iDiasporan

The hospitality industry has been on a steady rise in Nyeri County and is yet to reach its potential, say experts. Located 50 kilometres from Nyeri town, Hotel Giraffe Ark is a facility of its kind amidst huge tracts of farmland in the agriculturally rich Kieni constituency. For first time visitors, one would be forgiven to think that this was another ordinary rural hotel in the middle of farms that provides a safe haven for novelists.

 However, entry to the facility proves you wrong as the hotel standards equal world renowned facilities in the tourist resorts towns of Malindi and Lamu. Sandwiched between Mt Kenya and the Aberdares, the hotel offers an almost sentimental view of sunrise and sunset, without even a need to shift positions. Two huge sculptures of giraffes at the gate dwarf the friendly security guards that usher you in with broad smiles. The hotel’s chief executive officer and proprietor, Peter Mahu Kariuki, welcomes us with a huge smile and offers to take us round.