Four main lava tubes (caves) are open to visitors: Kitum , Chepnyalil , Mackingeny and Rongai .
While rarely seen, elephants are known to ‘mine’ for salt from the walls of the caves. Kitum holds your best hope of glimpsing them, but sadly the number of these saline-loving creatures has declined over the years. Nonetheless, a torchlight inspection will soon reveal their handiwork in the form of tusking – the grooves made by their tusks during the digging process.
Mackingeny, with a waterfall cascading across the entrance, is the most spectacular of the caves and has colonies of large fruit bats and smaller horseshoe bats towards the rear. If you plan on entering, be sure to bring whatever kind of footwear you feel will cope well with 100 years of accumulated, dusty bat shit and all the roaches that feed off it.
The caves are a 6km drive or walk from Chorlim gate.
