Today was spectacular!! We began the day at Karen Blixen’s house. After she left Africa, bankrupt, she returned to Denmark and became a famous author and artist. Denmark print a stamp and paper money in her honor. The bought back her African house, land and furniture and gifted it to the Kenyan government to use as a museum. The film Out of Africa was filmed on the property but all the inside shots were done somewhere else.

The next stop was the Elephant Orphanage. Orphan elephants are raised through donations by employees who are with them everyday and sleep with them at night. The mothers have died of disease, by lack of water, by poachers or hunters. Several of the babies were rescued from wells or next to their mother’s bodies. Once a day they are paraded out and bottle fed in front of visitors. They wallow in the red mud, play with a soccer ball and seek attention and affection from the visitors. After about 30 minutes of play time they are paraded back to the farm. I had placed myself so I could photograph them coming in and playing. On the return parade one of them looked in the eye, crossed the rope fence and began rubbing up against me. I was covered in red mud.

The next stop was the giraffe farm. This farm rescues and breeds the Rothchild Giraffes. You can feed the giraffes from your hand or put the feed between you lips and it will kiss you.

Our last stop was lunch at the Blixen coffee farm.