WHY VISIT?
Quite simply because it’s one of the most diverse and rewarding countries in the world. Rolling savannahs thundering with wildlife contrast with rugged highlands swathed in tea and coffee plantations. A string of jewel-like lakes dot the yawning fault line of the Great Rift Valley, while away to the north stretches a vast domain of rocky desert, pricked by ‘sky islands’ (mountainous, green oases). And down on the coast is a sultry land of palmy beaches, bathed by the Indian Ocean and imbued with a thousand years of Swahili history.
Kenya’s population of 50 million comprises more than 40 distinct ethnic groups, each with its own language, traditions and regional identity. Stay in a hotel in Lamu and you might be served by a woman whose roots go back to Oman and a man whose grandfather immigrated from the Punjab to build the Mombasa railway. Fly to the Maasai Mara and the pilots may be female Nairobians with six languages between them. Set out to track rare black rhinos in the arid Sera Conservancy and your guide, expertly operating sophisticated radio telemetry equipment, will likely be a local Samburu man who grew up protecting his goats from lions and making fire with sticks.