Trips by Jaba Juice · with Document Tours and Travel · 18+
Sheng for let’s go see if it’s all just talk. Stories about places within reach of Nairobi. Call each one — jaba, or sio jaba — then vote for where we go first.
Every place below has a story attached. Some sound made up and aren’t. Some are made up, and the place is real anyway. You call it: jaba or sio jaba. Then tell us where we go first.
Under two hours from town
Sir William Northrup McMillan wanted burying at the summit. The story goes the vehicle carrying his coffin couldn't manage the gradient, so they stopped partway and buried him there instead. His grave is still on the slope. Buffalo on the road up, and a view down over Fourteen Falls.
Ol Donyo Sabuk (Kilimambogo)Full story →
Italian POWs built it in 1942, and built a small chapel beside it. Both are still standing. Everyone who drives to Naivasha uses their road; almost nobody stops at their church.
The Italian Chapel, Mai MahiuFull story →
Superintendent Charles Ryall was killed by a lion at Kima station in 1900. The carriage is sitting in the yard and you can stand next to it. Our short one — good for a rainy Saturday.
Nairobi Railway MuseumFull story →
Two to three hours
A network of lava tubes runs under Suswa, and one chamber is known as the Baboon Parliament — they come in at dusk and sleep on the ledges in something that looks unnervingly like a seated council. Maasai families used these tubes to hide cattle during raids. Steam still comes up through the cracks.
Mount Suswa Lava CavesFull story →
The Leakeys excavated here and left the hand axes where they lay. You walk raised boardwalks above them. There are fossils of extinct giant baboons and elephants in the same ground. It is very quiet and almost nobody comes.
Olorgesailie Prehistoric SiteFull story →
They say that's Fischer's Tower. You cycle the valley with zebra and warthog on either side of the track, which is the part people don't quite believe until they're doing it.
The lower gorge has a history of flash floods. Gorge access depends on conditions and the guide's call on the day.
Hell's GateFull story →
It is, and it does. At the southern end there are springs hot enough that you have to be careful where you put your feet. Flamingos, no shade, and a landscape that doesn't look like it belongs on this planet.
Lake Magadi and the hot springsFull story →
Sheets of corrugated iron set over the volcanic vents condense the steam, and it runs off into containers. The ground gives them water. Hardly anybody runs this one.
EburruFull story →
Three hours and up
That's the local telling. The name is widely translated from Maa as "place of corpses", after a 19th-century battle in which defeated warriors were driven over the rim. It's one of the largest surviving calderas anywhere, and the steam is real whatever you believe about it.
Menengai CraterFull story →
Maurice Egerton. He finished it anyway. It's still there, still absurd, and the story is true.
Lord Egerton Castle, NjoroFull story →
Your scorecard
Call the stories above - jaba or sio jaba - and your score lands here.
Future two-day trips. Testing the appetite.
Kitum Cave, Mount Elgon · 2 days
Elephants walk deep underground at night to mine salt off the walls.
Marafa, Hell's Kitchen · 2 days
A canyon on the coast that local telling says opened under a family who bathed in milk.
Tsavo · 2 days
The man-eater country.
The vote
We’ll open the trip people actually want, not the one we guess. Pick up to three. No account, no charge, no spam.
Run with Document Tours and Travel. Strictly 18+. Nothing on this page is bookable yet; when a destination opens, it gets dates, a price and a page of its own.
