Kaya Ribe is one of a string of sacred forests that sit on the low hills behind Kenya's coast, and the reason it exists says a lot about the people here. The Mijikenda, nine related communities, settled this coastal hinterland several centuries ago and built fortified villages, the kayas, in the forest. Today the village huts are mostly gone, but the forests remain, protected by councils of elders who treat them as the home of ancestors. A scatter of these kayas, Ribe among them, are a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
It matters how you approach it. These are living religious sites, not parks. You normally need a local guide or an introduction from the elders, you may be asked to dress modestly and leave things behind, and you should ask before taking photographs. In return, you get a cool, dim patch of mature forest with rare plants and birds, an astonishing contrast with the surrounding scrub and cassava fields. The nearby village of Rabai is also the site of the first Christian mission in East Africa, founded by the German missionary Johann Ludwig Krapf in the 1840s, and its old church is still standing.
The ride here from Mombasa is mostly on the main highway towards Nairobi, which is busy and dominated by heavy trucks hauling freight from the port. Mariakani, a market town some eighteen kilometres out, is the practical stop, with fuel, food and a lot of dust. Once you leave the tarmac, the tracks toward Rabai are red laterite, slippery in the rains of April and May and corrugated in the dry months. Heat and humidity here are intense, so start early and carry plenty of water.
The best seasons are January to March and again in July to October, when the sky is clear and the roads are firm. Mombasa itself has all the fuel and supplies you need, and its old town, with the Portuguese Fort Jesus, makes a good second half to the day. A ride out to the kayas is a quiet, modest outing, with more to see than first appears, and it rewards slow looking.