Moyale to Lake Turkana

I found some old emails from when I traveled from Alexandria in Egypt down to Cape Town (on and off) with Brendan and Aschel.

Here are three excerpts from a really really long email:

1.

I paid him two handfuls of chewing tobacco. The witchdoctor then gave me a piece of wood from a magic tree to protect me. He spat on it and handed it over. After our farewells, he spat on my feet. I was a little uncertain about the correct protocol to follow in such circumstances, but I decided to not spit onto his feet, and thanked him instead.

2.

By now it was midday, so I went to the restaurant to eat some egg with chapati. While I was having lunch, The Big Fish disappeared for an hour. When I caught a glimpse of him returning, my primary hope for organizing that difficult lift had transmogrified himself into a staggering drunk. His eyes were half open, his lips had turned into sweaty Donald Duck lips, and his arms dangled helplessly down his sides, as he clumsily and carefully negotiated the wide-open road toward me. It was funny in retrospect. The others inside the restaurant laughed and said “Ja. The Big Fish … hahahaha.”

3.

Everything was so desolate and empty and solitary and peaceful and silent. The landscape seemed to exist for no other reason than to simply exist - relentlessly exist. It was majestic. It was impersonal, yet it totally filled me.

The trip from Moyale on the Ethiopian/Kenyan border to Lake Turkana in Northern Kenya

We scored a ride on a yellow land cruiser, owned by some Islamic organisation. It was by no means easy organizing a space on this vehicle. Moyale is a border town on the Ethiopian Kenyan border. There is no official transport south into Kenya. The only way down is to hitch a ride on trucks (cargo: camels or cattle or timber) or Land Cruisers. There are more people than spaces, although, in Africa, it is always possible to fit another person onto the back of a truck or a pickup. Also, there is no such thing as a fixed price – for anything. Everything depends on whom you speak to, how you ask, how much money you are perceived to have, and how stupid or desperate or patient you are. And finally, you are never entirely certain whom it is that you are actually dealing with when negotiating a seat on a vehicle. Are you dealing with the driver, an official ‘broker’ for the driver, or ‘the third man’ – somebody who just happens to be there, sensing opportunity?

The first space we secured on a convoy heading south was on a cattle truck. It was a three-axle truck. The cabin seated three people comfortably, but I think five spaces were taken. The cargo area was open with horizontal and vertical poles creating a fence around the area. The truck was full of cattle. There were also iron poles running horizontally above the cattle – thereby essentially forming a cage. It was on top of one of those poles that we had obtained our places. We – and many many others – were expected to find room on top of the cabin roof and on the poles – holding onto something or each other – hovering above the cattle below. For two days! I stood by the side of the truck in the dust and craned my neck to look up as the truck began filling up with people climbing on top – pulling each other up - and tying their luggage to the poles. An excited hullabaloo in the fresh early morning, as the sun was rising and mist was still visible in the valley below. There were six similar trucks waiting to head south in convoy. I walked up and down the trucks – and all trucks were going to be the same in terms of seating arrangements. People were running about trying to get space, helping each other out with their sacks of sugar or maize, hands were exchanging money, drivers or organizers were telling people where to sit or to move or to make more space or shaking their heads at others indicating that the truck was full, or gesturing with their fingers (whilst counting fat wads of cash) that payment was short – another note or two were required as seat prices fluctuated wildly.

We decided against the seats. It was crazy; holding on for two days, bouncing through northern Kenya. Yeah right.

We spent another night in Moyale, and decided to try again the following morning. This time we got a seat on the yellow Land Cruiser. The price that we negotiated was ten dollars with the assurance that there wouldn’t be more than five people on the back. Else we wanted to pay less. By the time we left, the back had swelled to nine people plus luggage plus sacks of sugar and maize plus a spare tyre and a drum of diesel. And the cost was now twenty dollars. After a quick outburst – almost aggressive – the cost was back down to ten dollars. As we left, another child hopped onto the back, but he was thrown off several minutes later after much pleading and begging to stay on.

