Loruk - Ruko

Day 2, Thursday 27th August

Start: 6:30
End: 18:00
Distance: 25km
Route: Loruk - Ruko

That night I did not sleep much. First there were the goats. For the few of you that have never slept in the midst of a goat herd, it must be made known that they make the most disconcerting noises; something between a sneeze and a fart. They also munch and rattle about, none of which is very conducive to a good night's rest. Secondly, there was the cold. I have opted to leave my jumper behind and while I was congratulating myself on this wise decision in the heat of the day, now I was bitterly regretting it. Finally, there was the uneasiness. Uneasiness of sleeping in the middle of a police camp and the anxiety over the commander's veiled threat that he will not allow me to continue my onward journey.

So when the first light broke, blue and pink over the lake, I decided to leg it. I packed slowly and deliberately so that it wouldn't seem like I'm legging it. Luckily, no one but one lone sweeper was yet up so I didn't have to answer any questions. I left a packet of cigarettes and a thank you note on the floor of the commander's hut verandah hoping that this would placate him and dissuade him from a chase of the unknown fugitive that fled in the night.

Loruk in the distance, my road in the shadow, bush in between.
This picture was my only reward for my
unnecessary uphill detour.

The road was leading conveniently north-east but I was worried about taking it. In my mind I saw the fierce commander waking up any minute and falling into righteous rage upon seeing my tent gone - and then ordering a hot pursuit along the route they knew I wanted to take. Leaving the main road was the only option to avoid that imaginary chase but that wasn't easy. The north side of the Lake is flanked by formidable hills, their ridges running north-south and their slopes rocky and covered with a thick bush, called locally ngoja kidogo, wait-a-while, for it catches your clothes in its little thorns and you have to stop if you want to let yourself free. The rock too, turned out to be sandy and brittle, breaking in my hands as I tried to scale it. After a needlessly tiring detour that left me scratched and sweaty, I returned to the road dejected.

I was not going to be captured that easily though. The road was steep and winding but that meant that I was not in full view most of the time. I had plenty of time to hide if I heard a vehicle approaching. So every 20 minutes or so I would abandon the road and with a trembling heart leap into the bushes on its side, crouching in the shade of some bush waiting for the vehicle to pass. In hindsight, that was ridiculous.

Despite this one-person version of hide and seek, the going was good. It was still cool and the road was comfortable. After a couple of hours I reached a shop. I did not expect a shop here. There were, or so it seemed to me, no people for miles around. But there it was, not only a shop but a bus stop too. This is where those from the surrounding bush who wished to travel out of the bush would gather to hitch a ride on one of the passing lorries or piki-pikis. There was a group of maybe five such hopefully passengers waiting already in the shade of a tree.

The unexpected shop

I stopped to chat. The men glanced uncertainly but the women and children surrounded me at once. I asked for water but they had none. There was soda though. I was led into the tin-shack shop and seated on a soda crate. I drank warm sprite and it felt divine. I bought some biscuits, for 5 cents a packet, and offered them to the kids who were swarming at the doorway. I talked to Magdalene Daniel.

Magdalene, mother of 9, to my right, random man to my left

Magdalene Daniel was the shop owner, she was 32 but looked 14 and had 9 children. In my current state I was also 32, looked 41 and had no children. Her oldest, 17 year old, was already holding a child of her own. At my age, she was a grandmother.

She asked me if I didn't have money for petrol for my vehicle.

Do you get many wazungus here, I asked? Not many. Not like you. In cars only.

I  paid for my soda and moved on, along the road that was now becoming hot and dusty and still was winding its way up the hills. I walked for another hour and by now was worried about water. I still had a litre but with the rate that I was now drinking, it would not last long. Plus the road has now reached what looked like the closest point to the lake and would now be slowly winding away from it, due east. I decided to make a descent from the hills onto the lake shore.

