In the central highlands a couple of hundred kilometers north of the equator lays Mt.Kenya. It is here, where the Kikuyu god ngai resides. It is the highest mountain in Kenya and the second highest in Africa. It is one of the few places near the equator on Africa with permanent glaciers.

The name of the country has been known to have been derived from Mt.Kenya which was formerly known as Mount Kirinyaga.

The mountain is located 180 kilometers north of Nairobi and it can often be seen from high-rise buildings in Nairobi and from Thika. It is an extinct volcano, which formed a couple of million years ago.

The mountain is located in the Mount Kenya National Park, which is a designated protected area around the mountain above 3200m altitude. The Kenya Wildlife Service manages the park.

Kilimanjaro is the world's highest free standing, snow-covered equatorial mountain. Now charted and climbed; stories of her resident man-eating spirits are relegated to the realms of folklore.

But Mount Kilimanjaro continues to preserve a mysticism that defies all recent knowledge of her slopes.

Images of the towering snow-covered cone rising majestically from fertile green foothills have become a powerful motif of Tanzania's extraordinary extremes.

Few could deny a very distinct sense of awe when the cloud clears to reveal a glimpse of the towering peaks, shining bright in the equatorial sun.