10 Reasons and More to Visit Nairobi National Game Park

Here are some of the photos I took of wildlife we saw when on safari in the park in the order in which we saw them. We had multiple sightings of many of these animals. For example, we saw several herds of buffalo and impalas, many giraffes at different times over the course of the morning, and innumerable birds, and more.

Everyone wants to see a lion. Very few actually do.  Our driver wanted us to be among those lucky few. But we had no luck. We were on our way out of the park.

Suddenly, our driver turned into an open field, driving crazily fast along a path that was not really meant for a vehicle such as his. A tractor perhaps, but not a van. There were some places where the van tipped over as if it was a sailboat heeling and I was afraid we would actually capsize.

We came to the other side of the field, joining another van with one person with a professional camera with a huge lens. Our driver had heard over the radio that there had been a lion sighting here and the photographer informed us that there was, indeed, a lion and lioness.  All we could see was the lioness slinking away into the bush.

I was not able to take her picture, but I did see her!

Cheetahs, hyenas and leopards populate the park. However, they are even more hidden than the lions so do not count on seeing any of these.

We did not see hippos, and the zebras were visible only from a great distance away. Interestingly, later in the week, I saw zebras grazing alongside cattle and goats in the Rift Valley about 30 minutes drive outside of Nairobi.

The park is a bird-watchers' paradise. There are over 500 species of birds and we saw a number of them. My camera is not good enough to photograph therm but it was certainly exciting to see red-faced birds with long tails that seem to hang in the air.