Travel and Personal

Lake Turkana

By Dweep Chanana ⋅ February 10, 2006 ⋅  Email this post ⋅ Post a comment

What do I do with a week to spare in Kenya? Go to the coast - Mombasa and Lamu - and enjoy the legendary Kenyan sun and sand? Go to the south and climb Kilimanjaro? Take random trips from Nairobi to a few national parks - Samburu, Amboseli, Tsavo? Or go north?

North, did I say? What’s there except a swathe of country that nobody knows about and everybody fears? A dry wasteland overrun by gangs, where traveling is not recommeneded except in large groups? Where only the aid agencies go - hoping to save the world and pull the wreched out of their misery.

Of course, it is where you find Lake Turkana - the largest freshwater lake in the region - with a shoreline longer than the entire Kenyan coast. And its right in the middle of a desert. Dry, desolate, remote - forgotten.

So how do I get there? There are no flights anywhere near it. From Nairobi, it takes between 3-4 days overland. Roads are variable - from paved to non-existent. Lodging may be difficult to find, and transport beyond Lodwar impossible. No traveler (excluding the locals) seems to have been there, except for Christoph Grandt.

I still don’t know how to get there. I will be in Eldoret tomorrow morning, and then again on Wednesday afternoon. Between then it promises to be an adventure. I am going to wing it. Come back next week and see how it goes.