, we stopped at the, Kazuri Beads and Pottery Centre (http://www.kazuri.com/pc/). This craft centre was founded by an English ex-pat in 1975. It started with two Kenyan women making handmade beads and now employs over 400 women making hand-made, hand-glazed ceramic jewellery and pottery that is exported to over 30 countries. Most of the women are single mothers and in addition to providing training and employment, the centre also has a dedicated free medical clinic for its workers and their families. For medical problems beyond the scope of their clinic, the centre even absorbs 80% of the bill for treatments received outside the factory clinic.

Black-faced Vervet Monkey and her new-born at Kazuri Centre.

Eron spent more than an hour in the factory and adjacent gift shop… just the right amount of time for Roger to enjoy his last cigar in Africa… a Rocky Patel “Cuban Blend” Lancero.

Our final stop was at a local shopping centre; we needed to buy some Kenyan whole-bean coffee to bring home with us.

A quick shower, some last minute packing, a few minutes to catch our breath, and it was time to check out and head to the airport.

Security and check-in at the Nairobi airport was a relative breeze… and no over-weight charge on our luggage, Yippee! As for the airport itself… well, let’s just say it makes a lousy first impression and an even worst last impression on visitors arriving in and leaving Nairobi. It is cramped, poorly lit, is chock-a-block full of tiny duty-free shops, and there are virtually no good dining options for those in transit. However, we did manage to pick up a bargain on a bottle of 18 year old Glenmorangie Port Cask Finished Single Malt Scotch Whisky at one of the shops… came all the way to Africa, and bought Scotch.

After a 5 hour flight, our arrival in Dubai’s airport was not particularly exciting but was interesting. The airport is incredibly busy and its terminal is woefully inadequate for the number of flights operating in and out of it. So, even though we landed at around 2 AM, there were no available gates at the terminal. We had to exit the aircraft, climb down old-school stairs, and get into a bus for the 15 minute drive to the terminal. We thanked God, Allah, the Easter Bunny, Tinkerbell, and everything else that was even remotely holy that the bus was air conditioned and that the air-con worked… even at 2 AM, it was 44 freakin’ degrees Celcius with a humidity akin to a steam bath. Eron described it as walking through Bikram’s Yoga while carrying luggage.

Once in the terminal, all was not bad… yet neither was it all good. The main concourse of the Dubai International Airport is one long, ginormous duty-free shopping mall. At 3 AM, all the lights are on, the tills are ringing madly, and visitors of every nationality are gorging on this feast of unbridled consumerism. It was quite something… we picked up a Lagavulin 16 Single Malt… again with the Whisky, half-way around the world just to buy Scotch….

The not so good part comes in when you try to find something to eat. The good news is that everything (unlike at the Seoul airport) is open. Unfortunately, unless you have access to a First-Class lounge, your choices are limited to fast-food or fast-food. And that’s fast-food at the hyper-inflated airport-captive-audience-type prices – $24 USD for two Burger King chicken burgers with fries and soft drinks?!?! The Quality Assurrance folks at Burger King might want to visit this franchise; the burgers were, shall we say, less than “corporate standard”. On the upside, this outlet accepted payment in over 12 different currencies.

The other downside to the Dubai International Airport are its abysmal facilities for the regular travelling public. There’s a complete lack of comfortable seating in the waiting areas, the advertised public loungers are too few and poorly positioned along busy corridors (if you’re lucky enough to get one, you won’t be able to sleep on it anyway), and a horrendous lack of public restrooms (the average wait for a stall in the women’s restroom was nearly 15 minutes). As you recall, on the outbound leg of this journey, we also transited through Dubai. As that layover was about ten hours, we opted to get a room at the Dubai International Hotel (two locations in the airport itself) and didn’t check out and go out onto the concourse until shortly before our flight. This insulated us from the harsh realities of laying over in this airport. This time, because our lay-over was only(?) about 5 hours, we didn’t get a room. Thus, we got to experience the “full meal deal” of the Dubai Airport… and it certainly left a lingering bad taste. The state of passenger amenities for non-First-Class/Business Class passengers in this airport is nothing short of deplorable and is an absolute embarrassment to the United Arab Emirates. The airport is the first and the last impression that most travelers will have of a particular city… this airport leaves a less than favourable impression of Dubai and the UAE.

About 15 hours in the air and we arrived at SeaTac Airport in Washington State… we left Nairobi approximately 25 hours ago to arrive “home” on the same day we left… always screws us up. Apparently, three or four international flights arrived at nearly the same time. So, the line-ups at Immigration were… “Impressive”. The time in the line-up was a little mind-numbing but once we got to the booth, it was smooth sailing from there on. We picked up our luggage (the little food-police Beagle didn’t even sit down in front of our 20 pounds of Zanzibar spices), breezed through customs, and were picked up by Eron’s dad.

We picked up Eron’s truck at her dad’s, loaded it up, and it was back on the road. The 90 minute drive North to the border was uneventful, even relaxing. Our Nexus cards allowed us to bypass the longer lines at the Peace Arch Crossing and we were waved through the border with a, “Have a nice evening.” Home at last!!!!

We have about 30,000 images to look through. From those we’ll edit full-resolution images and chose several hundred to build a digital slide-show around. We also plan to post an epilogue to our Africa 2012 blog, write some TripAdvisor reviews, and create an “African Overlanding 101” guide. We’re also thinking off up-loading some video clips to add to several of the existing posts. But for the next couple of weeks, we’re just going to get used to being back home… our own comfy bed, our poopies, going to work, no more TIA, and especially no more Pole Pole….