Nairobi

About Nairobi

Nairobi began in 1899 as a railway depot beside a stream the Maasai called Enkare Nairobi, the place of cool water, and it still sits high enough that early mornings call for a jumper. It is East Africa's busiest hub and one of very few capitals with a national park inside its boundaries, where black rhinos graze against a skyline of office towers.

Spend a morning in Nairobi National Park looking for lions, buffalo, giraffes and rhinos, then watch keepers bottle-feed orphaned elephant calves at the rescue nursery inside the park. In Langata you can feed endangered Rothschild's giraffes from a raised platform, and Karen Blixen's old farmhouse still stands below the Ngong Hills. Evenings bring nyama choma grilled over charcoal, and the Maasai Market is the place to bargain for beadwork, sisal kiondo baskets and Kisii soapstone.

Most visitors give Nairobi a night at each end of their trip, enough to shake off the flight and fit in a game drive. The weather is mild all year, with cool, grey days in July and August and rain in April, May and November. Jomo Kenyatta International Airport has flights to Kigali, Entebbe, Kilimanjaro and Zanzibar, while Wilson Airport sends light aircraft to the Mara, Amboseli and Samburu.