Paradise Lost

This guide to Paradise Lost in Nairobi starts with the name locals still use for these caves, Mbai, and the surprising claim staked at the gate: that the caverns were carved fifty metres into volcanic rock by the Gichi River as long as two and a half million years ago, based on obsidian shards found on the cave floor. It follows the caves into the nineteen fifties, when Mau Mau fighters used the tunnel system as a hideout behind the waterfall that still screens its mouth. Locals call it a three-D waterfall, since from three sides you barely register there is an opening behind it at all.