FOOD&DRINK
83
JULY 2015
n aperfect day, when the sky is a
cornflower blue and the sun casts great
goldenbeamsof light on to theearth,
Kenya is a spectacular countryoverwhich
to fly. It’s particularly gloriouswhen you’re
soaring over some of the oldest and the youngest parts of
the country at the same time.
From the air, in a littleprivateplane, it feels as if I’m
being treated to geology’s greatest hits all at once. To the
south loomsMount Kilimanjaro: Africa’s tallestmountain
andpart of the ancient Great Rift Valley that extends all
theway intoMozambique.
Dotted about ondry orangeplains, cut throughby
snakes of silverywater, are great graniteprotrusions:
million-year-oldmountains of rock that erupt from valley
floors like giant boils on the skinof theplanet. And in the
distance roll folds of earth that undulate gently towards
thehorizon, cloaked in ablanket of green: the young
ChyuluHills.
Thehills, createdonly about 500 years agoby volcanic
lava seeping out of cracks in the earth, arehome to two
passionate Italian conservationists, Luca andAntonella
Belpietro, withwhom I’ve spent thepast twoweeks