I don't know why I was convinced that there soon will be a downward pathway to my right but I was right. It was steep and stony but beautiful. It run under the canopy of tall thorn trees, a little zigzagging labyrinth, delightfully shaded. I had high hopes for that path.

In my mind it led to soft grassy banks overhanging a cool pool of fresh water. It didn't.

It was a flat beach of black mud, with razor-sharp white-washed stones strewn everywhere. Dead, ashen-white tree trunks stood in the water, a reminder of the lake expansion and now slow withdrawal. Fallen branches barred access to the shallow murky water, with suspect things slithering away into it with a plop.

It was oddly beautiful though. And it was water.

Three tiny and half-naked totos were on the beach collecting water into jerry cans almost their size. And when they saw me then screamed and run. It was a pathetic escape, as they stumbled in panic over branches and splashed water from their precious containers. I have never seen a child hysterically sob and run at the same time. I felt like an intruder.

There was nothing for it though, I had to get my water and boil the shit out of it. Literally probably. I found a shaded spot and tried to clear rocks from it with mixed success. I gathered firewood - at least there was plenty of that - and made a merry fire. Then I attempted to get myself water. On closer inspection it was also slimy and muddy but by that point I was committed.

I cooked it and added an iodine tablet. I took a massive swig, coughed and poured it out. It was disguising. Right, no iodine tablets from now on. They were past their sell-by-date anyway, I reasoned. I had them since my Mt Kenya ascent in 1996.

I also cooked some rice and added one of my onions and chillies and my boiled egg. That was yummy. By now it was high noon and everything was still and quiet. Soporific. I felt my eyes grow heavy and before I knew it I was sound asleep.

A frightening, yet oddly familiar sound, woke me...

(tbc)

Leakey's - Loruk

Day 1, Wednesday 26th August

Start: 3.00 pm

End: 6.30 pm

Distance: 15km

Route: Leakey's - Loruk

As my spontaneous decision to circumnavigate the lake was taken on Saturday and I wanted to return to Baringo on Wednesday, there was no time to plan much. I decided to wing it. Packed my faithful Toyota Starlet with what I thought was going to be useful and set off armed only with google maps printouts of the lake shore (useless) and the address of my friend Tanya's family, Jonathan Leakey and his wife Dena, who live by the lakeshore (v useful).

Warned as they had been about my arrival, they were oblivious to the purpose of my trip, and there was no mistaking the expression on their faces when I did tell them. It was doubt and disbelief. Sceptical as they must have been, they were also extremely kind. They showered me with helpful advice and a very much appreciated lunch. Truly, it was the last homely house West of the Lake, to paraphrase the Hobbit. The last thing I heard Dena say was: "Remember there is no shame in turning back and there is a soft bed and a warm meal waiting for you if you do." And just like the hobbit, I would dream of it many times in the days to come.

As I was to discover soon, 3pm was far too early to set off for the afternoon part of the walk. The heat was oppressive and the sun still blinding. Still, I was fresh and enthusiastic so the journey went fast.

There is a road that goes from Kampi ya Samaki (Fish Camp) - the undisputed centre of commercial and tourist activity on the Lake - to Loruk - a tiny hole of which no one has heard of - but I have decided to avoid it for as long as possible. From Leakey's gate, therefore, I tried to walk to compass, with mixed success. What looked flat and accessible on google maps turned out to be criss-crossed by little ridges and ravines, tangly bush and lone, thorn-fenced manyattas.

First hill, first view

Luckily the area was densely populated enough to have a maze of tracks which I tried to follow in the right direction. More often than not they would end up in somebody's home but at that time of day everyone seemed to be asleep anyway so I tiptoed away and I hardly met anyone.

To my astonishment and satisfaction, I was not followed by throngs of children wherever I went. Only right at the beginning did a small group of them attempt to follow, shouting for sweets and pesa, but they got soon bored and left me alone. For a little while I was accompanied by Sharon, a girl of 16, who kept insisting I should use the main road. She finally gave up and asked me for money. Not once after, until I returned to the environs of the Kampi three days later, has anyone asked me that again. That's civilisation for you.

