As you climb the Imatong Mountains, the world around you changes completely. At the bottom there is dry savannah grass and acacia trees. Higher up, the trees grow taller and thicker, mosses carpet the rocks, and clouds drift through the branches. This type of forest is called a cloud forest, because it lives inside the clouds.
The Imatong forests are home to colobus monkeys - beautiful black-and-white monkeys with long, silky tails that hang like scarves as they leap between trees. Chimpanzees also live in the lower forests. Both animals communicate with loud calls that echo off the mountain ridges.
Many of the mountain's streams flow down to feed rivers that eventually reach the Nile. Every drop of rain that falls on Kinyeti's peak begins a very long journey - eventually ending up in the Mediterranean Sea thousands of kilometres away.
For the communities living on the mountain slopes, the forests provide fruit, medicines, and firewood, and the streams give clean water. The mountains have always been an important landmark for travellers because their silhouette can be seen from enormous distances across the flat plains.

