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Africa Travel Guide - Kenya Travel
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Kenya Travel Guide - Quick Links
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Kenya - Shopping
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Shopping in Kenya is a major visitor pastime and has the advantage of being fun since, with the street and market vendors, haggling and bargaining are expected. Most hotels have a gift shop where you can purchase African art and other items. While on your safari or your city tours, you will pass and stop at small Kenyan art stores where you can purchase the art directly from the artisan or the cooperative store.
Whenever possible, we recommend that you purchase African art directly from the artist; this way, you have a personal touch with the artisan, and it also gives the artisan the much-needed entrepreneurial confidence. When shopping in Nairobi, the main shopping areas as far as visitors are concerned, are contained within a rectangle no more than a kilometer on its longest side and bounded in the west by Uhuru Highway, in the north by University Way, followed in a southerly direction by Moi Avenue and completing the rectangle by City Hall Way.
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Within this area there are two markets, the City Market, and very near to that, a craft market, sometimes called the Blue Market off Tubman Road. The City Market has a wide selection of crafts as well as a dazzling display of fruits, vegetables and flowers. Kenya crafts are known worldwide particularly the carving of the Akamba and the soapstone carvings, often abstract, of the Gusii. The famous Kenya woven sisal basket, kiondo, has become so popular in the west that some countries, as far away as the Philippines, have begun to imitate it.
There are scores of sophisticated craft shops, where the price is higher than the markets but so also is the quality. African Heritage is the best known of these and has created an international reputation not only for crafts but also for clothing and design. In the suburb of Langata is Utamaduni, a collection of 17 shops plus a restaurant all under one roof. The shops sell everything from fabrics to furniture and there are craftsmen creating their work on the spot.
Utamaduni is close to AfricanMecca's Nairobi offices and is easily visited when undertaking "The Out of Africa City Tour" to the Giraffe Center and the Karen Blixen Museum. It is also quite near the new Ostrich Park (a mini Ostrich Farm) and also a craft center. Apart from crafts, gemstones are also great buys, although in this case buying in the street is definitely not recommended.
Fine specimens of locally cut malachite, sodalite, fluorspar, bluelace agate, haematite and jasper as well as petrified wood are all easily obtained. Two stones stand out for their rarity and their value: Tanzanite, a brilliant sapphire-like gemstone and Tsavorite, a match for any emerald. Both these stones sell in Kenya for half their New York price. Other local gemstones include rubies, amethysts and malaya garnets.
Law prohibits the sale of all game trophies, and objects made from them, so the 'elephant hair' bracelets that you are likely to be offered in the street are illegal or made of plastic, more likely the latter. The 'lion claw' jewelry is more likely to be made of camel hoof.
Overall in the shopping realm, Kenya exceeds any visitor's artistic and cultural preference.
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