Kenya 2016 - A trip to Lake Turkana

[Botswanadreams]

I truly appreciate the feeling of going on safari and feeling that I'm cut off from the rest of the world.

 

 

@@optig

Believe me or not. When we go to Africa I always switch off my phone before I embark the plain and I switch it on again after landing in Europe. No iphone, no laptop, nothing to connect with the world outside. It's so relaxing.

 

after Hillaby's book you might like to try Stephen Pern's "Another Land, Another Sea Walking Round Lake Rudolf".

 

 

@@Caracal

It is already ordered. Thanks for the tipp. I got Hillaby's book in German too. So later I've to re-read. Next time in Kenya the English version is for Zarek as long as he hasn't read it.

Thanks very much for your compliment to our report.

 

@@Atravelynn

Lake Paradise itself, the green forest surrounded by desert - the whole place is like a mirakel.

 

Thanks to all for your interest.

 

 

 

Lets start a bit with the next part. The first section "Sibiloi" is ready and online. Please stop at the construction sign. @@pault Now I'm sure you will do so. Loiyangalani is just in the process of developing and not finished.

 

 

 

Welcome to Sibiloi National Park

 

With a few pics I would like to invite you to a look on our report and much more pics from this far North of Kenya. Please klick.

 

 

View to Central Island

 

Sunset Lake Turkana

 

 

 

Petrified Forest Sibiloi

 

Heuglin's Bustard

 

View to North Island

 

Public Campsite "Camp Turkana"

 

 

I hope Zarek will give a bit more background information.

 

Have fun.

Christa

 

 

[Botswanadreams]

Loiyangalani with South Island and Mt. Kulal is finished. I add a few pics for this part. Whether you like only take a look to the more pics or struggle with the report in google English, it's yours.

 

Please Klick and scroll a bit down.

 

 

Loiyangalani

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[offshorebirder]

Beautiful Heuglin's Bustard!

[pault]

Great update. Mike was very brave going to South Island.

[Kitsafari]

Wow. This is far out, so frontier, so wild.

 

@@Botswanadreams you should change your name to @dreammaker becuase your TR shows dreams do come true, and you will surely inspire more STers to start exploring the wild wild North.

 

 

@@Zarek Cockar@@Zarek Cockar I see the pictures from you and botswanadreams but your words bring out your sense of awe and wonderment at these unexplored and beautiful untouched areas and Im there with you two.

 

Sibilo is beautiful.

[optig]

It's interesting that every time I go on Safaritalk I get new ideas about going on safari. I become ever more adventurous,and even more able to leave my comfort zone. There are simply too many places that I'd like to visit.

[Zarek Cockar]

Heavens, I’m getting left behind!

New territory. From North Horr, all the way to Lake Baringo, I’d be in new territory. Anyway, you’ve heard my intro to Sibiloi with the necessary clichés (“Land borne of fire” and all that). A few million years ago, what we now know as a harsh, rocky desert would have been a lush paradise, teeming with game in numbers and diversity similar to the modern-day Masai Mara/Serengeti ecosystem. A few million years before THAT, there was an extensive cedar forest in the area! Kenya is one of the most important areas in the world for understanding global geological history and the origin of our own species. Within Sibiloi National Park lies Koobi Fora museum, run by the National Museums of Kenya. This site is significant not only for historical importance, but also for ongoing research on hominid and other mammal fossils that continue to be found there.

Sibiloi is relentlessly hot with precious little shade. I reckon one of the only places with trees large enough to park a car or put a tent under, thankfully, is at Turkana Campsite, where we ended up after chatting to the rangers at Karsa Gate. Getting out of the car in the shade and feeling the wind was great, but the feeling of dunking a whole bucket of lake water over yourself as the sun sets over the lake…. Indescribable. The sense of relief and release is overwhelming.
Crocs be damned, as has been mentioned, Vincent and I took turns looking out for them while we cooled off in ankle deep water on the shore. We weren’t going any deeper than that, though. Later, at Koobi Fora, we asked one of the caretakers, a Dassenach from Ileret (around 60km to the North), if he swam in the lake. The tone of his response was very much “yeah, of course I do, weirdos. Who wouldn’t in this heat?” Apparently the Dassenach believe if you’re caught by a crocodile while swimming, you must have sinned quite terribly or been cursed by someone. He was confident his soul was clean and he was safe. I reckoned my soul was pretty clean too, but when we got back to the campsite that afternoon, I was quite content up to my ankles as we watched a couple of crocs float by less than 60m away.

