Early Morning Group Joining Game Drive In Nairobi National Park

after entry into the park, tour was great. saw lots of lions, rhinos, zebras, giraffes, etc. and guide did a great job too. kenya has the dumbest payment thing for foreigners called eCitizen. you can’t pay in cash or credit card to enter this site or museums. you have to pay via this eCitizen online portal on your phone and it sucks. everyone was scrambling to get this done in the group and we spent over an hour trying to pay at the gate. for the tour operator, update your description to say you can pay in advance on eCitizen and remind people in your communications of this. also, was kinda upset tour operator charged full price for my plus one to come a long while they had to sit in front without roof access.

Shortly after booking I was contacted by WhatsApp that my pick-up time would be 5:45 AM instead of 6;00 AM. It's always reassuring to be contacted after booking so that you know the tour is actually going to take place. On the evening before the tour I got a new message telling me to be ready between 5:30 and 6:00. So on the day of the tour I wake up early and start waiting. 6:00 passes and no one shows up. I send the tour operator a WhatsApp message, but no one reads it. At 6:15 I call them and they promise to find out where my car is. 5 minutes later they call me back, telling me I'm going to be picked up in 10 minutes. At 6:35 the van finally arrives. Then things start going smoother. We pick up a few other participants, go get some fuel and we reach the park gate at 7:20 AM. There we pay the park entrance fee. The information in the tour description was outdated regarding the entry fee: it was 60 USD, payable by card only. We drive for three hours in the park (including a bathroom break). Our driver is clearly a professional, he knows where to find the animals. We get to see e.g. several giraffes, zebras, a black rhino, two white rhinos, a lion, ostriches, two cranes and a crocodile from a close distance. Wildebeast and a buffalo can be seen a bit further away and a bunchs of hippos staying in the water. During the break the driver comes and tells me that the rest of the group is going to the Giraffe Center after the National Park and asks whether I can join them. I agree to join them, the only extra I have to pay is the entrance fee to the Giraffe Center. Before going to the Giraffe Center we have a break at a coffee shop. Obviously not everyone comes to the Giraffe Center, as one couple leaves us during the break. We got back to the city before 1 PM.

We booked a day trip to the game reserve to fill in a long stop over at Nairobi airport. Although we didn’t sleep on the flight from th uk at 6 am the driver was on time and we got the game park early but because of recent rain even the 4x 4 ‘s struggled on the tracks and so saw a few antelope ; buffalo and giraffes before giving up the struggle and heading to the elephant orphanage which was really good. The driver then found an excellent restaurant before dropping us off at the airport for a flight to Cape Town. All in all an excellent way to spend half a day.