At the Kenyan shops and flea markets you will find all kinds of items that will do a nice souvenir of your trip. Most of the items displayed at the tourist shops are industrially produced copies, but anyway they are decorative. But do not pay them as handcrafts.

The opening times for shops are from 9 AM to 5:30 PM, Monday to Friday, closing for lunch from 1 to 2 PM. On Saturdays, shops are open from 9 AM to 1:30 PM. The shops at the lodges usually have their opening times adapted to the times of the day at which guests stick around.

In general, prices of all articles for tourists are high. The best prices can be found at the airport shops and from the people at the parks gates, especially Maasai women at Sekenani Gate, Masai Mara (only for bracelets and other beadworks, the rest has no interest). Shops at some lodges and flea markets usually have reasonable prices as well. Prices are higher at hotels and stores in Nairobi, and above all, at the road dukas or curio shops. If you travel in a group with a driver you won't get away without calling at the dukas that pay a commission to the driver. Prices here are not simply high, rather sky high. Of course, bargaining is mandatory, but even so, save your money for the places mentioned above, where you will find the very same items at much lower prices. If the duka is located by a soda kiosk, the best way to make use of the stop is to have a fresh drink, or simply stretch your legs.

Wood carvings are the most popular objects. From the small animal wooden shapes, coarse and worthless but nice anyway, to the costly black ebony carvings of the Tanzanian makonde art, with prohibitive prices. Makonde has two main trends, the traditional one which represents human figures, daily labours or animals, and a modern trend specialising in abstract slender shapes. Concerning ebony, check its authenticity not to pay a pig in a poke, picaresque is in the air and sometimes ordinary wood is stained black with shoe polish. Ebony is heavier than fakes, but just in case ask the retailer to scratch the base of the carving with a knife to check that the wood is also black inside. Sellers use this same procedure to check the goods they buy. Don't forget to check that it is a single piece, sometimes stained wood carvings are mounted on ebony bases to pass the "scratch test".

Among the wood carvings, you will find some masks. In general, East African ethnic groups haven't cultured this art to an extent similar to Central and West African tribes. However, extensive tourism development in Kenya has allowed the spreading of other countries' masks through Kenyan retailers. Two good examples are the shop at Mount Kenya Safari Club and a store specialising in handcraft opposite to Mombasa Serena Beach hotel. In both cases, prices are high.

In some places you will find clay figures, mainly busts of tribal chiefs. The great detail they show makes them real portraits.

Stone carvings are very frequent, specially representing animals and household. Malachite, turquoise, coral and soapstone are the most used materials. These stones are also used for jewellery.

In all the shops you will find plenty of beadwork, including the typical Maasai bracelets and necklaces, made with coloured beads. Most of them are industrially produced. At the parks' gates in the Maasai Land, specially in Masai Mara and Amboseli, native women themselves offer their goods while you arrange the entry formalities with the rangers. Copper is the metal most commonly used for beadwork. If someone tries to sell elephant hair bracelets, you must know that all of them are fakes. If they were authentic they would be banned. If you are lucky enough, they will be made up of cow horns' splinters, stained and braided. If not, expect simple plastic. Formerly the fakes were manufactured with straw, reason why still some retailers attempt to proof their authenticity putting the bracelet over a flame. The ones sold today are equally fakes but at least they won't burn.

Dried and hardened gourds imitate those used by the Maasai to make the blood and milk mixture they drink. They are found everywhere, decorated or not, and make a nice ornament. In the rural areas of the Maasai Land it is possible to find some truly authentic ones.

Kiondos are baskets made of braided sisal. They are very popular and almost a must for buying, mainly because they are helpful to store the rest of the souvenirs. Some baskets are made up of baobab bark.

Batiks are painted cloths for wall decoration. The more modest ones are monochrome and painted on cotton cloth. The most refined and expensive, only found at the Nairobi art galleries, are richly coloured and painted on silk. They usually represent animal and ethnic motifs, though a modernist trend is also present.

Tribalware, such as spears, shields, wooden maces and swords, are always fakes. They are very nice even though, but do not pay as if they were authentic.

Cloths and tissues are beautiful and serve all uses, in addition to their original role which is covering the body. They are generally manufactured with cotton. Female kangas, richly printed, are composed of two pieces, one for covering the upper part of the body and the other one to roll around the waist. The best ones are found in Mombasa. Male kikois are rougher and consist of only one piece. Inland they are frequently printed with flashy reds and blues, while at the coast, specially in Lamu, there is a greater variety.

Books, maps and guides of all kinds may be purchased either at the hotels' and lodges' stores or at the bookshops in the large cities, always at relatively good prices. Nairobi bookshops are aligned along Kimathi, Wabera and Mama Ngina streets. Two outstanding ones are Nation Bookshop, in Kimathi st. next to New Stanley Hotel, and Prestige Books, in Mama Ngina st.

Gold is mainly found at the coastal Hindu stores. It is used to manufacture all kinds of jewels of ethnic inspiration. Pieces are sold by weight according to the international gold market, meaning that prices are good.

