UFO Info Week-End

Three nights at The Roxburghe Edinburgh 0131 240 5500 from £320

Three nights at The Roxburghe, Edinburgh (0131 240 5500; ) from £320. One night at The Bonham, Edinburgh (0131-226 6050; ) from £55. One night at Alias hotels Kandinsky, Cheltenham (01242 527788;. We are sitting on a rock above the river. George, our driver, has spread a blanket and laid out our bush-breakfast of fruit, egg-and-bacon sandwiches, juice and coffee. It is early but the sun is up and locals are bringing their cattle to drink and washing their clothes in the water below.

As we eat, we watch one young girl lathering her hair with Omo and another manoeuvring a huge can on to her head and beginning the slippery climb back up

We are sitting on a rock above the river. But for us game-viewing is not a priority; ours is a botanical safari. As if to illustrate the point, our botanist guide, Anne Powys, reaches up and picks a twig from the tree that shelters our picnic spot. She shows us how, from this Gardenia volcalia, the branches emerge in threes and tells us that such twigs are used to make whisks which the locals call gibere. Later that day, George presents us each with a gibere which he has fashioned from this very twig – rather more interesting than your average holiday souvenir, and I bet you can’t buy one in John Lewis’s kitchen department.As someone mad keen on plants and gardens, I was intrigued by this wholly new type of safari in which flora, rather than big game, is the focus. My husband, less keen on botany, was reconciled when he learnt that the trip has a strong human angle: we would not only be looking for plants but also visiting native communities to find out how plants are used in everyday life. For such a combination of interests, Kenya is the ideal location, because it has numerous tribes whose relationship with plants – in food, housing, medicine and magic – is intimate.So far, the safari is exceeding all our expectations.

Our lodge, Elsa’s Kopje, built into Mughwango Hill in the Meru National Park, consists of nine luxurious cottages, each with its own butler. One night we were woken by the roaring of lions, and realised they were quite probably descendants of the lioness after whom the lodge is named. For it was on this very kopje (outcrop) that George and Joy Adamson returned Elsa, the lioness immortalised in Born Free, to the wild.Today, however, we are on our way to visit a community just outside the national park. We are lucky to be accompanied by Anne, whose family has farmed in Kenya for three generations and who speaks several of the local languages.

So, having stopped to examine a Lawsonia invernis, the tree from which henna is derived, and a huge Raphia farinifera, which provides gardeners with that useful fibre, raffia, we find ourselves sitting in the shade of yet another tree, talking to John, the elder of the Tharaka tribe who is responsible for goat husbandry.The Tharaka are known for goat herding, beekeeping and for their skill with bows and arrows. This tree, the only living plant in the dusty compound, is an Albizia anthelmitica, an essential aid to veterinary medicine. A tiny bit of bark boiled up in water will rid goats (and people) of worms; too much, though, John tells us, and it will kill. Many different tree barks are used in Kenyan cures and John points to a tree outside the compound which has been all but destroyed by over-enthusiastic stripping.