I was squashed into the back with my one arm wrapped around the spare tyre, a bag between my legs, a bag on my legs, two dirty naked feet on top of mine, somebody's shoulder on my chest, a stranger's head bobbing on my shoulder, and all the time sitting on the sack of sugar with my back pressed against the bars to the window of the cabin.

Finally heading south.

The landscape was barren. Flat dust plains decorated with shrubs as far as you could see. And the road was straight. It just went on and on heading toward the horizon. We never seemed to get any closer to the horizon. The sun was weighing down on us. I applied sun cream to all the areas where my skin was burning hot. Everybody was covered in dust. Conversation was sparse. The guy next to me talked to me about Islam. After some time – in this squashed up situation – his talk was beginning to drone on, blending in with the constant drone of the engine. This incessant repeating and reciting of dogma. My mind wandered out into the landscape – the vastness of emptiness. Totally monotonous. The landscape changed gradually from semi-desert with nothing else, to semi-desert with larger clusters of shrubs and Acacia trees. Once I saw a family of elephants wandering through the bush; a few Impalas.

Occasionally the ride was interrupted by a quick stop to tighten a screw here and there, or to fill up the radiator with more water, or to pray. Several people on the vehicle were Muslim. They climbed off the back, spread out their pieces of cloth, washed their hands and feet and knelt on the cloth and prayed. I enjoyed watching them wash their hands. The way they did it. Their hands were tools; devices for picking things up and holding onto things. These tools get dirty, and water will wash off the dirt. One tool washing the other tool, rubbing water onto it from wrist down to the fingers, making sure that every part gets cleaned. Then wringing out the fingers. They didn’t dry their hands; the water was left dripping off their tools, left to dry in the heat.

We were stopped at several police roadblocks. There was no town. There was nothing. Just an infinite landscape with a small dirt road cutting through it, and across this road the police had erected a little barrier. It seemed silly in the grand scheme of things. Looking down at the landscape from an eagle’s eye, the thin line of a road barely visible in the vastness of the shimmering flat landscape, what was to stop a vehicle veering off the road, bypassing the blip of a barrier, and turning back onto the road to continue? Authority seemed so out-of-place here. Official documents and papers and forms and rules and regulations … the barrenness of the landscape was surely the one in charge over here?

The process at these roadblocks was always the same: Car stops. Wait a minute or two, while the police officer sits on a bench outside his hut and insolently looks at the vehicle, then finally decides to perhaps slowly walk over. No smiles, no hellos, he circles the car, sticks his head into the cabin, climbs onto the back, and self-importantly prods a bag or two. Symbolic prodding. Passport. Every page is closely inspected; every visa I have in there is thoroughly studied. Then, the outstretched hand wants to see the vaccination card - an infuriating process. Self-control is the key in these situations, as images of smashing my boot through the authority's face begin to blend into my field of vision.

Anyway, we had to spend the night in a little village called Merele - three hours from our destination - Isiolo. All beds were taken, so we slept behind the car in the dust under the stars. But first we wanted beer to fall asleep a little easier – as the ground was hard. The town had no more beer left, but the beer truck was expected that evening or the following day. It was already ten at night. But then it miraculously pulled in next to us. The driver was kind enough to sell us two bottles each - and a bottle for himself of course. We drank behind our car and fell asleep in the dust.

The following day we arrived in Isiolo. Isiolo was a sprawling transport hub. My friends continued further south to Nairobi. From here I would need to travel north-westerly. I asked around and eventually I figured out what my next step would be to head closer to Lake Turkana: I had to wait till the afternoon for my ride on the 'Baby Coach' to Maralal. I used that time to clean out my day pack - my peanut butter jar had decided to explore the insides of my bag. And I purchased half a kilogram of chewing tobacco for payments-in-kind when I got to Lake Turkana.

