A TOUCH OF HISTORY... AT TREE TOPS!

Did you know that there is a South-Eastern University? Please don’t ask me where that is, I have no idea! Last week found me bumming in my favourite town, Nyeri. Much to my chagrin, the town was awash with folks we generally refer to as the academia. Over 30 universities, university colleges, and wannabes had descended on the town for “universities exhibitions” at the Green Hills Hotel. Every hotel, nook, and cranny was booked to the brim. Even the out-of-reach-for-ordinary-folk Out Span was fully booked. Good thing I have some connections there; what should have been a curse was a blessing in disguise.

The Tree Tops Lodge and Out Span Hotel are owned by the same proprietor. Sometimes when Out Span is fully booked and the gods of luck are smiling your way, you may just be transferred for an overnight stay to the most famous treehouse in the world - the Tree Tops. So there I was bound for the historical and culturally rich Tree Tops courtesy of the meddling academia. I still had to pay the park fee; Kshs 300 for citizens but that would be a cool USD $50 for the non-citizens. One has to pay directly to the KWS office is at Mweiga (18Kms from Nyeri on the Nyeri – Nyahururu road). There is a nice public relations guy there called Noah who surely helped my life at short notice.

Tree Tops is located within the Aberdare National Park, 16Kms from Nyeri town, off the Nyeri-Nyahururu road. Don’t worry about getting there; Tree Tops is an eco-lodge and management won't allow your under-serviced, smoke-belching, environment-polluting car anywhere near their property. All transfers are handled at the Out Span, where if you are in time, you get to eat sumptuous lunch at the beautiful terrace overlooking a superb garden and Mt. Kenya in the distance.

Speaking of beauty, what is with the human race? Funny, look around us, the male-kind of most other species are the beauties of the family. There is this beautiful peacock that landed on the terrace as we were having lunch. He proceeded to disrupt my delicious lunch, boastfully prancing about flashing his tail feathers for all to see. He must have been there for over half an hour; the problem is there were no hens anywhere in sight. I think he knows that humans like to ogle at him and being a good model of what male beauty was originally intended to be; he seemed determined to give everyone an eyeful. I’m not jealous, I’m just saying; human males (in regards to beauty) definitely got a raw deal from evolution or creation; whichever you believe in.

Aberdare National Park is an expansive park covering over 774kms^2. The park is part of the Aberdares Conservation area that is arguably the country’s most important water tower.  The water from the area serves Nairobi, feeds into the Tana River, and is the lifeline for thousands of Rift Valley farmers. Human encroachment in the Aberdares led to wanton destruction of forest and intense human-wildlife conflict. Through the efforts of the Rhino Ark, most of the gazetted forest land is now fenced. There is however a downside to this noble initiative. The elephants that previously used to roam free between the Aberdares and Mount Kenya are now caged in the park. Elephants, I hear, have a very good memory. Most of them must be reminiscing the good old days they used to roam the land and feeling like prisoners. The elephants of the Aberdares are an angry lot, venting their frustration on the hapless trees and destroying the centuries-old forest.

The Tree Tops parent company, the Aberdare Safari Hotels has begun a great initiative dubbed “Return to the Bush”. They have fenced about 16 hectares of land which they are replenishing with indigenous trees. Wanting to leave my mark on this earth, I did ask to plant a tree. I planted a “podo g.” next to others planted by greats like Hon. Kalonzo Musyoka, Micheal Reineburger and Dr. Noah Wekesa. I even got myself a certificate to prove it (and it’s not from River Road!)

"MY" tree next to the trees of the greats!

You can’t have been to Tree Tops and avoid the feeling that you are in complete touch with history. For starters, Her Royal Highness the Princess Elizabeth Alexander Mary, of the House of Windsor, daughter of King George VI, went up a fig treehouse on the evening of Fifth February 1952 a naive twenty-six-year-old and descended the next morning, the uncrowned Queen (Elizabeth II) of England. The annals of Tree Tops contain a handwritten record of the animals they saw at the lodge during the said visit. There are pictures of the queen, complete with pumps and gloves on the mud at the waterhole of the Tree Tops, simply hilarious! If that sounds too English, you will be happy to know that there was Tusker (lager) even back in the day. I swear to you, there is a picture of this very Kenyan beer on the very table the royal folk dined upon! Did I mention, even Walt Disney was here too?

