Above: Tree Fern Forest in Vuria. Copyright Rupi Mangat
Published: 29 December 2018
It’s a hide-and-seek game with the mist and the mountains. Standing at the base of Vuria, the rock peaks vanish in the white mist only to reappear and vanish time and again. Vuria is the highest hill of the Taita Hills. The hill tops are draped in ancient forest surrounded by local homesteads and farms of the Taita people.
Continue reading “Wandering in Vuria and Iyale on the Mist Mountains of the Taita Hills”
Part 1 of 2
Above: Ngangao Cliff face that is part of the Taita Hills. Copyright Rupi Mangat
Published: 22 December 2018
Nestled in Ngangao on the ancient hills of the Easter Arc Mountains
I love the forests of the Taita Hills because they are one of the most amazing places on earth. Rising from the plains, the massifs of the magical mist mountains straddle the skyline near Voi and are the northern extreme of the Eastern Arc Mountains. Like beads on a string the first to show by the side of the road is the single massif of Mbololo, followed by the Dabida cache of hills and then the Sagalla Hill that frames the town of Voi surrounded by sisal plantations on red soils.
Continue reading “Terrific Time in the Mist-Clad Taita Hills”
Published 7 April 2018 Saturday Nation magazine
In the Taita Hills
I’m back with a mission. Staring at the gigantic bare rock face of Iyale, one of the high peaks of the Taita Hills, l’m sizing it up to summit it.
The Taita Hills is the amazing chain of massifs that make the Eastern Arc Mountains made of 13 mountain blocks. The Taita Hills in Kenya is the extreme northern end with the rest in Tanzania. These amazing and ancient forest-capped crystalline mountains are the first massifs to catch the wind-swept ocean breeze off the Indian Ocean.
Part 1 of 2
An ancient massif of endemic plants and animals
Published: Saturday magazine, Nation newspaper 13 January 2018
Above: Taita apalis – criticaly endangered – fewer than 200 survive today in fragmented forests of the Taita Hills in an area of five square kilometers (copyright Luca Borghesio)
The mist swirls and whirls, white and dense, hiding and revealing the valleys and peaks of the hills. We’re on a climb to reach the top of the ancient bare rock that tops the forest of Yale in the Taita Hills.
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