Baby Coach was an odd little bus - lots of colour and a happy hooter. I sat in the back overlooking the people inside the bus. We stopped thousands of times, dropping off and picking up aliens - odd creatures these. They were dressed in only red cloth, hundreds of colourful beads wrapped around their face, head, arms, legs and chest. Women had huge head ornaments made from metal, beads and flowers, and some of them had their breasts popping out from underneath their cloth. The men had knives in multicoloured plastic-like sheaths, two short striped sticks with big metal nuts on the end, and perhaps a longer thinner stick for herding. Their earlobes were stretched with big gaping holes in them. On the top parts of their ears they had short beaded insect antlers sticking out. And around their waist they carried all sorts of potions and stuff wrapped in little leather sacks. They looked rather silly - these Turkana or Samburu warriors/herders. They had happy carefree innocent faces. I wasn't too sure whether to laugh or slap them through the face.

We had three armed soldiers on board too, as the remote north of Kenya is notorious for banditry.

The coach eventually arrived in deserted Maralal at ten at night. I had some beer and collected useful information regarding where-to-from-here: Apparently several Land Rovers gathered underneath the big Acacia tree next to the market. They would head up further north to Baragoi. From there, there was no ‘official’ transport to Lake Turkana. I slept, woke up late because I had forgotten to switch on my alarm, threw on clothes, grabbed my stuff and rushed out onto the streets. I quickly found a matatu (taxi) Land Rover to Baragoi. It took four hours to fill with the rest of the passengers (matatus don’t leave until they’re full), so by one o'clock we were on the road. I had four bananas and one avocado for breakfast.

This was a short wheel base car. Four people in the front - I was fortunate to be one of them - with bags and documents and diesel cans on my lap and feet and legs. Eight people were crammed into the canopied back.

We broke down once. I am always surprised at how swiftly vehicles are patched up again.

The view, as we headed down into the Rift Valley was spectacular: huge open plains, with occasional Acacia clusters. Dark clouds were breaking in the distance.

We eventually arrived in Baragoi in the late afternoon - the last stop of ‘official’ transport. We hadn’t passed a single car on this trip. From here I was left to my own devices as to how to head further north to Lake Turkana. It seemed like such a big journey to get to the lake – it wasn’t that far away on the map. But the lake is remote – almost in the center of Africa.

Baragoi was a tiny village. It had one road – the road we arrived on. From it, there were several footpaths to the left toward the village huts - probably a hundred huts or so. Along the road, there were two restaurants, a bar, a rusted petrol pump, an administrative building, and a three-storey barracks-style building that served as a hotel. Around the back I saw a little boy who led me to his dad who gave me a key and showed me to the room. It was a bare room with a concrete floor; a bed in the corner underneath a mosquito net; a bedpan underneath the bed next to the plastic sandals. On the side table was a paraffin lamp. The toilet was down the corridor. The bucket of water for the toilet was outside the room.

I dropped off my stuff and decided to find out about transport heading north. I met the "The Big Fish". He wanted to adopt me and show me around and be my guide. I don't really like guides, but he seemed very cool and showed me around a lot. We walked in between the mud huts (we even went into some of them), he showed me the six meter deep well dug into the dried-up riverbed, and showed me where to eat and drink. After he showed me his village, I realized that perhaps my anti-guide attitude was in fact not quite applicable to tiny villages like Baragoi. In a big city like Addis Ababa or Cairo guides are more of a nuisance than anything else. They get commission from hotels and restaurants when they take you there, and don’t really have your interests at heart. But places like Baragoi are so small – I’m a guest, not a visitor. It is so intimate there. When The Big Fish led me through the village – there were only a handful of public places – the rest were people’s houses, their village, their home. Had I not walked through there with my guide, I would have been an intruder. Now I was merely regarded with suspicion.

The Big Fish was an energetic fellow. He could speak English quite well, and seemed to be well liked by everybody … or was it ridicule I picked up from some people? I could never quite figure out his relationship to the others. He seemed to get on well with everybody but he also received yeah-yeah-whatever looks from people. The people in the village were from the Turkana and the Samburu tribe. They lived on opposite sides of Baragoi. The village was plagued by drought, and by bandits who stole cattle and chickens.