I rejoined the main road after some 5 miles of hiking through the bush and it was much easier going, even if the frequency of human encounters increased dramatically. The sun was setting and the road was quite busy, with groups of people coming back from a day's business in 'town'. Some would stop and stare, most would shout out 'jambos' and 'nenda wapis'. The cool groups of youth, as they are everywhere, tried to look uninterested and unimpressed, only nodding in reply to my 'jambos'.

Clearly a bustling metropolis

I was pretty hot when I reached the town and so I slumped down by the first little kiosk I saw. I bought a litre of water which I drunk on the spot and then another, which I savoured as I spoke to the men lounging about in the shade of the shop. I asked them to tell me about Loruk. They said there was nothing much to say. There is a school and a clinic. And there are many churches. 

The Loruk Junction

Late as it was, I decided to push through back to the Lake shore which was some 3 more clicks away. I followed the road to the crossroads, and took a right towards Churo. I left it soon after, picking at random a path that seemed to be going in the right direction. A man caught up with me and hailed me down. That always makes me feel uneasy but I didn't have a choice really so I stopped and waited for him. He asked if I were going to the station. What station? Police station. There was one just ahead.

Not quite sure why, probably because I didn't want to seem like I'm aimlessly wandering, I said that, yes, as a matter of fact I was going to the station. Abdi, for that was the name of my pursuer, said he was going to lead me there then. He was a policeman, 34 years old, from Mandera, posted here a year ago with his unit, currently on a clandestine mission to get some vegetables for dinner. I tried to break ice by speaking my rudimentary Somali to him but that seemed to get him even more wary of me. Still, he offered to ask the commander if I could stay at the station for the night.

We entered the police station through a hole in the fence. Abdi stepped daintily, carefully picking his way through lose stones. Mines, I joked? No, snakes, he replied. We reached the barracks in time for the evening assembly. Discipline does not seem like the strong suite of that particular unit. A dozen of half-dressed men in flip-flops were casually leaning against each other, in a symbolic rather than actual line in front of their commander. He was explaining something to them in a monotonous voice and they would hesitantly murmur consent. Every once in a while, one of them would hastily leave the file to rush off to the hut to stir his dinner burbling on the stove.

I introduced myself to a bewildered commander and asked permission to put my tent up somewhere on the compound. He seemed a bit shell-shocked and he only asked me if I needed any food. When I said I didn't he seemed satisfied and gave his consent. Before he could change his mind - and before the sun set completely - I rushed off to find a good spot for my mozzie dome.

Still fresh and hopeful

As I was about to put down my load, a big mountain of a man came out of nowhere and in booming voice demanded to know who I was and what the hell I was doing there. Indignant, I replied I had the commanders permission to camp here. He was the commander, he interjected and I felt very confused and suddenly very weary. Unlike commander no.1, who was soft spoken and docile-looking, this one looked like trouble. Some kind of kikuyu political officer by the looks of it. Still, I mustered my courage and resolve and decided to play the dumb prattling tourist. I said I had no idea about rank but that's all very interesting and it's lovely to meet him and if he is the commander then I'm sure he wouldn't object, given that it's dark and insecure outside, if I stayed for the night, and I would be gone the next day and isn't it lovely that there is a police station, so well run and so secure, and where does he think the best place for the tent was, maybe here? This seemed to confuse and soften him somewhat, enough to suggest that the place I chose was too close to the fence, which has many holes through which hippo and hyena can come in and suggested I settle next to a little herd of goats instead.

