"I had a farm in Africa, at the foot of the Ngong Hills ..."

Mary Ann Anderson, SHNS photo
Dr. Bonnie Dunbar, "the new Karen Blixen," with her thoroughbred racehorse.
Click photo for larger image.

Of course, this lyrical line opens Isak Dinesen's autobiographical "Out of Africa," a novel first published in 1937 that is regarded as one of the greatest love stories of all time, one not so much about a love between a man and a woman, but, rather, between a woman and the country she came to embrace as her own.

In the novel, the writer better known as Karen Blixen narrates the years from 1914 until 1931 she spent living on Bogani, a coffee plantation in Kenya during the British colonialization of East Africa.

The 1985 film "Out of Africa," starring Meryl Streep as the strong-willed Blixen and Robert Redford as her mysterious lover, Denys Finch-Hatton, won the Oscar for Best Picture and generated renewed interest in the book and, especially, Kenya itself.

After the film debuted, tourism to Kenya grew, with women searching for their own hair-washing, lion-shooting Finch-Hatton, and men wanting to live the life of the big-game hunter so memorably portrayed by Redford.

This year marks the 20th anniversary since the movie's release, and many more years than that since Blixen left Kenya for good in 1931 (she died in 1962).

Bogani still stands today just on the outskirts of Nairobi in a neighborhood now called "Karen" in her honor.

Bogani, indeed located at the foot of Ngong Hills, embodies the intense drama that is Kenya. The word "Ngong" literarily means "knuckles," and this is a place aptly named: Legend holds that the hills surrounding the coffee plantation is where God rested his hand after he made the world.

Blixen lived in the shadows of God's "hand." She was a striking, gutsy woman who could have been the original steel magnolia, had she been born and bred in the South.

The plantation, now a national museum, has been restored with original and reproduction furniture to harmonize with the decor of Blixen's time.

Just down the road from Bogani is the Swedo House, the hunting lodge and farmhouse built for the Swedo-African Coffee Company and now part of the Karen Blixen Coffee Garden Restaurant and Cottages, owned by Colorado-born Bonnie Dunbar. Blixen used the Swedo House as her farm office.

Sometimes you stumble upon a remarkable character like Blixen who seemingly has leaped straight from the pages of a romance novel. One such character is Dunbar, a brainy blonde who bought the Swedo House before it could be razed and turned into a shopping center.

"After Karen left Kenya in 1931, the property was basically residential until Frank Suttton bought it in the 1970s for use as a restaurant," says Dunbar. "It was just a little shack essentially when I bought it from him."

The feisty doctor who saved the historic Swedo House has a resume that includes biologist, zoologist, biochemist and even racehorse owner.

And she has been likened by her friends as the "new Karen Blixen" for her courage in giving up her secure life in the United States -- like Blixen did of Denmark -- for one of an innkeeper and restaurant owner in a country that is still considered primarily Third World.

Dunbar has her hand in everything from hospitals to conservation to elephant contraception, even having worked with famed anthropologist Richard Leakey on several projects.

But Dunbar, much like Blixen, has a deep love and respect for Kenya. That is why she is there now.

"The best things about Kenya are the wildlife and the people," she says. "The people are the most patient and hardworking that you can imagine."

For the purest snapshot of Kenya, Dunbar's coffee garden and cottages is the perfect stopping-over place before you go on safari.

"People come here for the 'Out of Africa' experience," she says. "They're looking for three things: history, romance and nostalgia."

All three elements are deeply engrained there.

Whether you read "Out of Africa" or watch the movie, you are transformed to another time and place. You can almost taste the dust storms of the Maasai Mara; hear the roar of lions stalking their prey on a cloudless night; savor the refreshing rains that come much too far apart; or take in the sizzle of corn roasting in ramshackle roadside kiosks.

Perhaps Kenya is most widely known for its incredible fusion of wildlife.

Take a bush drive on the Maasai Mara and you can see the pale-yellow eyes of "simba" -- Swahili for "lion" -- intently staring at you from what seems like a scant few feet away.

Later in the evening, you remember your encounter with simba as you watch the rest of the African bush come alive. The sounds of the bush, marked by the lullaby of a hornbill, the growl of an elephant, the snorting of wildebeest and the crackling of high elevation air, set the stage for a remarkable sunset.

As the sun begins its descent over the Maasai Mara, a veritable circus of wildlife gathers around a watering hole.

People come to Kenya for the animals, the scenery and the culture, and if your interests lie in these things, Kenya is a choice destination.

But Kenya is not for the timid. It is a place where every moment is an adventure. Expect dust storms, drought, relentless rains, crocodile-filled rivers and every sort of insect you can imagine.

Still, Kenya is to be savored -- and, above all, approached with a sense of wonder.

For more information:

Kenya Tourist Board: www.magicalkenya.com or (866) 44-KENYA

Kenya Airways: www.kenya-airways.com or (866) 536-9224

Karen Blixen Coffee Garden Restaurant and Cottages: www.blixencoffeegarden.co.ke/

Mary Ann Anderson, SHNS photo
Maasai tribesmen in a traditional welcoming dance.
Click photo for larger image.

First Published: August 5, 2005, 4:00 a.m.