After the ‘tour’ of the village, he took me to a witchdoctor. It took quite some time to locate the doctor - he stayed in a little isolated mud hut on the other side of the dry riverbed. I waited outside while The Big Fish ducked into the hut. I heard some mutterings, and then he peeked out and waived me inside. The ancient witchdoctor just crouched in front of the wall inside his empty hut. There was a little fire on the ground next to him. Other than that, there was nothing else inside the hut. It had a strong smell of smoke. I didn’t know how to behave; how to show respect in front of the Wiseman of the village. I crouched down and was trying to remember why exactly I was here. The Big Fish was the translator. He said that I can ask him anything and he would give me the answer. I didn’t know what kind of questions to ask … my world was so different to his. Questions about my career were out of the question; relationships were probably shaped completely different to the kind of relationships between people in Baragoi – different complexities and dynamics – so they were not relevant either. Even bigger life questions would have been difficult to formulate and translate and to decipher its answers … so I looked helplessly at The Big Fish. He responded by saying that the witchdoctor would start off by telling me a few things about myself.

I expected the witchdoctor to make use of some bones to throw, but he used his sandals instead. He actually read sandals. Quite predictably, his sandals were highly inaccurate. I mean, how many different configurations could his sandals possibly land up in? Two sandals to read my future. He told me that I have one sister and four brothers (I suppose the average Baragoi household possibly has this set of offspring, but not your average Western family unit). He told me, though, that my sister could also represent somebody who loves me, and my four brothers could also describe four friends that are like my family. I then asked him when next I would bump into my friends again (I loosely travelled with two friends of mine). He said I would see them in three days again. I see. I found this very hard to believe seeing that they were in Nairobi heading toward Uganda. I also asked him when I would get a ride to Lake Turkana. He said tomorrow. I liked that answer. Even though all other answers were dubious, I somehow believed that I was going to get that lift the following day.

I paid him two handfuls of chewing tobacco. The witchdoctor then gave me a piece of wood from a magic tree to protect me. He spat on it and handed it over. After our farewells, he spat on my feet. I was a little uncertain about the correct protocol to follow in such circumstances, but I decided to not spit onto his feet, and thanked him instead.

That evening I gave The Big Fish some money so that he could be on the lookout for any news on vehicles heading north. Baragoi was hot with not much to do. The only thing to drink was African Tea. Fresh water was difficult to come by because of the drought. The only food available was mandazi (dough nuts), chapati (flour and egg pancakes), beans, and egg. No vegetables or fruit. I really wanted to get to Lake Turkana – not that it would be any better up there (probably even worse), but so that I could at some stage return to civilisation. I had Nairobi in mind.

After my first night in Baragoi, The Big Fish met up with me again, and we waited by the side of the dusty road - the MAIN road - for that elusive piece of transport all the way to Loiyangalani on the western shore of Lake Turkana. It was hot sitting there on the cold concrete steps to the administration building at the entrance to the village. It was silent. A handful of people were lazing about, some quiet chatter, flies buzzing aimlessly, children play fighting in the street, and a distressed lamb somewhere in the distance. Two cars drove past us that day. They were heading the opposite direction. "So this is the main road..." I remarked occasionally. "Yes, this is the main road" was always the answer - not quite picking up on my subtle sense of humour.

I was getting bored. Half jokingly I enquired whether it was possible to get one of those scar markings that the Turkana people have on their stomachs. Shortly afterward, I was seated on a little stool in a mud hut, with an ancient lady armed with a new razor blade opposite me. She made twelve incisions on my upper arm, with blood running all the way down to my wrist. After the cuts, she took some ash from the fire and rubbed it into the wounds. Her friend – just as ancient – was curiously looking at the proceedings. At times they would discuss things among themselves. Afterward we celebrated with home brew whiskey. Young girls were walking around in groups in the village carrying a big bottle/bucket of whiskey and a drinking mug. We approached one such group and drank two mugs each. It was dirt cheap and unbelievably disgusting. The whiskey was warm and didn’t taste one bit like whiskey. I think it might be their term for spirit - any spirit. It left a burning sensation at the bottom of my stomach. The sun was beating down and I was feeling nauseas from the discomfort of the incisions and the whiskey and the sinking sensation that the razor blade might not have been new, but infected with some disease that would ultimately cause death and regret of having done such a stupid thing.

