Karen Blixen Museum/ Giraffe Centre
The Museum was set up in 1985 on the Blixens coffee farm at the foot of the Ngong hills and still remains much of its original features. The colonial farm is indeed well preserved. Much of the original furniture. The colonial farm house is indeed well-preserved in their original oil portraits painted by Ms Blixen. Within the compound is a coffee drying plant and small carriage that were used to ferry the coffee to the Market.
Briefly, Karen Blixen is the of the famous book Out of Africa which was made into a film in 1985. She lived in the then house M’Bogani house from 1913 to 1931 and her pen name was Isak Dinesen. The house was built by a Swedish settler 1n 1911 and Karen coffee company took it over in 1913 when Bror Blixen bought the coffee company for Karen. Just before the Karen Blixen Museum is the Swedish house that was bought in 1919 as the residence for the Swedish manager of the coffee plantation. Experienced and well versed guides are available to take visitors through the house, with very detailed with explanation about the history of Karen and her life.
Giraffe Centre
The center was started as a refuge for the endangered Rothschild giraffe trans located from Western Kenya. It is the perfect location to see giraffe eye-to- eye and feed them with special made hay-pellets, which they take from your hand using their sticky 25- inch long blue-grey tongues. Today there are more than 3,500 Rothschild giraffe in Kenya with the biggest herd at Soysambu Conservancy on the shores of Lake Elmentaita.
