Elephant Orphanage and Giraffe Park

Well John and I celebrated our 6th wedding anniversary on Saturday in a way that we may never celebrate again - by going to see baby elephants and giraffes!  

Running in for their feeding - they run faster than you might think!

We started the day at an elephant orphanage.  Elephants are extremely social creatures and if orphaned they will often die due to depression.  They only come out once a day so they do not get too attached to tourists.  Their trainers stay with them day AND night (we saw the trainers bunk in each elephant stall!) and they are fed every 2 to 3 hours.  They are allergic to cows milk and you can't milk elephants so they drink LARGE portions of Similac formula.  All the elephants we saw were ages 2 and under - they were extremely playful and VERY excited about their bottles.  The red Kenya dirt helps act as sunblock for their skin and keeps insects away.

The orphanage does release the elephants back into the wild near other elephants, but it is often a 5 to 10 year process.  It takes a long time for them to leave their trainers and bond with other elephants - which is a must for these social animals!

Getting a little love from one of the trainers

Happily drinking Similac formula

The baby of the bunch - just 11 months old!

Covered in red dirt

Drinking water

playtime

After the elephants we headed over to the giraffe park.  Seeing the giraffes in person was a little surreal - they are so big and majestic.  The giraffes are completely free in this park - they are able to roam at will and the property is connected to the Nairobi game park.  However, they certainly have some incentive to come visit - they are fed well by excited visitors.  In fact if you don't feed them they are likely to head but you...John learned this firsthand.  Daisy thought he was a little slow in feeding her and she got impatient.  The larger giraffe is Daisy who is expecting.  The smaller giraffe is Helen who is only 2 years old.    There is no other animal quite like a giraffe and it was amazing to see them in person.  We might be making another trip before our time here ends...

A few of the giraffes stayed in the field

Daisy on the other hand was more than happy to stand by the platform and eat!

Pictures fail to show their impressive height justice!

Me and Daisy

How often do you get the chance to kiss a giraffe?  

We'll be back with a few more photos tomorrow - blogger is taking forever to upload pictures!  We will also post a couple of albums to facebook in case you want to see more pictures.
It was truly amazing to see and touch (and even kiss) these incredible animals!