Karura Forest

This guide to Karura Forest in Nairobi opens at a rock shelter carved by the Karura River through layers of volcanic tuff, asking who slept here first. It traces what archaeologists found when they excavated the cave floor: stone tools left by hunter-gatherers as far back as thirty thousand years ago, and higher up, broken pottery and animal bones roughly three thousand years old from herders who had swapped the hunt for livestock. The layers keep going. Run your hand along the rock band by band as you listen, each one marking people who chose this same hollow to feel safe.