Anyone who knows me knows that I love my spiders and scorpions… Christa and Herbert got used to me wandering around in the dark with my UV torch looking for scorpions. I didn’t find anything exceedingly surprising, but later found out that one of the scorpions I had dismissed as common species was in fact only the second record for another rarer species in Kenya, and the first record for a new location. More on that later when I post the picture!

I realize my report is all over the place and not chronological. My head’s a bit that way, especially today, so I hope you’ll forgive me.

In conclusion, Sibiloi’s the sort of place that, with enough water and fuel, I would be happy to spend at least 4 nights exploring and recording all that I see. It’s a rather large park with varying habitat and substrate throughout, interesting birds, endlessly changing scenery, and that nagging sense that if you break down or get lost somewhere in the middle of it, it’ll be a LONG time before anyone finds you.

Loiyangalani coming soon…

 

A view from above the petrified forest site

 

The big tree trunks were impressive, but the little branches caught my attention as they had seemed to retain their details a little more. Genuinely just looks like a piece of wood growing out of a rock.

 

Another view from above the petrified forest site. Great scenery in Sibiloi - you can see Lake Turkana on the horizon in the background.

 

Inspecting the larger trunks

 

Turkana Campsite at sunset the first night

 

I originally believed this was Hottentotta trilineatus, a very common species across the drylands of Kenya. It is apparently H. mazuchi, which has previously only been found at North Horr, so Sibiloi is a new type locality for this species. It was identified for me by Tomas Mazuch, a herpetologist after whom this species is named!

Edited December 5, 2016 by Zarek Cockar

[offshorebirder]

Wow @@Zarek Cockar - good job expanding the known range of a scorpion species!

[Zarek Cockar]

Loiyangalani

Leaving Sibiloi, the road was pretty easy to follow. However, it seemed the closer we got to Loiyangalani, the harder it became, as it disappeared in windswept sand and camel-trodden dried water courses. Our GPS was literally a life-saver. At the end of the day, without it, we would have found Loiyangalani. Just keep the lake on your right, right? Eventually Siri, as we called her, led us astray. She told us to follow a lesser used, though more major, track which took us through a couple of huge luggas with deep, soft sand at the bottom. At the third one, we didn’t just have to cross the lugga, but to drive along the bottom of it for half a kilometer. The heavy trailer, with its thin tyres and extra weight, quickly bogged us down and I started to get worried we may not make it out the other side, so we stopped. I needed to find an alternative route out of the lugga. We made a couple of attempts to climb straight up the side of it, but with the trailer in tow, we’d dig into the crumbling surface just at the top and go no further. This is the kind of stuff I live for. The kind of stuff I like to talk about and show pictures of. Sadly, we were all a little too engrossed in actually trying to solve the problem and no one thought about taking a photo. Eventually, a bit of low-range crawling got us on top of the sand rather than digging into it, and we floated slowly to firmer ground. For a while there, I was beginning to wonder if we’d spend the night there.

After getting out on to higher ground, we all needed to take a breath and take in the vista that had suddenly opened out in front of us (apologies for the photo quality, it was taken with my very dated phone)

 

Anyway, enough of that. We got there, we enjoyed the shade at Palm Shade Campsite, we enjoyed the coffee Vincent quickly whipped up… and then we thoroughly enjoyed the showers. Each one of us came out feeling like a completely different person. Mike shod his fatigues and heavy boots and got comfortable in his Arsenal shirt, shorts, and flip flops. Dinner and sleep that night was WELL-EARNED.

