East Africa, Kenya

Nairobi

Burgeoning, lively, ever-more cosmopolitan, Nairobi (“cool waters”) is more than Kenya’s capital, it’s the unquestioned cultural and economic centre of East Africa. Home of Micato’s founders, Felix and Jane Pinto (who personally greet nearly all Micato guests passing through the city), it’s one of Executive Director Joy Phelan-Pinto’s favourite earthly cities.

“I love Nairobi,” she says, “I’ve been coming here for 30 years, and the city has transformed into—and here I quote The New York Times — ‘a destination in itself. It has great restaurants, endless shopping, classy colonial-era hotels and plenty of wildlife within the city limits…’ Nairobi ’s where I get my best treasures from jewelry to artwork, and it’s a city bursting with a community of a fascinatingly engaged pan-African intelligentsia.”

The faint wood-smoke scent that greet us on the tarmac at Nairobi welcomes us home, and the evening Kenyan air hold a sweet freshness.Joy Phelan-Pinto