This archive report was first published on 22 December 2019.
On a rainy Sunday morning, I found myself driving to Nyeri town, a bustling market town in the southern end of the broad wooded valley between Mount Kenya and the Aberdares.
As a former Boy Scout, I was familiar with the symbol on Lord Baden-Powell's grave in St Peter's Cemetery, where he was buried in 1941, as per his will, instead of in the tomb granted to him at Westminster Abbey in London.
My destination was the White Rhino hotel, a historic settler hotel founded in 1910 by three European settlers: Berkely Cole, Lord Cranworth, and Sandy Herd.
The hotel's story goes that a white rhino was shot on the site, and the new accommodation block rises behind and above the old building.
I settled into the soft cushions of an easy chair in the hotel's coffee bar, Café 1910, and asked for my cappuccino to come as hot as possible.
The coffee bar is a welcoming spot, with a cosmopolitan menu featuring English roasts, Indonesian stir fries, Italian noodles, and African tubers.
I kept my choice simple, with a chicken breast, French fries, and a pleasant white wine, and was able to forgive even the rain, as Oscar Wilde once said, “After a good dinner one can forgive anyone, even one’s own relatives”.
