Under the shelter of some trees stood a group of young lads and lasses, whom I have come to find to be very jolly and fun to be around with; being among them you’re either guaranteed of pure bliss & happiness, or endless laughter, or even both. It had stopped raining a few minutes before and the sun was shinning brightly through the trees lighting up the rather thick Karura Forest. We chatted as we waited for the rest of the crew to arrive.
With everyone having arrived, we proceed towards the forest, chanting stories and some of us getting to know how to ride a bike.
On the way, we got to learn a lot about Karura forest, partly thank to one of the guides we bumped into and partly thank to Google. Karura forest is an urban forest located in the outskirts of Nairobi, within the great suburbs of Muthaiga, Gigiri (UNEP Headquarters), Runda, Ridgeways, Mathare North, Highridge and Spring Valley. It was gazetted in 1932 and has an area of 1063 ha.
Besides being this amazingly beautiful, some of the features that Karura forest has to offer (and we actually got to sample) are waterfall, bamboo forest, marshland and the great Mau Mau caves.
We stopped for quick snack by the waterfall, after two hours of walking through the forest. Snap! Snap! Snap! Snap! Selfies & welfies (whoever came up with this name) here and there, as plates of sandwich, biscuits and popcorn was being served out. Never have I seen such a place that’s so serene and peaceful as this place, with birds chirping high up in the trees, and waters raging through the forest.
Lunch served, we continued with the nature walk, now in search of the Mau Mau caves which were further away from the water fall. Though tired, the crew moved on, putting an umph in every step taken, just to get to see these historic caves, used by forefathers to fight for freedom.
The caves were in a dense part of the forest, with a flight of stairs having been constructed to guide visitors to the caves. I got to understand why the caves were so important to the freedom fighters; strategically located and easy to wade of intruders.
With the caves now covered, we made our back slowly to the edge of the forest, where we had left our locomotives. I could read from the guys’ faces the fun they had that day, with some bit of dismay, probably disappointed to be going back to soon when we had a lot to cover. But probably soon, we will…
It was indeed a very exciting day……memories are made of such…looking forward to complete the walk someday!
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The place was just awesome. I could live there if allowed. We should plan another one soon, but we use the Ridgeways route.
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