Fancy breakfast with the giraffes?

When I was 6 years old, I was taken to Longleat National Park in the UK, where our car got attacked by monkeys, chased by lions, and gazed at by giraffes. I recall desperately wanting to pat and feed the giraffes; those tall, magnificent, doe-eyed, beautiful monsters. I also remember feeling like a Lilliputian in front of them, but they are so adorable that their sheer largeness didn’t scare me. I was smaller than the leg of an adult giraffe, and fed them however I could, sitting on the shoulders of my uncle. Pretty awesome.

So when I read that you can go to Giraffe Manor in Nairobi, where you might get woken up by a giraffe tongue in your ear, I was strangely excited about the concept.

Located in the Langata suburb, the Manor spans an area of 140 acres, and has 6 bedrooms for rent. The area is inundated with dozens of giraffes and the Manor’s windows are made so that the giraffe can let his neck in for breakfast. After the first jolt you’ll get facing a giraffe for breakfast, getting used to the idea will certainly make it the most pleasurable and unique part of the day. Giraffes are harmless herbivores, so you really have nothing to worry about.

The history of the place is interesting as the Manor used to be the house of people who spent a large part of their lives working for the cause of endangered wildlife in Africa. The family started the African Fund for Endangered Wildlife and the Giraffe Center, and now run the Giraffe Manor. Each room costs $275-360, but that includes all meals with wine, alcoholic beverages, a sight-seeing vehicle, entrance to the Giraffe Center, and taxes, so it’s not a bad deal for doing once. The Manor’s website has a cool picture gallery, check it out here.

Oh, and happy Boxing day!

UN: Urban Growth Set to Explode in Africa

In 1950, there were only two cities in Africa with more than one million inhabitants. They were both in Egypt (Cairo and Alexandria). In the 2008 version of continent, there are more than 40 urban centers with populations over 1 million. A report by the UN Human Settlements Programme projects that the number of Africans living in cities will double by 2030 to more than 700 million.

The image of an urban Africa is not one that usually comes to mind. Much of the continent’s tourism is still based on wildlife and the natural beauty of rural areas. It’s too early to tell if the landscape will totally change in the coming years.

Large cities are not growing rapidly, but mid-sized cities of between 500,000 and 1 million people are the ones that the UN report focuses on. These upstarts are growing at a rate that will see them soon rival or even eclipse the populations of current African mega-cities like Johannesburg and Nairobi.

[More on the UN Human Settlements Programme report]

Tourism in Kenya down 44%

Kenya, with its pristine white beaches and game parks teeming with wild animals, has been kind of a ghost town this winter. The post-election violence that killed more than 1,200 people and displaced 250,000 has left a huge dent on the billion-dollar tourist industry there.

Many countries advised their citizens to stay away from Kenya after the riots triggered by the December 27 election. According to Reuters, 99,602 holiday makers visited Kenya in January 2007. In January 2008, the number dropped to 55,906. The Kenya Tourist Board said the impact from the political unrest had been worse than after bombings in 1998 and 2002 that were blamed on al-Qaeda.