Around Nairobi our last day

On our last day in Nairobi, we checked out of our hotel and they let us keep our luggage in the closet in the lobby so we could still spend our entire day in town before leaving. We took an Uber to the Nairobi animal orphanage that we learned about when going to the national park and didn't have time to go to on the day we were there. We invited our friend that we met online before going to Kenya on Facebook (girls love travel); she was in town visiting her sister in Nairobi. She told us neither of them had ever gone, in Kenya locals don't go to the safaris and parks, we were told that they see them as something for the tourists. It was only $3 USD for them to get in as locals, and we paid for them to join us; for us it was around $20 USD as tourists.

Being there so early when we first went in we were the only ones in the park. We got our own tour guide and soon were joined by another as we were going around and laughing having fun with everyone. The gentleman who joined us had a very close relationship with the animals. He got up close to them and used our cameras to get some amazing photos for us up close. He then took a stick and started playing with lions having them jump up on the fence and let us take pictures of them behind us! They told us they enjoyed spending time with us and how much we wanted to learn and explore the orphanage. We got to have more experiences that most people don't get to have. He brought out a catnip toy showing us how the two-year-old lion cubs react with it just like house cats do, we then got to go behind the rope! He gave us the toy and we got to have them jump up on the fence above us, and we got to see how massive and strong these animals really are!

All the animals in the orphanage can not be returned back to the wild, either from injury or from being rescued at such a young age that they wouldn't be able to survive on their own. The two young ones we got to have an experience with one of them (or maybe both I can't remember) were rescued at a day old from poachers. They were hand-reared by humans and never got the chance to learn to be lions. All the animals have their own stories and there are volunteers at all times ready at the orphanage to take in anything that needs help. I wouldn't mind going back and volunteering, we were told it wasn't a very easy job that you had to do feedings every couple of hours. It would be so amazing and rewarding to be able to help them! I would even go just to clean up the poo haha!

After playing with the lions we walked around and saw the other animals, going to the spotted hyenas. Our informational guides told us all about all the animals and their stories, the catnip toy was still with us at this point. The guide took the catnip and started enticing the hyena then he came over and took it from the guy and after less than a minute it was being shredded.

The last animal we got to have an experience with other than the baboons that were following us around, was one of our favorites the warthog! The warthogs that they had there were huge, standing they came to about our knees. And they were very fat! They had two that were separated from each other because one had some temperamental issues. But the one that's a bit moody we got to feed her some bread. I have a video of this but can't get it off Facebook. I got to pet her just a little too, its amazing how large they can get!