Nanyuki

The town began as a colonial outpost. Laikipia had been Maasai grazing land until the treaties of 1904 and 1911 moved Maasai communities south, after which the plateau was opened to European settlement; ranches and wheat farms spread across it, and a small service centre grew where the road and later the branch railway from Nairobi reached the foot of Mount Kenya; British settlers were there from 1907, and the town, which still stands at the end of that branch line, became the trading and shipping point for the farms around it. Its name comes from a Maasai word meaning “resemblance”, for ground reddened like the coat of a roan ox.

Its second character was military. British forces used the district during the Second World War and through the Mau Mau emergency of the 1950s, when the forests of Mount Kenya and the Aberdares sheltered fighters, and after independence the British Army retained a training arrangement with Kenya. The British Army Training Unit Kenya has been based at Nanyuki since, and the Kenya Defence Forces also maintain a presence, which shapes the town's economy and its streets.

From the 1980s the surrounding ranches began turning to wildlife. Ol Pejeta and the other Laikipia conservancies converted cattle country into rhino and elephant range, and Nanyuki became their supply town and airhead as well as the main starting point for the Sirimon route up Mount Kenya. Devolution in 2013 and steady migration have since enlarged it well beyond the old settler grid.

Nanyuki is a crossroads town, and its mixture is the point. Kikuyu and Meru farming families, Maasai and Samburu herders from the plateau and the north, conservation staff, soldiers and a long-settled European-descended farming community all use the same few streets, and the market draws sellers from very different kinds of country — highland vegetable growers on one side, pastoralists on the other.

The equator is the town's calling card. Signs beside the highway mark the line, and the curio stalls around them have grown into a small craft industry of woodcarving, soapstone and beadwork, some of it sold through workshops that employ local artisans. The mountain matters more deeply: Mount Kenya is sacred in Kikuyu, Meru and Embu tradition as the dwelling place of Ngai, and prayer has long been made facing its peaks.

The military presence gives Nanyuki a character unlike other Kenyan towns of its size — bars and restaurants that cater to soldiers on leave, and periodic public argument about the conduct and the environmental effect of training exercises. Conservation is the other constant subject, discussed in terms of jobs, fences, grazing rights and compensation for crops and livestock lost to wildlife. Manners are ordinary Kenyan ones: greet before business, respect elders, and ask before taking photographs.

The municipality had an urban population of 72,813 in 2019, a number that has risen quickly as Laikipia County has grown, with far more in the surrounding settlements and farms. The built-up area spreads from the old centre along the Nairobi and Timau roads and into newer estates on the western side.

Work comes from several directions. Farming leads: wheat, barley, potatoes and horticulture on the volcanic soils towards Timau, dairy and livestock on the drier plateau, and cut flowers and vegetables grown for export. Tourism and conservation employ many, in the conservancies, lodges, mountain guiding and transport. The British and Kenyan military bases support shops, rents and services, and the town functions as the commercial hub for a wide area, including the last banks and supermarkets before the roads north to Isiolo.

Days are cool, bright and early, with the mountain visible at dawn and often hidden by cloud by noon. Water supply, unplanned building and pressure on land are live issues, as is the long-running question of who has access to the plateau's grazing: dry seasons have repeatedly brought herders and ranch owners into conflict. Elephants moving through farmland are a familiar problem for smallholders around the forest edge.

Nanyuki eats highland food. Ugali with sukuma wiki, braised collard greens, or a stew of beef, goat or beans is the standard meal; githeri, the boiled mix of maize and beans, is everyday fare inherited from Kikuyu kitchens, as is mukimo, a mash of potato, maize, beans and greens that turns green from the leaves worked into it. Irio, the same idea of mashed peas, potato and maize, is served alongside roast meat.

Nyama choma — goat or beef roasted over charcoal, ordered by weight and cut up on a board with kachumbari — is the social meal, and mutura, a grilled sausage, is sold from evening stalls. Chai boiled with milk and sugar is drunk all day, and coffee grown on the slopes of Mount Kenya is roasted and served in the town's cafés, a rarity in a country that exports most of its beans.

The market is stocked from the farms immediately around the town: potatoes, carrots, peas, cabbages, leeks and maize from the volcanic soils, with milk and meat from the plateau. Trout raised and fished in the cold mountain streams appear on lodge menus, alongside the mixed European and Kenyan cooking that the farming and military communities have supported here for decades.