Hell beauty of the Turkana

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On the Kenyan border we find the world upside down. While in Ethiopia police and customs officers had teamed up to rob us, here the superior of the post gave us change of his pocket, in shillings, after the payment of our visa. He did it despite the fact that the law says that the change must be in dollars and despite the fact that we told him that it didn't matter, to keep the change he was looking for in all the drawers. "We cannot keep any changes", sentenced.

So we take the tough Moyale Road. This is perhaps the most mythical road in Africa, at least for travelers who make the route between Cairo and Cape Town by car or motorcycle. In every travel book I have read it is marked as an earthly hell to flee from before being eaten.

The car glided with little delicacy through the muddy scree

The beginning was indeed hard. The sand and stone track was broken by the waters and the car glided with little delicacy through the muddy scree.. But, almost 150 kilometers later I found some Chinese and behind them some machines and a little further some areas of asphalt. Actually I think we've been one of the last travelers to experience most of Moyale Road like yesteryear, fucked up and complicated. In two or three years, luckily for those who pass by, That will be another road poorly built by the Chinese with an asphalt full of holes to avoid. (made in China).

So we got to Marsabit and decided to stop and see a small park that appeared on the map with the same name. We arrived and there was nobody. A ranger appeared and informed us with indirect precision that we could sleep in the only lodge in the park and that there were all kinds of animal species within which we would not see any. He did it with grace and charging us 50 dollars to enter.

The reality is that we arrived at an old lodge that had no clients but a few charming workers with whom we agreed a low price to sleep one night in a surviving wooden complex in front of a lagoon.

We found a lost pool of water, wild, surrounded by tall grass

And as it happens whenever one does not expect anything, that afternoon was sublime. We went to the caldera of the volcano, called the lagoon of paradise, and we found a lost pool of water, wild, surrounded by tall grass where we feel the weight and loneliness of the planet. We go down with the car through thick vegetation that engulfs us and we reach its waters. We were only moved by instinct, we really didn't even know where we were going to put the car.

The place was beautiful and lonely. Suddenly we saw in the distance an elephant that appeared on the other shore. We were him and us, only. We get excited with that emptiness of the world so beautiful and so ours. Then, evening, we had a spectacular dinner under a chorus of millions of cicadas and the nothing lit up in white above our heads. Marsabit was an unexpected gift. People were lovely.

So we went to Lake Turkana, one of my outstanding debts with this continent. We take a half-abandoned track of sand and stone that kills a car by rattling. Then a perfect desert appeared, hostile, reddish colors and copper stones. There were some camel herders and little life because that is an area where there should be no life..

They had a tribal look, primitive, with their reddish hair and their warrior dresses

But the man builds houses in the same hell and there we passed by some towns of samburus that left us with a look in suspense. They were houses shaped like a rag and stick igloo. They had a tribal look, primitive, with their reddish hair and their warrior dresses. Nothing seemed real in that place.

And then after almost 200 kilometers Lake Turkana appeared. He did it like a blue stain on the horizon, with millions of volcanic stones covering everything and with small towns that met under the shadow of one of the few acacias. Turkana impresses, overwhelms, excites and scares. Who can live in the garden of a volcano whose waters cannot even be used? They.

They and Wolfgang, a German owner of the Oasis Lodge, who has lived there for 33 years. Wolfgang doesn't really live anymore, die in that place. His life is drinking vodka with water from breakfast until his mind goes out in his binge of alcohol and tobacco that faints him. Wolfgang has the problem of not belonging to any world and as he explained, a wire fence has been built so that no one disturbs his unconscious suicide.

Blacks steal everything from me and if I set foot outside I have hundreds of people asking me to the core

You no longer like Germany, about which he reluctantly told us, and he also doesn't like being the only white man next to a priest in that lost world. "Blacks steal everything from me and if I set foot outside I have hundreds of people asking me to the core. So I don't go out. ", the old German explained to us reluctantly. And while he seems to remember his times as a gigolo and traveler who conquered the most beautiful women who went there to do photographic work as models. They are there, on the wall of his restaurant from which hang photos of their naked bodies like spider webs. "Many returned, so they would have a good time ”, he managed to explain wistfully before disappearing off with the vodka..

Their story almost seemed more literary to me than that of those tribes. A white man, old, removed from the world for the simple reason that he got lost in it. He escaped from his boring German life and was left without roots and without understanding then that no matter how much time passes he will never be part of that world that is alien to him and where he is a millionaire target among so much poverty. His old age without a country is now his sentence and the memory that all time past was better is diluted like his non-existent ice in vodka.

And then he dreams of the times when he dedicated himself to fucking and drinking together with women from all over the world who came to the paradise of the young and triumphant Wolfgang. The bad thing is that time passed and the world fell on him without anyone knocking on his door again. He and his hotel will leave the wind at the bottom of the lake any day not to return. Not even the memory will remain because no one is left there who knows who that old white lake is., It's also true, he had the courage to live and enjoy that lost world in which the rest would survive two days.

He and his hotel will leave the wind at the bottom of the lake any day not to return

And after the Turkana we started back. Halfway there we detected a noise and Victor asked me to stop the car. Was broken. In the midst of absolute nothing, low 40 degrees and surrounded by camels, the car stopped. There was nothing and nobody. We open the hood and Victor, who knows a lot about mechanics lay down on a burning engine to fix the fault. I helped in everything he asked me. We were a sweaty mass of fat, full of shit and a little tired, although as always we kept the good tone of knowing that if necessary we slept under an acacia.

And suddenly a shepherd appeared in the distance. It was a Samburu who did not speak a word of English. He approached us with his primitive appearance. He looked and said some things on his tongue. We looked at him with a desperate gesture and he remained silent until he gestured for us to give him water and then to give him a T-shirt and then to give him something. We told him that not a little disgruntled to see that while we had even wounds on his hands, that man would appear to ask for anything and leave before our refusal with an angry gesture. I am always impressed by the ability of many Africans to see you as a target to get something out of even if they come to your funeral.

Finally after two hours the car started working again and we managed to finish Moyale Road, already paved in Isiolo. Turkana is without a doubt a very special part of this trip.

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Comments (4)

  • Mayte

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    How interesting everything, and brave! What will happen when the Chinese make the road? will be filled with shopping malls…? the charm of lonely place will disappear, Germans and shepherds that come out of nowhere?

    Answer

  • Carlos

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    Very well written with all the information , But I wonder if I can resist so much heat , thanks for sharing the article.

    Answer

  • javier Brandoli

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    What I assure you is that no matter how hot it is, it is worth it

    Answer

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