Kenya - Lake Turkana

Wednesday, September 25'th

The next morning there is a lot of noise at 4AM and at 5 or 6AM the newcomers leave, but we have no plans of leaving until 7 or 8AM but it is hard to sleep

We go north through the western arms of the Rift Valley, the cradle of mankind, and slowly the landscape is changing. The vegetation is getting sparse and the color is going from dark-red soil and light green leaves to more dusty light gravel and a domination Acacia trees with their long hostile spines. The desert is getting close. Along the way we are overtaken by fast pickup-trucks, the body loaded with supplies and people clinging to the side of the the car. This is virtually the only means of

We make lunch under the sparse shade of an Acacia tree and we all step on the thorns that penetrate the soul of your shoe like a knife through butter. The heat is immense and we are running out of soft-drinks. I manage to get my skin burned on this 3/4 hour stop. On our way to Lodwar we stumble upon a dried-out forest of ebony and we are also in need of wood for our campfire.

The ebony is a strong type of wood but we manage to get some long branches with us that are lying on the ground. It is impossible to cleave with just an axe or saw.

We plan to stock up in Lodwar with beer and soft-drinks,

In Lodwar we buy sweets and lots of beer and soft-drinks, we all spend a small fortune at the bar. Steve (#2) is entertaining a large group of children by juggle with balls and letting them have a go at it afterwords. This is a good tactic, this keep them occupied for a while and they don't take stuff from the truck.

The last miles out to the lake is through loose sand and there is no road at all, you have to know in which direction to drive to reach the abandoned hotel. The story of the hotel is that a German had started the project and he had only builded half of it before he ran into problem with the authority, they were forcing him to pay bribe in order to complete the hotel, but he refused. Only the walls were completed.

Next to the hotel is a small pond that get its water from a natural hot spring, just what is needed in the desert. But the water is two or three degrees cooler than the air midday so it is more pleasant. One thing though, I think there are some animals living in the cloudy water, a fish or a creep of some sort. Wee all felt it from time to time swimming in the pool and it was not nice. Even at nighttime the hot water was cooler than the air so we had some beer in (not by) the pool. The refrigerator does not work properly (it has an impossible job in this heat) but the beers are not hot anymore, only lukewarm.

That night I woke at 3AM by a yaw of pain in my left arm. I discovered that my mosquito net was not set up properly. A large insect had given me a good bite, like the Thailand situation. It was the size of a scorpion, or so it looked to me without my glasses on. At the same time I could not feel my arm, it was completely numb, Panic! A bit of massage brought my arm back to live again, it must have been my awkward

It was most probably only an ant or an centipede that bit me but the shock kept me awake for some time, it must be the adrenaline the body produces in dangerous situations. I buried myself completely in my sleepingbag, only a small hole to breathe through. Tomorrow night I will find a better spot to sleep at.

Thursday, September 26'th

In the day time there was an optional walk to the nearest village by a local anthropologist. He was very serious, there was a lecture first and he promised that there would be a written exam, a quiz afterwords. I thought this was too much and took out my book to get some relaxing reading done. Otherwise the two days went with resting, reading and I managed to learn how to juggle three balls the right way.

Palm and Moon

We had plenty to eat, at least for three or four days, a storage of fruit, vegetables, meat and bread. In all parts of Eastern Africa we could buy sliced toast-bread, like home. Ideal for a sausage-bacon-scrambled-egg breakfast. The odd thing though is that the the more west we got, the bread to buy was more yellow but tasted the same. The ones from Kabale was almost glowing in the dark from the yellow colouring. I asked Freddy about this and he said it was a marketing trick, to let the customers believe that it had a lot of egg in it. But it tasted alright and was good for midday sandwich. The Kiwis always had a Marmite-sandwich for lunch. It is a by-product from the yeast-production and taste strange. I think this

In the twilight I walked the few hundred yards down to the lake. It have had several names throughout history. My ancient atlas say Lake Rudolf and the current name Lake Turkana, named after one of the tribes living here, but elsewhere it is mentioned as The Jade Sea. Along the shore are sparse vegetation where crocodiles might live so be carefull. The lake is more like a ocean but the color is different. Excavations in the area nearby lead by Richard Leakey have uncovered that this might be the birthplace of humanity. In the early 1970's a hominid skull was found, estimated to be 2 million years old. I felt like I have come full circle, or perhaps because this also looked much like the opening chapter; "The Dawn of Man" in the Kubrick movie "2001: A Space Odyssey".

That night I slept by the pool. Up here there was a nice breeze, enough to keep the flying bugs away and no crawling beetles on the marble tiles. I made myself a bivouac of my mosquito-net using the one-foot wall as a back and pieces of broken tiles to keep the net stretched. No problems tonight, the only disturbance is the night-party in the pool but they go to sleep at 1AM, then it is just me and the lapping sound of the natural hot spring pouring into the pool.

Friday, September 27'th

On the day of our departure a lot of people came up to the truck to get a lift, most of them to Lodwar. This is Okay because there is no regular transportation in this region so we had eight men going to seek work or visit family, what have you. We also gave a German/Israeli couple a lift back to Kitale. They were going round the lake counter-clock wise on their own and were grateful for some tips.

Just outside Kitale we were driving at a fresh speed on the good but narrow asphalted road towards Eldoret/Naiberi when there was a loud bang and the truck was swaying a bit. We quickly stopped, jumped out to see what had happened.

The problem was with our firewood. The branches that we had picked was unbreakable and in order to transport

The situation was getting a bit tense and the driver was asking for 4000 Ksh even though the damage on our truck was larger than the smal scratch in his already battered bus. We settled on paying him 2000 Ksh and picked up the wood and the sand dunes that lay all over the road, put them all inside the cabin and drove off. It was quite a queue we had caused and people was still streaming to the site from the nearby village. Around this time we also drove across the Equator again.

Returning from the desert it was nice to stay the night at Raj Shah's place, the "Overland Stop" with the famous bar where you easily get lost when returning from the bathroom. Nice cool lager there. The complex has suspension bridge, caves, several fireplaces and at least three bars. We were the only Overland Truck that stayed that night, the season was coming to an end but Raj was there and bought us drinks in an ever flowing stream. Meanwhile Steve (#2) had temporary fixed the damage on the truck from the crash so we didn't have to sit on top of the sand dunes and firewood inside the cabin. Freddy had made Dinner so we took a break from the drinks.

Later we returned and sat round one of the big fireplaces, this place really made you feel welcome. The walls covered with posters made by Overland teams that had stayed here. We studied them closely but had no idea for making our own. Instead we started at the bar beneath the waterfall. I was that de-hydraded from our trip to the desert that I started out with two large Fantas, I really had a dry spot somewhere and I didn't need a buzz right there and then.

Raj joined us and talked about his expansion plans. At the time (Sep'96) he had three places in Kenya/Tanzania but was putting all his money in a new resort at the source of the Nile with whitewater-rafting, Bungeejump, the works. He seemed a bit concerned about the prospect of his project. Typically these places is only known by the word of mouth so he was worried if the Overland-drivers would stay loyal to him.

Well here is my advert for his place, a couple of miles from Lake Victoria down the offspring of the Nile, near Jinja you find paradise. We moved on within the bar complex and at another fireplace was the local guide, an Indian bloke going by the name of Ash. If we planned to stay the next day he offered to show us the forest and explain about the fauna. He was a funny character, blazing up a doobie and passing it around, talking nineeteen to the dozen using the strangest metaphors from the forest. He was living in another world.