At
Kenya's far Northern frontier lies one of the natural wonders of the
world.
Lake Turkana is a massive inland sea, the largest desert lake in the
world (6,405 sq km). This single body of water is over 250 kilometres
long- longer than the entire Kenyan coast.
It is widely known as the Jade Sea, because of the remarkable, almost
incandescent, colour of its waters. After a long journey through the
sweltering deserts and lava flows of Northern Kenya, the sight of this
vast body of bright turquoise water comes as an unearthly, ethereal
vision.
The Lake is a source of life for some of Kenya's most remote tribes. The
Turkana, with ancestral ties to Uganda, live a semi-nomadic existence
around the Lake. The country's smallest tribe, the El Molo, live a
hunter-gatherer existence on the shores, in villages of distinctive
rounded reed huts.
Turkana has one of the longest living histories on earth, and recent
fossil evidence unearthed at Koobi Fora has led to the Lake being
referred to as 'The Cradle of Mankind'.
The site lies at the heart of the Sibiloi National Park, a place of
stark beauty and prehistoric petrified forests.
The Lake itself is a natural treasure, with the world's single largest
crocodile population. In Turkana these reptiles grow to record size,
with some of the largest specimens found on remote windswept Central
Island.
Lake Turkana is Kenya's most remote destination, but one that repays the
intrepid traveller with rich rewards...
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