Nairobi
is a lively, cosmopolitan city that's full of contrasts. It's a place of smart
office workers and mansions and expensive suburban shopping centres as well
as overcrowded slums and a lot of people trying to struggle on as best they
can. Finding someone that wants to sell you a safari trip is easy; just walk
outside in downtown Nairobi. Sooner or later, you will find yourself in River
Rd, the matatu (minibus) centre of Kenya, which is full of energy and where
manual workers, the unemployed, the devious and the down-and-out mingle with
budget travellers, prostitutes, food-stall vendors and students. But this sort
of atmosphere comes at a cost: crime in River Rd and some other areas of Nairobi
is a major problem (travellers have come to call the place 'Nairoberry'). For
all that, Nairobi is also a place to find things that you can't buy in most
other parts of Africa: it has the latest films on big screens, a variety of
excellent restaurants and a number of cafes and bars full of travellers from
all over the world swapping safari stories.