I put my tent up while the soldiers looked on, making a point of ostentatiously pulling out my panga and putting it next to my pillow. At ease as I tried to appear I was not entirely convinced that was a good idea to settle for the night in a compound full of Kenyan policemen. Still, not that I had much of a choice and they seemed nice. Abdi brought me a whole jerry can of water to wash and a basin, and bid me goodnight. All seemed well, until the commander returned and announced that he reckons it's too dangerous for me to continue north-east on my own and I will not be allowed to go on. My heart sunk but I cheerfully suggested we discuss it in the morning as I was very tired. Was my trip really going to be jeopardised by an officious oaf?

Let's see.

Around the Lake in 60 miles

There is this beautiful spot in the middle of the Lake Baringo, where you can forget all your troubles and rest undisturbed gazing at the pristine waters of an azure aquifer.

Samatian Island Resort

This story is not about this place. But it was in here that - G&T in hand - I looked upon the far away shore of the Lake and thought: I wonder what's on the other side?

This is the story about the other, wilder and less often travelled, side of Lake Baringo and one girl's walk around the pond.

And it starts here.

What to take out there

This is what I was schlepping around the lake for three days and I found all these both necessary and sufficient (with three notable exceptions, see below).

Camp:

1. Mosquito net
2. Sleeping mat
3. Kettle and pot
4. Cutlery and dish cloth
5. Cup
6. Pen knife
7. Panga (machete)
8. Torch
9. Matches

Food:

1. Salt and Pepper
2. Onions and Garlic (4)
3. Packet soup and sauce (4)
4. Rice (1kg)
5. Dried sausage (biltong, 300g) 
6. Stock cubes
7. 6 hard boiled eggs
8. Earl Gray Tea

Other:

1. Towel
2. T-shirt, underwear and socks (1 change of)
3. Sun screen
4. Soap and sponge, toothbrush and toothpaste
5. Medicines: plasters, bandages, disinfectant, painkillers, imodium, burn cream, water purification tablets
6. Cigarettes
7. 2 Books
8. Notebook and Pens
9. GPS
10. Camera
11. Hat
12. Spare batteries (2)

This all fit into a medium size rucksack, with the mozzie net, mat and panga affixed to the outside with bungee ropes, and water bottles sticking out from the outside pockets.

The only thing I wish I had taken and I didn't was a jumper (pictured). Not only because this jumper has been with me for the last 20 years and is like a friend to me but also because it gets surprisingly cold at night and its no fun to shiver all night after a day's march.

And the only two things I did take but probably didn't need to was the extra book (I read 4 pages of one) and the water purification tablets - they taste so vile that I took my chances with the microbes on day two already.

Estimate weight minus water: 12kg

Boat to Wadi Halfa

I scarcely remember the uneventful and smooth journey from Cairo to Aswan, other than, a rather unrepresentative for those troubled times, encounter with Egyptian Armed Forces, embodied in a single friendly soldier who bought me my train ticket at the ‘residents’ counter, effectively decimating its price. 

The journey begins

The plan was to get a boat from Aswan to Wadi Halfa – the only way to cross the border between Sudan and Egypt. Why there is no border crossing anywhere else across the hundreds of miles of Egypto-Sudanese border, I shall never now. Perhaps it’s easier to police the one and only ferry that crosses Lake Nasser every week.

There are many myth and legends surrounding the logistics of getting the ferry. It is indeed a harrowing process so I will give my account of them in a separate post for any fellow travellers who are looking for clarification.

For the purpose of this account it suffices to say I miraculously managed to secure a ticket for my passage. Matthias, a fellow-traveller whose acquaintance I struck a few days earlier, also managed to get in and we settled comfortably under a life-raft on the top deck and awaited the boat’s departure while watching our surroundings with interest.

Ahmed in his fortress

The frenzied procedure of boat-loading is a sight not to be missed. It’s worth arriving early not only to secure a good spot, but also to behold it. Other passengers certainly didn’t believe in travelling light. It seemed as if every passenger was carrying a TV set as hand-luggage, in addition to the fridges and ovens sticking out of their bags.