Christa’s already described South Island pretty well and for some strange reason, I didn’t take my camera with me to the island, so I have no photos. Her photos quite accurately capture the colours and the stark beauty of the landscape on the island. You can actually camp on South Island. Obviously, you’d need to carry all your gear with you on the boat, and you’d better hope it all fits on one boat – each boat ride costs USD $170! It would be very interesting to spend 2 nights there, so you’d have 1 full day on the island to explore. Fantastic place. I’d happily visit again.

Mt. Kulal. One of those places I’ve heard of in my childhood as a far-off place only for the most adventurous. Up until very recently, it still was one of the most inaccessible places in the country. But with the new huge wind power plant coming up just to the South East of Loiyangalani, getting to Mt. Kulal from Loiyangalani or Laisamis is not too difficult. The drive up the mountain is still rather rough most of the way. Again, you’ve seen the fantastic photos Christa took, so I won’t bore you with too many of mine. Again, the best way to explore this fully would be to have at least 2 nights on the mountain. I’m determined to get back there to find myself a Mt. Kulal Chameleon (Trioceros narraioca). Sadly this trip, I missed both this and the Mt. Marsabit Chameleon, two Kenyan endemic species. The change in temperature and vegetation as you climb Kulal is even more dramatic than Marsabit.

Mt. Kulal and Mt. Nyiro, 30 some km to the South, are two of the most important mountains to the Samburu people, and this is where the tribe’s “first” clan – the Lmasula – resides. Mike’s family is from the “second” clan, who’s name I am forgetting right now. They also hail from Mt. Kulal, where Mike’s father was born.
I’m sorry this is so short. Time constrains me. I’ll try to add more meat to these bones in the near future.

 

El Kajarta Gorge half way up Mt. Kulal - looking roughly South East


Christa and El Kajarta


A "Lion's Ear" flower in the forest on Mt. Kulal (Leonotis sp.)

A wild Orchid on Kulal - either Aerangis sp. or Rangeris sp. I've had two fundis give their differing opinions. Difficult to say without plant in hand.

 

Our last sunset over this most captivating lake - sitting on the front "lawn" (it's all rock) of the Loiyangalani Desert Museum

[Botswanadreams]

Thanks very much for following us to Lake Turkana.

 

Beautiful Heuglin's Bustard!

 

@@offshorebirder I would say "A blind hen sometimes finds a grain of corn". All pics are taken with a panasonic FZ 1000. Thanks for the flowers.

 

I would love to read another trip report to Lake Turkana soon. @@optig and @@Kitsafari you both could be the people to write it. I'm not sure if a lot of Safari Talkers would like to go without comfort to such incredible places. @@pault Mike was a big gift for us on this part of the trip. We loved his excellent companion.

 

A special thanks to Zarek. He always give a bit colour in this terrible google english report. I'm so sorry that I'm not able to write more as a few sentences in English.

 

 

 

 

The next part is coming soon.

[Atravelynn]

Your tiled collage says it all!

[optig]

@@Botswanadreams I have to tell you that I appreciate luxury as much as everyone else, nevertheless I find it far more exciting and fun to go fly camping in a simple mossie dome. So did my life long friend,and safari companion @@Kitsafari. I really enjoy camping out in a canvas tent as well because one feels as though they're part of nature. As you well know much of the excitement of going on safari is hearing the sounds of the bush at night,and waking up to them in morning. What could be more exciting than listening to the sounds of a troop of baboons in the morning because they've been chased up a tree by a leopard? Of course there is also hearing the muted sounds of elephants walking past your tent. And so much more!!!

[Botswanadreams]

Your tiled collage says it all!

 

 

@@Atravelynn thanks. We are exactly in the middle with our report of our time in Kenya. It was like a look backwards and forwards in the same time but if I'm honest this are the chosen pics for our big wall calendar 2017.

 

@@optig I understand exactly what you say. It's one of the reasons why we like Special Campsites on our trips.

 

 

 

So today we start our way south with an absolutely breathtaking view in the Great Rift Valley near Maralal. The pics are not able to give this beauty to you.

 

 

Part 5 is online. Please click here for more pics and the full report with the Google translation.