By now it was midday, so I went to the restaurant to eat some egg with chapati. While I was having lunch, The Big Fish disappeared for an hour. When I caught a glimpse of him returning, my primary hope for organizing that difficult lift had transmogrified himself into a staggering drunk. His eyes were half open, his lips had turned into sweaty Donald Duck lips, and his arms dangled helplessly down his sides, as he clumsily and carefully negotiated the wide-open road toward me. It was funny in retrospect. The others inside the restaurant laughed and said “Ja. The Big Fish … hahahaha.”

The following day I was sick lying in bed with a runny stomach and cramps. It was the home-brew whiskey I’m sure. Still no cars. The witchdoctor was wrong. The Big Fish came into my room and told me that he is still looking for a car. In the afternoon he came back into my room. Ragingly drunk. He sat there for the rest of the day, seeing if he could get me anything, or if he could have some money. We had the same conversation over and over. I then figured out what was happening. The previous day we had gone to a shop together so that I could buy some sugar for his mother. The shop owner had measured some sugar on an old scale and had handed it to The Big Fish. Yesterday, when I had lunch, he must have returned back to the shop with the sugar and sold it back to the owner in exchange for some whiskey-money. Also, when buying the whiskey after the scarrings, I must have overpaid and he must have returned to drink the difference in whiskey. It’s quite a life in Baragoi. His brother had left for Isiolo and owned a car. He was a plumber I think. He always spoke of his brother and how important he was and how much he had and that he had a car and so on. The Big Fish seemed to be a big planner, a schemer, a socializer, an opportunist, and an alcoholic. Whenever he was drunk he became abusive and cheeky and talked about his brother. The other villagers treated him badly when he was drunk. He’d say something, and they’d return with pushing him or kicking him. Not viciously - but hard. I could hear the dull smack when the boot connected with his shin. He always had bruises somewhere.

After five days of first arriving in Baragoi I finally obtained a ride on a tour truck to Lake Turkana. It was a superb trip (with a doctor from Spain aboard to give me re-hydration minerals and stuff for my cramps!). The chefs cooked up a storm at night when we camped at South Horr. Here, I also gave somebody a letter I had been given by somebody in Maralal to give to somebody else in South Horr. I slept under the stars behind the truck.

The following morning, after breakfast, we headed off on the final leg toward the Jade Sea. The landscape started thinning out, until eventually there were no more Acacia trees left, no shady dry river beds, no camels, no grass, no thorn trees - just an endless expanse of black volcanic rocks. It was a pitiless vastness – a landscape that would never show mercy. The sun was on fire. Everything was dead and black. Not even a breeze. I was excited – I knew the lake must be close now. And then, there it was - in between the rocks – the icy blue green waters shimmered in the glare of the sun; apparently teeming with crocodiles. I had reached Lake Turkana. The largest and remotest desert lake in the world.

We drove along the shore for an hour; the hostile jagged volcanic rocks crunching underneath the tyres. We must have passed only five Acacia trees. I saw a rugged island about a kilometre from the shore (apparently inhabited by a small tribe – a tribe only found on this island.) Occasionally I could make out a silhouette of a human form on the water's edge. Nomadic herders. How do they survive?

Loiyangalani, the village on the western shore, was even smaller than Baragoi. More desolate. More drought. Less food (but fresh fish). And flies … I dropped off my stuff and took the thirty-minute walk to the Lake. It was so hot, and my feet were hurting walking over the volcanic rocks. I walked past a little settlement of twig huts (there was not much mud in this area). Along the way I picked up a little group of kids running after me and in front and all around me – wanting to show me the way to the lake. They couldn’t speak English – and I couldn’t speak their language. But we had fun along the way. There’s a universal language of humour and humanity. I couldn’t see any crocodiles, so we swam in the warm rocky shallows of the lake.

Everything was so desolate and empty and solitary and peaceful and silent. The landscape seemed to exist for no other reason than to simply exist - relentlessly exist. It was majestic. It was impersonal, yet it totally filled me.

At night – there were more stars than I had ever seen. The following day I caught the only car within the next two weeks back to Maralal through Baragoi, and onward to Isiolo and finally Nairobi.