Rondo Retreat is a former Anglican mission compound in a clearing on the southern side of the Kakamega Forest, now operated as a guesthouse. The original buildings — clapboard cottages with corrugated iron roofs, a small chapel, and a manicured garden between them — were put up by Church Missionary Society staff in the 1940s and have changed remarkably little since. The result is a peculiarly Kenyan colonial idyll set in the middle of one of the country's most important rainforests.
The reason to come is location rather than architecture. The garden ends at the forest edge, and at first light you can sit on the verandah of a cottage with a cup of tea while colobus monkeys swing through the canopy fifty metres away. Bookings are essential — the place is small, has been written up in many guidebooks, and fills up months ahead in the high season. The food is plain and English-mission in style; the welcome is genuine.