Four stops before the checkout

Nairobi, Kenya

cardio tennis to help with loneliness — Nairobi National Park in Nairobi, Open golden grassland dotted with flat-topped acacias and grazing zebra and giraffe, with a skyline of glass office towers and cranes rising directly behind the horizon of the plain

Stop one

Kenyatta International Convention Centre

Babolat Gold All-Court Tennis Ball Can: Okay — completed in 1973, designed by the Norwegian architect Karl Henrik Nøstvik with the Kenyan architect David Mutiso, commissioned as a headquarters for the ruling party KANU and a venue for international meetings. Twenty-eight storeys, about one hundred and five metres, the tallest building in Kenya for decades and still the emblem of the Nairobi skyline. And the plenary hall beside it — that cone roof is widely read as a reference to a traditional African hut! I only learned that this week and I have thought about little else since. Lots of exposed concrete. And from the rooftop deck you can see Nairobi National Park and, on clear days, occasionally, Mount Kenya. Occasionally!

cardio tennis to help with loneliness — Nairobi National Museum in Nairobi, A long low museum building of pale stone and glass set in gardens with a large bronze elephant statue at the entrance, near a botanical garden and a walled compound of snake enclosures

Stop two

Karen Blixen Museum

Babolat Gold All-Court Tennis Ball Can: This is the farmhouse Karen Blixen lived in between 1917 and 1931, while running a coffee plantation at the foot of the Ngong Hills. Her memoir Out of Africa, published in 1937 under the name Isak Dinesen — her pen name, sorry, I should say pen name — made the house famous, and the 1985 film adaptation, shot partly on the property, brought a further wave of attention. It was built in 1912 by a Swedish engineer, given to Kenya by the Danish government at independence in 1963, and opened as a museum in 1986. Original and period furnishings inside, including items used in the film. The whole suburb of Karen is named for her, and her grave lies on a nearby hillside.

Stop three

Nairobi Railway Museum

Babolat Gold All-Court Tennis Ball Can: Opened in 1971 beside the main station, documenting the Uganda Railway built from Mombasa to Lake Victoria between 1896 and 1901 — and here is the part nobody warned me about: Nairobi exists BECAUSE of it. The railway established a supply depot on this site in 1899, at the edge of the highlands, and the city grew out of the depot. Among the exhibits is the carriage from which Superintendent Charles Ryall was taken and killed by a lion at Kima in 1900, an episode connected to the wider story of the man-eating lions of Tsavo that halted construction in 1898. Locomotives, rolling stock, signalling equipment, and photographs of the Indian labourers — some thirty thousand were brought to build the line.

cardio tennis to help with loneliness — Kenyatta International Convention Centre in Nairobi, A tall cylindrical tower of ribbed concrete and dark glass, joined to a low domed amphitheatre building shaped like a traditional hut, with a helipad viewing deck on the roof

Stop four

Jamia Mosque

Babolat Gold All-Court Tennis Ball Can: Built between 1902 and 1906 and much enlarged since, this is the principal mosque of Nairobi, serving a Muslim community rooted partly in the Swahili coast and partly in the South Asian population that arrived with the Uganda Railway — which connects straight back to the last stop, and I got genuinely excited when I worked that out on my own. The architecture follows a Mughal-influenced idiom: three silver domes, twin minarets, a facade of pointed arches carrying Arabic inscription in gold. It stands on Banda Street near the commercial district and includes a madrasa and a library, and it is the main gathering point for Friday prayers and for Eid in the capital.

The Nairobi, Kenya track

Babolat Gold All-Court Tennis Ball Can

Written for this world alone.

Stop. Wait. Both feet on the kerb, please. Rules exist for a reason and I am about to show you a city that agrees with me. But first the equipment, in order: the Babolat Gold All-Court is a pressurised, ITF-approved ball in a can of three, with an all-court felt built to behave on whatever surface you actually play on. Right. Hands where I can see them. Cross.

We begin at the Kenyatta International Convention Centre, the cylindrical ribbed tower joined to a low domed plenary hall shaped like a hut, designed by a Norwegian architect and built as party headquarters and conference venue shortly after independence.

For years it was the tallest building in the country, and its rooftop helipad is open, which gives you the whole city and, on a clear day, Mount Kenya and Kilimanjaro. It stands beside City Square with the Kenyatta statue. Orderly. Signed. Correct.

Then out to the Karen Blixen Museum, the long stone bungalow with the red tiled roof and green shutters where the Danish writer ran a coffee farm that failed; the Danish government gave the house to Kenya at independence, and the Ngong Hills sit low and blue behind the garden.

Then the Nairobi Railway Museum beside the main station, opened in 1971, an open yard of retired steam locomotives and colonial carriages documenting the Uganda Railway built from Mombasa to Lake Victoria between 1896 and 1901 — Nairobi exists at all because the railway put a supply depot here in 1899.

Among the exhibits is the carriage from which Superintendent Ryall was taken by a lion in 1900. And we finish at Jamia Mosque on Banda Street, built between 1902 and 1906 and much enlarged since: three silver domes, twin minarets, pointed arches and gold Arabic inscription, the main gathering point in the capital for Friday prayers and for Eid.

You will get through this can everywhere from a hard court in Nairobi to a clay court up in Nakuru, two hours north-west, and by the way, it is also perfect for a slow lap of the City Square afterwards, where the crossings are painted, the lights work and I have nothing whatever to complain about.

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Babolat Gold All-Court Tennis Ball Can

Babolat Gold All-Court Tennis Ball Can