Travelling Hopefully - The Venom Laden Edition

Fascinated though I'm sure my adventures in postal were I am aware that I promised a visit to the Nairobi National Museum and a snake park.  Strangely I managed to achieve that as well.  I was assisted by the fact that they're both located in the same place.

I think that's pretty awesome.  Every museum should have a snake park.  That way the kids will have a reason to visit.  What better way to brighten up a bit of cultural mind improving than by having venom spitting reptiles hanging off the major exhibits?  Naturally the Nairobi National Museum doesn't have this either.  It simply shares grounds with the snake park but a mere 1600 shillings will get you access to both.  For another thousand you can hire the services of a guide who will take you through the museum, although not the snake park.  I must confess I'm not sure of my guide's official status.  I suspect he may have simply been a relative of the woman who sold me the ticket but he certainly knew his stuff.  Or at least he talked plausibly enough to convince someone sitting in a pool of total ignorance that he knew his stuff.

He guided me from room to room covering the ascent of Man (Kenya is after all where Man started ascending), the history of Kenya pre, during and post colonial. Plus rooms devoted to the animals and birds of Kenya.  They didn't have any reptiles, I suspect they didn't want to steal the snake park's thunder.  I saw (and photographed) the skeleton of Ahmed a monstrous sized elephant with monstrous sized tusks who during the poaching crisis of the 1980s was given a twenty four hour guard by the Kenyan president.  The poachers got him in the end (Ahmed, not the president) although they didn't get the tusks.  A poacher managed to shoot Ahmed in the back of the head, an injury which he at first shrugged off but would appear to have caused some kind of stroke as one side of his face was paralysed.  This forced Ahmed to chew on only one side of his mouth wearing down his teeth more quickly until eventually he died due to a lack of teeth to chew his food with.

The Kenyan history part was certainly interesting.  There was a bit on the Mau-Mau uprising which prompted thought.  I have heard of the Mau-Mau, largely from a horrible murders and the British crushing it perspective.  Now here it was taking a prominent and lauded place in Kenya's story of independence and rise to nationhood.  Intellectually I was aware of this but this was the first time I had stared it in the face.  It's amazing what will happen when people get the opportunity to write their own history.

The last and weakest exhibit was a photo gallery showing Chinese-Kenyan friendship which I suspect the Chinese paid for and thus the Kenyans felt obliged to display.  It consisted largely of besuited Kenyans and Chinese shaking hands in front of things.  My guide didn't bother mustering up the enthusiasm he'd exhibited in the previous rooms.  I got the impression that he wasn't entirely impressed with China's friendly generosity towards Kenya.  If nothing else the Kenyans have learned to spot a colonist at twenty paces.

And so to the snake park.  As snake parks go it was well populated with tortoises.  Obviously the park is trying to expand its range  Seriously, they were everywhere including sharing one compound with a whole bunch of snakes.  The sign on the enclosure said "Trespassers will be poisoned" presumably the tortoises are recognised as locals.  They had a couple of crocodiles as well, looking as dead as only a live crocodile can.

Around the central, tortoise heavy, enclosure there were loads of glass fronted alcoves containing snakes.  Each one had a helpful caption identifying the particular serpent in question, giving its range, temperament and risk scale.  There was one that was identified as "totally harmless but looks exactly like another one which is lethal".  The implied suggestion being that you be extremely sure of your identification before you pick it up.  My favourite was the Gaboon Viper, a rather plump and stubby snake which the caption noted was laid back, relaxed and easy going.  It would make an ideal pet for children or a gift for a favoured relative.  I may be paraphrasing a little.  It isn't until the last line that they mention that if you do succeed in pissing it off it will fucking kill you.