 

 

Malasso-Eco Project am Losiolo Escarpment bei Maralal

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Botswanadreams]

Lake Baringo

 

It's in part 5 too. Please scroll a bit down.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nice Weekend.

 

Christa

[optig]

@@Botswanadreams i just love your photos of Lake Baringo. Your'e giving me more ideas about just where to go on safari.

[Atravelynn]

Very interested in your Lake Baringo experience.

2017 will be picturesque, hanging on your wall!

[offshorebirder]

It is good to read more of your continuing adventure @@Botswanadreams. Thank you for sharing with us.

[pault]

World's End is an appropriately heavenly place to visit with "Jesus" What a view! Did I understand correctly that it took you 5 hours from there to Lake Baringo @@Botswanadreams?

 

Is that Lake Baringo Club in the background of the Fish Eagle pictures do you know? Really tells the story anyway.

[Botswanadreams]

Happy new year and thanks a lot for your interest.

 

@@pault As I remember we started at 7.30am from World's End and arrived at 2pm at Lake Baringo. So 5 hours isn't possible I think.

All the old buildings close to the shore of Lake Baringo looks like this. It is a big sham. We were told that the water level in the last year didn't rise anymore. The first one have already started to rebuild thinks. I hope Zarek will answer your question more detailed.

[Patty]

I don't know how I missed this wonderful report earlier. Love the joint reporting. Eagerly awaiting more!

[Zarek Cockar]

World's End is an appropriately heavenly place to visit with "Jesus" What a view! Did I understand correctly that it took you 5 hours from there to Lake Baringo @@Botswanadreams?

 

Is that Lake Baringo Club in the background of the Fish Eagle pictures do you know? Really tells the story anyway.

@@pault

Pictures can never do the view at World's End real justice. You're driving along over gentle rolling hills, and all of a sudden the flood just drops out in front of you in this arc. "Breathtaking" may be cliche and overused, but it is an apt description of this place.

5 hours to Baringo sounds about right. The road out of Maralal is terribly rough in some places. It gets better once you turn West near Mugie, but there are still some very rough sections as you drop altitude to the rift floor. It's dirt the entire way, and with the heavy trailer, we could only ever take it slow. I expect with a snazzy new SUV and no trailer, you could probably do it in 3-4 hours.

 

Yes, that's Baringo Club in the background of the fish eagle photos. a large portion of it is still underwater. The land and the lodge has been the subject of a long legal battle between two parties who claim to own it, so nothing has been done since it was first flooded. The grounds are overgrown and littered with the guts of the lodge. It's very good habitat for a breeding pair of African Scops Owls (see my photo below from a previous trip).

There seems to be some hope that the legal issues are coming to an end and that they want to tear down the old lodge and rebuild as a tented camp.

@@Botswanadreams and I were discussing how interesting it would be if, instead of building a tented camp, they built Kenya's first floating lodge. It wouldn't make a difference then if the lake rose or fell. Nevertheless, a tented camp can be moved much more easily than a cement lodge, and temporary structures have a lighter footprint on the ground, so I am still happy.

 

African Scops Owl - (the former) Lake Baringo Club grounds

[Botswanadreams]

Sorry for the long gab.

 

Today we start our journey to the West part of Kenya.

If you like you can follow us with reading the crazy google English report or only have a look at the pics on our homepage.

 

Part 6 is online. Please click here.

 

A few pics will give you an idea what to expect.

 

 

 

Cherangani Hills

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Saiwa Swamp National Park

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On the Road in Kitale

 

 

 

 

Edited February 5, 2017 by Botswanadreams

[Botswanadreams]

Mount Elgon

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Botswanadreams]

Kakamega Forest Reserve

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This all you can find in part 6

 

 

Nice Sunday.

Christa

[pault]

@@Botswanadreams. Lovely trip through Western Kenya. What beautiful views and it's so nice to see that beautiful forest. This has been a great trip so far and I have really enjoyed visiting all these less-visited but very worthwhile places with you.

 

I enjoy the translation. It is like doing a crossword puzzle trying to work out the meaning sometimes - other times it is perfectly clear.