The Giraffe Center

Now that we're getting somewhat settled we can start exploring the city and soon beyond that. Today we started by taking a trip to the Giraffe Center down on the other side of the city. It was me and three kids since we invited our neighbor's kids to join us. That's Rafik, who's 8 years old, and Naima, his 4 year old sister. Gerard bowed out and went off to a meeting. Luckily I didn't have to drive as our rental car comes with a driver called Sami.

Although it didn't look far on the map, with all the traffic it took us a good hour to get to the center. Ouch!! Probably not something we'll be doing too often.

The center (http://giraffecenter.org/) is neat because you get very close to giraffes to the extent that you can get sloppy kisses from them. The center was started to save the endangered Rothchild Giraffe but has become a popular attraction for tourists and local kids. There's a tower from which you can stand at the level of the giraffes and literally drop grass pellets into their mouths. It's off putting because giraffes have tongues up to 45 cm in length (that's almost half a yard!!) and Sascha was hesitant to get too close at first, but quickly you realize that they don't bite and it's only a bit of slobber anyway. Add to the that: giraffe slobber is an anesthetic so their tongues can heal quickly from the wounds they get from the thorns on their favorite trees. Here are a few pictures:

Naima, Sascha and Rafik in the tortoise pen

petting the tortoise....