Bargaining:

The prices for all goods destined to tourists are extremely costly, as usual in many developing countries. Fortunately, the possibility of bargaining is always up.

First of all, and since after all this is a personal site, here goes my opinion about this practice. Basically, I don't like it, though I exercise it, but moderately. I don't like it because, as mentioned elsewhere, we, foreigners and especially white foreigners, flaunt with the sole fact of being there; Kenyans are aware that travelling to their country costs a lot of money. I'm sorry, but that attitude of the buyer-ultrabargainer who likes to show off to the rest of the group like a peacock saying "so there, I got it cheaper", makes me sick. However poor you may be, if you can afford going on vacations to Kenya, you are first world, and they are the third. Their supper depends on our purchases, and I wouldn't like to think that someone couldn't buy meat for her children that day because I dropped too much the price for the mask. Many Europeans and North Americans are willing to buy in their home countries some item with a very high profit margin for the manufacturer, just because the item carries a sticker with a fancy brand. Conversely, that same margin seems inconvenient to them for a person that needs it much more than Chanel's CEO. And I don't care being unpleasant.

In addition, we usually go to purchase our souvenirs with the idea that items must be very cheap because it is a third world country. Actually, it shouldn't be that way. Fair commerce is based on a fair rating of manpower, and fair commerce is always apparently expensive. When you are on to bargaining, please don't forget that if prices seem higher than at home, it is just because many consumer goods you buy in your country are manufactured using scarcely remunerated manpower in third world countries, sometimes even children. If you happen to buy some item directly to the craftsman or woman, don't be annoyed by paying a little more, you will be rating his work in a more approximate way to what it deserves.

I am not that naive either. As everyone, I don't like to be swindled, but the bargainer-buyer must assume that he will always be the deceived one. After all we are usually unable to estimate a fair price, since we ignore how many people contributed to the manufacturing, how many hours did it take to produce it, what is the manpower rate and what is the profit margin. I'd rather be knowingly deceived that going away with a stupid feeling of victory, having been equally deceived.

Albeit, I bargain. And not because of what many guidebooks say -a courtesy toward the seller, something I personally have always doubted, at least in most of the places and in these modern times. The question is that, if you don't bargain at all, you will be promoting the practice exercised by many retailers of rising the prices every day while they check that buyers keep on bearing with it. This price rise does not result in any profit for the country's economy, just for the retailer's, since most of the items you will buy are industrially produced and the increase in the profit margin does not necessarily revert to the manufacturer.

This said, bargaining is very frequent in Kenya, mostly at the flea markets and curio shops, the famous road dukas. Start offering 50% of what you are willing to pay and do not look very enthusiastic. Set clearly your nationality, tell them you are not North American, and good luck. Throughout the world, as far as I have seen, North Americans are all supposed to be millionaires willing to spend lots of money on their souvenirs. And if you happen to be a North American, well,... What about your skills faking the Scottish accent?

Bartering:

Bartering or exchange is still a frequent kind of trading, mainly at the individual level, at the petrol stations or at the parks' gates, though you may find it also as part of bargaining at the road dukas. Almost everything can be exchanged, from ballpens, lighters, hats, bandanas or coins, to even old cellular phones.

At the parks' gates in the rural areas, in many cases there are people whose contact with western civilization takes place mostly through tourists. This means that frequently they absolutely ignore what is the price in Nairobi for a Bic ballpen or a Cartier watch. For the Maasai people, the most valuable thing in the world is their cattle, they wouldn't exchange one of their cows even for a diamond necklace, because such an expensive item is worthless in their world. They may offer a wood carving for your Christian Dior foulard, or for your Bic lighter, or for your Ray-Ban sunglasses, or for that bracelet you bought at your home flea market for 1 USD. Play fair, you do know the relative prices.

What not:

The following is a list of some types of products you might find, but that you'd better not buy.

Possession and consumption of any type of drug, including marijuana and hashish, is a crime in Kenya. I'm sure you wouldn't like to finish your holidays in an African prison.

Prostitutes have usually an extensive curriculum vitae of sexually transmitted diseases, and at least half of them carry the AIDS virus. Do not buy sex or, if you do, take all the precautions.

Formerly, animal items were very popular: zebra skins, lion claws, ostrich eggs, ivory articles, ashtrays made with elephant feet (!!), and other "lovely" things in the same style. Fortunately, this outrageous trade is nowadays strictly forbidden and is severly punished. The bad news is that this doesn't mean it has completely ceased. Some people keep on with it at a minor level, for instance at some petrol stations or in the streets. If you buy a lion claw, it is possible, only possible, that you get away with it avoiding being noticed by the officers that check your luggage and frisk you at the airport. But what is absolutely true is that you will be stimulating poaching -demand stimulates supply-, contributing therefore to the extinction of endangered species. Even more: those same poachers are frequently responsible for attacks to tourists, so you would also be worsening the unsafety problem and offending all of us who love Kenya, whether travellers or residents, and long for a safer and more peaceful country.

Obviously, neither you must buy or capture living specimens. In addition to the above mentioned, you would possibly be violating CITES, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora. Take nothing but pictures and leave nothing but footprints.