36 hr JOURNEY TO THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE ::TURKANA::
on Alejandra Barahona (Kenya), 14/Jan/2011 08:36, 34 days ago
We really had no idea into what we were getting into when Lenard invited us to join him in his Turkana expedition "if you want to experience feeling in the middle of nowhere then we should go to Turkana" he said with excitement and naive and adventurous that we are we of course came along. We started the journey on Dec 19th from Mombasa, took the train which from the budget options is the longest (16 hrs if you are lucky) but the most comfortable. We've taken the train once before and it's ok, really old, perfect for a scary movie, we paid second class which is a cabin with four beds, comfy enough…We decided to space the traveling so stayed two days in Nairobi just chilling and getting ready for the next ride, matatu ride from Nairobi to Kitale, stopping along the way in Nakuru and Eldoret, traveling with Lenart, Albertine and Joanna… Everything is so impredictable in Kenya so bus schedules don't necessarily mean the bus will leave at that time and matatus are worse, you just hop in and wait for the whole mini-van to get full which sometimes can take a couple of hours… that meant waiting at each place for hour and a half approx letting people out and waiting again for it to get full..9 more hours of traveling to add to those 16 and we found ourselves in Kitale, really late on Dec 22… Long day traveling so we stayed overnight in that charming little town with a few good restaurants and shops around… Next day we woke up early hoping to get an early bus to Lodwar (closest town from our final destination), 7am it was, ate breakfast quite fast, grabbed our stuff and head out tothe bus terminal looking for any bus heading that way, after some time asking around and trying to get vendors out of our way a guy sold us 5 tickets for a 9am bus, not as early as we expected but it was the earliest we could find so what the heck, "let's wait"… by 9:30 we were wondering what wasgoing on, nobody on the bus and 30 minutes late already… 10:30, nothing… by 11:30 more passengers started to board… by 12:00 the bus was almost full… by 12:45 the engine started! and we were finally on our way after waiting for 4 hours!!! … now add 9 more hours and think of Lodwar aftera flat tyre and a dead guy lying on the road… Lodwar wasn't as charming as Kitale, a weird little town with weird people, certainly not a place you want to spend your holidays in but thankfully or ride was waiting for us to take us to the middle of nowhere… have you been keeping track of the travelled hours?Well, add 2 more hours = 36 hours in total and find yourself in  Eliye Springs Resort….yes, Resort! which by the name you would imagine spa, massages, pool, tan by the lake, room service, AC and good food right?, wrong again! guess you can put whatever name you want to your hotel and this was certainly not the kind of Resort we were all expecting… This place was truly in the middle of nowhere, no electricity, no good food, no massages, no spa and no pool, just some tiny huts and by huts we mean the tribal huts the Turkana tribes live in… tiny, tiny, so tiny that the bed barely fitted, and to top to that, these type of huts are so tight and compressed that it feels like a sauna when you're inside…but, now we can say we have truly experienced how Turkana people live and besides, the lake was awesome, at certain time of the day you can't see where the lake ends and sky begins, just in the edge of the world… this is definitely the kind of place that bring out mixed feelings, and as Jo said, can't really tell  if you love it or hate it, but as we say, never regret anything you do, it all becomes part of your life and what doesn't kill you makes you stronger right?As with everything in life, this wasn't all bad, and adventure we'll never forget and we were all glad to be part of… So Lake Turkana touches the Ethiopian border at its northern end, once upon a time it was connected with the Nile but not anymore, the lake scene changes constantly, our huts were in Eliye Springs, very close to the Central Island National park which is a UNESCO heritage site. To get there was another 2 hour boat ride but worth every penny and minute. Central Island has three craters, two filled with water now and the other one dry, we could only hike to see two of them though, first we got to the Flamingo Crater, we could smell the sulfur in the atmosphere and as soon as you start hikingdown you can see the deep emerald green in the water, by the looks of it I would think that water was radioactive and very toxic but that doesn't stop the hundreds of flamingos from living there. Amazing sight, deserted as you can't even imagine, it was just us and the flamingos. Then we headed to the next crater, Chorro crater as the sign said, with clear water and full of crocodiles, so interesting, it's like this two different species found their homes next to each other and the great thing is that they don't even have to cross paths. So Besides Central Island, Turkana is known by it's people, the Turkana, a tribe that wears less clothing than any other tribe in Kenya. Women wear several necklaces made out of beads and men will always be seen with a wooden stool called Akichalong, very handy, you can also see them with a wide bracelet which is used as a weapon and is called aberait, the cool thing about it is that it looks like a simple bracelet covered in leather but hidden you'll find a sharp blade used as a weapon. Eliye Springs is a public place, close to where we stayed you could see the spring and lots of local Turkana people gathering to collect water. The last day we were taken to a community on our way back to Lodwar, one of the women dressed up in her special attire and let us take photos and look inside her hut. You can't leave Kenya without seeing old fashioned tribes and although we could see a lot of western influence, like the Turkana men wearing caps and safari hats, it was very interesting to see their little communities in the middle of nowhere, where water is a 3 hour walk or more, with no much agriculture 'cause Turkana is a very arid place and tons of goats and camels all over. At the end the trip had it's perks, we definitely wouldn't do it again but it was an adventure worth experiencing.  Video editing almost done so stay tuned for more of the Turkana people and the flamingos!