Kenya’s oldest safari lodge, Treetops – an elaborate treehouse on the edge of a watering hole in Aberdare National Park – where a monarch famously ‘went up the tree a Princess and came down a Queen’, has closed its doors after 90 years, driven by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The property was rebuilt after being burned down by arsonists a few years later.
Treetops falls victim to COVID-19 effects
The lodge is one of several casualties of the pandemic in Kenya where tourist revenue declined due to travel restrictions. Treetops is one of three historical hotels in Kenya’s Nyeri county being forced to close due to the effects of the pandemic.
Treetops, which has not had a visitor in a year, was also used by British colonial soldiers as the base for their snipers, but it was burnt down by Mau Mau fighters in 1954.
A new Treetops then took shape on the other side of the watering hole where it has remained, with guests even able to retrace (as long as they have an armed guide) the jungle walk which Princess Elizabeth made in 1952.
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