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PICTURES OF NAIROBI

For one full day, we hired a driver to give us a tour of Nairobi and take us to all the major attractions. Believe me, you'll want to hire a driver to take you around as you don't want to drive in this country – it’s very dangerous. Plus he knows right where to go in this very badly marked country.

Our driver’s name was Henry, and he was awesome! He has five children, with the last one finally being a girl. His oldest child is 22-years-old, and he's a teacher. He was very interesting to talk to, and we enjoyed our day with him.

As part of this day, we visited four attractions that have separate links on this web site: Sheldrick’s, Giraffe Center, Carnivore Restaurant, and Karen Blixen National Museum. Make sure to check out these attractions and see all the pictures. (Links are to the right).

Downtown City Tour
We were picked up at 10:00am. Our first stop was Sheldrick’s which didn't open until 11:00am, so Henry gave us a tour of downtown Nairobi. It was a Sunday morning, so there was hardly any traffic or people. I wouldn't attempt going downtown on a week day!

Henry was extremely knowledgeable of all the buildings and areas of downtown Nairobi. A few of the things we saw were tons of government buildings (City Hall, Parliament, Office of the President, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Embassy House), many churches (Holy Family Cathedral, All Saint’s Cathedral, church corner – has four churches), tons of hotels, Kenyatta Conference Center, National Archives, City Square, and University Campus.

U.S. Embassy
On August 7, 1998, a car bomb exploded in the parking lot between the U.S. Embassy and Ufundi House (local bank building). The bomb killed 207 Kenyans and 12 U.S. citizens and left more than 4,000 injured. The Ufundi House, which included rental space that provided the cooperative's sole source of income, collapsed from the blast. Seconds after Nairobi's U.S. embassy building was bombed, a second, smaller blast rocked Tanzania's capital, Dar es Salaam, claiming another 11 lives.

In May 2001, a New York court found four people guilty of the bombing, which the U.S. says was the work of Osama bin Laden. Kenyan President Moi has dedicated a memorial park to the victims of the bomb. The park is located on the site where the embassy and the bank building were located.

We visited this memorial in downtown Nairobi in honor of the United States. Please see the picture link above for blurry images of the park.


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Copyright © 2002, Dawn M. Dalton.
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