The Sudanese go to Egypt to trade and bring back goods ill-available at home. Due to embargoes and poor state of domestic manufacturing many household appliances are beyond the means of many. Ahmed, a thirty-something teacher of English from Khartoum with whom I spoke during the slow hours of the passage, told me how he tries to go to Egypt every year, financing his journey through the sale of Egyptian T-shirts in Khartoum. He buys household items for himself and his mother. This time he bought a boom-box.

Thanks to this entrepreneurial spirit our boat got filled in no time, with boxes and cartons piled in every available corner, many of them forming impenetrable fortresses behind which lucky owners squatted, jealously guarding their space and belongings. Interestingly, right from the start a large space was enclosed with single wall of boxes – that formed the prayer square.

Extra barge almost loaded

Top-deck was certainly not enough to accommodate all those bags, boxes and baskets so soon a second barge had to be attached to our boat. Loading it looked uncannily like filling a dumpster. Luggage was thrown, protesting owners pushed, loaders yelled at, children lifted overhead, animals dragged under foot. There must have been a method to this madness but not one that I could discern during the six hours of observation.

When I got tired of watching I went back to lie down under my life-raft. I put my rucksack under my head and prepared to nap when suddenly suffocating darkness engulfed me. A big, warm blanket was thrown over my head and body. When I scrambled from under it I saw an excessively bearded face apologetically looming over me. It belonged to a man in a white embroided jellaba who made it clear with his gestures that he wished me to remain covered with it. Obviously, my feminine curves  - in my baggy khaki pants, dirty loose safari shirt and big trekking boots - were just too much to have to endure.

Some men preached, others fished

This was my first encounter with what turned out to be the Conversion Squad, a group of seven imams on their way from Cairo to Sudan on a religious mission. They did not speak English, and would not speak to me directly, so I did not manage to find out who and to what exactly they were trying to convert in Islamic Sudan but they certainly tried their best with my fellow-traveller Matthias.

While they would not address me, nor look at me for long they did however try to connect. Possibly aware of my opposition to the heavy blanket they tried to placate my anger with gifts. First, a piece of sweet candy landed on my blanket dropped by a passing imam. Second, came a little triangle of cheese-spread. Then another. Than a whole round box of cheese, followed by a whole bag of the same sweet candy. All thrown from a respectable distance by a messenger who would then scuttle away before I could make eye contact. Last was thrown a little vial of sweet-smelling perfume.

I must have single-handedly depleted their whole conversion fund for Sudan, they were very generous. I for one thought it better to stay on their good side: one, the blanket turned out to be very useful during the chilly night on the boat; two, someone listening to the radio brought news that the Americans killed Osama bin Laden that very day. There was no visible outburst of emotion at the news, but given the fact Osama used to live in Khartoum and Americans are not very popular in the country anyway Matthias and I decided to keep a low profile on the boat.

Abu Simbel seen from the boat

This did not stop me into the venturing in the hot belly of the boat, its lower decks. Women and children stay below deck, in cabins and open seated areas. This is deemed more decent than the top deck agora where men hold sway. It is also considered healthier than the chilly air. I have my doubts about that one. The humid, stifling, hot air, imbued with thousand smells of food and sweat, the murky water running down the corridors, the rubbish and sheer mass of people made the place a living hell. I went downstairs, exchanged my food voucher for a very dodgy looking gruel, ful and chapatti and resurfaced on the breezy deck again.

The night was peaceful and starry and I slept as soundly as one can while waking it every hour or so to check if my bag was still there. But the morning awakening was glorious for I was shook awake by fellow-passengers to witness the splendour of Ancient Egyptian ruins of Abu Simbel arising from morning haze. Spectacular.