The original treehouse built by Sherbrooke Walker & Lady Bettie in 1932 was destroyed by a Mau Mau fire during the revolution days. The present-day Tree Tops, a four-story wonder, supported on massive wooden stilts, was built a short distance away from the original treehouse back in 1957. The queen was back here in 1982 and slept at the Queen Elizabeth suite. Pity, someone else had booked the suite for the night; I was dreaming of a night between the royal bed sheets with pictures of the queen mother, duchess, and duke of Gloucester looking down on me like I am about to be knighted. Who knows, maybe some residual royalty may have rubbed off my black; talk of superstition!

So here I was seated on a cushioned bench at the end of the long tables that occupy the entire dining hall (note, I didn't say restaurant). Perhaps it is in keeping with the Spartan traditions of bare wooden mountain lodges but the rustic décor looks very at home at this mountain-cold lodge. I should think, it was by default and not design, but all the black folk are seated at my end of the table, next to the kitchen. We crane our necks to get into the conversation with our worldlier and better traveled dining mates. There is a South African giving us the creeps describing all the snakes he has had to fish from his under his bed. Then there was this amicable Swede trying to outdo him with her stomach-churning description of Swedish fish culinary. Next time you go to Sweden, watch out for any smelly fish dishes. I hear they bury the sorry fish for days till it’s all smelly and slimy. The half-rotten fish does make for a tasty meal with a horrific smell (hic!)

The Tree Tops serves garden-fresh and great-tasting ala carte meals. I even made a point to congratulate the chef. Later we retire for coffee and drinks at the bar overlooking the waterhole and watch the nightlife by floodlight happening at arm's length. Maybe it is the animals that had come to watch us; why else would we be in the cage and animals outside? The soil around the lodge contains salt, which is what attracts the animals to the waterhole. It’s common to find the elephants drilling away for salt at the grounds around the lodge.

It must be the law of the jungle or maybe some memorandum of understanding between the animals but they sure follow strict order at the waterhole. The elephants get to drink first, then the buffaloes, and lastly the shy waterbucks and the impalas. We got to see the awkward spotted hyena, laughing and generally disturbing the peace of the night. The leopard and the rhino are much rarer now and a warden will buzz you several times in the night if one is spotted. I must have heard the buzzer at some evil hour but I was either too cold or too tired to rush to the window.

Breakfast at the Tree Tops is an early morning affair because of the transfers. So I talked to the manager to let me enjoy a few more hours of the refreshing crisp clean cold mountain air.  On a lucky day, you will see Mt. Kenya in all its majesty at sunrise but today was not one of those. The gods were having a closed-door meeting and the “mountain of the god” was shrouded in thick mystic morning mists. The sun did shine through at about 10am, bringing life to the waterhole. Buffaloes came by the hundreds some with missing tails, tribute to the prolific poaching skills of the hyenas. I even got to see the diminutive silly-looking but sometimes aggressive warthog.

After the late breakfast in the company of buffaloes, I planted my yet-to-be-famous tree next to others planted by famous people before departing for Nyeri town. The driver, the ever-gracious Francis used his refined PR skills to get me into the hallowed grounds where Baden Powell, the founder of the Scout’s movement was buried. Strangely, all the graves at the graveyard, black or white, native or settle are buried facing Mount Kenya as if it was their Mecca. 

Hmmmh! The Mountain of the Gods, even the white man believed it so!

I wrote this story after a visit to the world-famous Tree Tops Lodge. It ran in the Daily Nation. Tried to trawl for it online, but I couldn't find it. So, I posted it here, for posterity's sake...