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”
On the magical mist mountains of Taita Hills
Above: The ancient crystalline rock face of Ngangao some 260 million years old in Taita Hills – during the time of the dinosaurs.
Copyright Rupi Mangat
Published: Saturday magazine, Nation newspaper, 19 May 2018
“It’s the nest of Taita thrush,” whispers Handrison Mwameso, the guide from Dawida Biodiversity Conservation group (DABICO). We’re inside Ngangao forest on the high peaks of the magical Taita Hills in southeast Kenya. We’ve walked a few metres from our campsite into the forest entering though a narrow path shaded by a bunch of Phoenix reclinata, a common palm tree here.
Searching for the skulls caves in Taita Hills
Published: 12 May 2018 Saturday Nation magazine Nation newspaper, Kenya
Above: Taita Hills – the magical mist mountains – copyright Rupi Mangat
The plan is to enjoy the indigenous forest of Vuria. I have no intention of puffing up to the peak which is the highest of the Taita Hills and the highest point at the coast reaching 2,228 metres (7,310 ft). But we lose the group in the forest. Trying to find it, we’re on the peak a few hours later, looking at the plains below. The mission was to search for the legendary skull caves of the Taita people.
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.
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