Wadi Halfa Port

A few hours more and there we were, on the Sudanese side. The famous Wadi Halfa - proud outpost of British civilisation during the Mahdi Campaigns, the frontier town on the rail that stretched deep into the unknown, an oasis in the hostile desert. Well, in reality Wadi Halfa is a bit of a let down. Partly because the old Wadi Halfa is no more because of the building of the Nasser Dam and subsequent flooding, partly because the British and their rail are also long gone, the town is not quite the 'the sharp line between civilisation and savagery' that Churchill described in his River War. The port is in the middle of nowhere, nothing but a couple of customs buildings, one short jetty and empty ship carcasses strewn about. The little town is some way off, away from the lake and river, lost in all that blinding sandy whiteness.

But, hey, it’s still a gateway to the proud Sudan and I was very happy to have made it there at last.

The Journey Continues

Why, it's been a while since I've last written. Lay it down at my laziness, although there were a couple of other factors involved, like trying to finally settle somewhere more permanent. But it's now or never for this story and now is as good as time as ever.

From the Sands of  the North....

The next chapters that you are about to read are all about a journey I finished almost exactly a year ago. The aim of the journey was to travel from Cairo to Juba, across what was then still united Sudan. I was probably the last person to do this trip while the country was still one. I was also probably one of the few Western women to ever venture alone on this particular route in an attempt to cross one of Africa's least traveled regions.

The journey took a month. I rushed through Egypt, possibly foolishly given its recent turbulent history and revolutionary changes, but I had my eyes on a more exciting story. I crossed the northern Sudan (what is now just Sudan) - something I had really wanted to do after hearing nothing but bad things about it from Southern Sudanese and foreigners alike. I then got arrested in Nuba Mountains, just as they were going to erupt into the bloody conflict that lasts to this day. This arrest and my subsequent speedy abandonment of the region probably saved my life and limb - the dubious thrill of this adventure convinced me to take a UN chopper south instead of taking the Darfur road (my only other option), which - unbeknownst to me at the time - would have taken me straight through to rebel controlled road blocks.

....to the SPLA in the South

Instead I was delivered safely to Wau, far in the north-west of southern Sudan. Journey from there revealed to me the full extent of the wisdom of those who cautioned against travelling in South Sudan's tropical jungles during the rainy season. But neither mozzies, mud nor malaise could stop one who is aided and abeted by the jolly men of Sudan People's Liberation Army - as I was at times when trying to hitch-hike in (or rather out of) this post-conflict area. 

It took 3 days of soaking and washing to get the red mud out off my rucksack and trousers by the time I reached Juba, the South's capital and pride. Here my journey ended, but the journey of the country only just began. I got there in time to witness the historic moment of South Sudan's indpepenence, I was there when a new country was born. The joys and tribulations of these two journeys is something I'd like to now share with you in the following posts. 

Getting the Aswan - Wadi Halfa Ferry

Wadi Halfa Ferry

Some Traveler Tips 

The myths and legends circulating on the internet blogs and fora surrounding the purchase of the tickets are countless. Just in case some lost traveller is reading this in search of information I will authoritatively state that: the Wadi Halfa boat office is in Aswan proper - on the river front - not in the port. There is an office that opens in the port in the morning of the boat's departure - which is Monday -  but it is inadvisable to count on it – it seems to only issue food vouchers for the trip.

I managed to get my ticket there but this was only because the ubiquitous Mr. Saleh, the manager of the Aswan office (could be a bit more friendly, but efficient) had one set aside for me on my visit to the main office a few days before – two other foreigners that arrived in the morning hoping to get tickets were turned away. Ideally, arrive in Aswan by Thursday at the latest to have a greater chance.

There are only two classes at the ferry – cabin and deck – and their prices are EGP 500 and 320 respectively (up from 400 and 200 earlier this year). The locals were  paying 320 too and we have been repeatedly assured there are no 3^rd class tickets – I am inclined to believe that is the case. The customs are straightforward, but arrive early on Monday to secure a shaded and secluded place on the boat – we were let on around 10am and left by 4pm but by midday the boat was already quite full.

This info was correct as of May 2011.