When my childhood best friend, Helen, told me she was having a wedding in Kenya, the only thing I could respond with was, "I'll be there!" How often do you get to witness a culturally authentic, foreign wedding? I was ecstatic.

To avoid flying 30 hours to East Africa just for a couple days, my fiancé and I planned an 18-day adventure that would take us to 3 nature reserves, 2 countries, 5 cities, and enough outings to cover the holidays and then some. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's talk about Nairobi.

5am Outfit: TravelPro Luggage, Bebe Jacket, Lululemon leggings, Athleta sweater, Allbirds Wool Loungers (similar)

After our 30+ hours of traveling, we landed in the Nairobi airport to be greeted by Dan, a close college friend who was living in Nairobi. We were staying with him and his housemates, including another college friend, Nekesa.

Nekesa is the absolute sweetest human, and she welcomed us home with freshly baked chocolate chip cookies. The next morning, she prepared a luxurious brunch for us, complete with homemade banana bread and freshly boiled chai. It was such a sweet reunion, and they made our stay with them feel like home away from home.

Over brunch, we discussed the housemates' co-founded, once-a-joking-suggestion, pumpkin-goods company, Everything Pumpkin, for which, you may have guessed, Nekesa is the head baker. More on their baking in another post. It was really special to be able to use our product and business skills to help accelerate this fledgling startup on the other side of the world.

The three things you quickly learn when in Kenya, are that 1. everyone seems to have a side hustle, 2. the traffic is horrific, and 3. Ubers are the cheapest and best ways to get around. From pumpkin delicacies to used cars, chairs to flower pots, everyone seems to be selling something. Drive anywhere in the city, and you can't miss the rows of fares being sold.

The fares are especially hard to miss when you're sitting in traffic for hours, crawling past them. Our ride home from the airport, typically 30-minutes, took us two hours, and was our first rude introduction to Nairobi's infamous traffic.

Wherever you go, 4 lanes of cars fill the 2-lane highways, and some even off-road in the "shoulder" that is really dirt. We quickly learned that one can only do so many things in a day there — typically one activity in the morning, then one in the afternoon or evening. Any more, and traffic will ruin your plans. Traffic “rules” are merely suggestions.

Our time in Nairobi passed by very quickly (especially given how much of it was spent in traffic). The main things we did in Nairobi (when not sitting in traffic) were: 1. visit animal sanctuaries, 2. shop at local markets, 3. eat at Carnivore, and 4. attend Helen's wedding.

Animal Sanctuaries

If you only have time to do one thing in Nairobi, this would be the number one thing on my list. It's an absolute must do.

Baby Elephants

Aren't these babies the absolute cutest?! And you can see them being fed!

Anyway, in order to not totally clutter this post with photos of adorable baby elephants, I wrote another post on them exclusively.

Giraffes

Right after you finish seeing elephants, catch an Uber to Giraffe Centre, a giraffe sanctuary. For only $10/person, you can enter the sanctuary, pet the giraffes, and even feed them two handfuls of food. So worth it.

The large animals bounce their heads up and down between people's hands, searching for food.

They're such curious creatures, and they quickly captured Michia's heart.

Best of all, they're not at all afraid to show affection. Just put a pellet in your mouth.

We spent about 1 hour with the giraffes, and I think this last one was responding to our actions as we took a photo with her.

Just look at her face(s) (😮 and 😘)! When we finished here, we headed for a nearby restaurant, Tin Roof Cafe. It has a super cute shop, with high quality artisan goods for sale.

Local Markets

If you go to a local market, beware that you will be bombarded with requests to view locals' goods. Every shop owner is constantly pulling you to check out the items in their shop, and if you linger for more than a second, you'll have items presented to you left and right, with recommendations to buy, buy, buy.

All I can say is know what you want, and be ready to bargain.

Carnivore

Our only real pitstop for good food was at a place Dan recommends everyone go: Carnivore, Nairobi's Fogo de Chao.

Carnivore has two separate restaurants, an all-you-can-eat style, and an a la carte. We accidentally sat down at the all-you-can-eat side, watched this crazy party of a birthday celebration, then headed to the other side, where we had a tasting platter that consisted of crocodile, ostrich, chicken, and pork sausage.

After dinner, we went to stay with Helen and the bridal party, then spent the next day at her wedding.

Helen's Wedding

Everything in Kenya runs late, and Helen's wedding was no exception. The bridal party all got up at 6am because we were supposed to leave at 9am, but didn't end up leaving till 11, and the 11am scheduled wedding started at 1pm.