Walkabout - Kenya and back in a day

Lake Chala is a spectacular volcanic caldera lake which straddles the border between Tanzania and Kenya. It is as firmly encircled by fascinating tales and claims as by its crater walls.

The Tanzania-Kenya border biscects Lake Chala (photo courtesy of Google Earth)

Lake Chala is alleged to have a depth of about 3000m; incredible for a lake that has a surface area of about 4 sq km! Interestingly, this is also more than twice the depth of Africa’s officially recorded deepest lake (& 2nd deepest lake in the world), Lake Tanganyika, which at 1470m deep is a shallow puddle in comparison.

Rumours abound of the mzungu (foreigner) taken by a crocodile many years ago, or a few months ago, or a few weeks ago, depending on who you ask. The lake may, or may not, since have been cleared of crocs by throwing poisoned goat/cattle carcasses into it. The poisoned carcasses would no doubt have decimated the claimed population of “critically endangered endemic” Lake Chala Tilapia (fish). Perhaps the poor fish weren’t critically endangered until their lake was poisoned???

Curiosity got the better of me... a little research revealed that the badly mutilated body of an 18-year old British gap-year student was retrieved from Lake Chala by Kenyan Navy divers after she went missing whilst swimming at dusk with friends in March 2002. Crocodiles did live in the lake, believed to be Nile or Mamba crocs, which have a reputation as man-eaters. Interestingly, the poor girl & her friends had apparently been told by locals (& had consulted their Rough Guide) & been told the lake was safe to swim in.

Hmmm. So... in 2010, to swim or not to swim? Bilharzia/Schistosomiasis anyone? Who knows? Crocs anymore? Apparently not.

Lake Chala is blessed with a delightful campsite on the Tanzanian side, the destination for our little group’s August weekend getaway. Never mind the notoriety of the actual lake, getting there proved quite an adventure in itself...

After a 45-minute dala-dala ride (always a canned-sardine experience) we arrived at the Hibo township bus station & were accosted by taxi drivers with whom we tried to negotiate our ride to Lake Chala. The first cabbie quoted 100,000TSh, which had us all in stitches, incredulous looks on our faces. We obviously hit the negotiation end-point when we got down to 20,000TSh though, as the cabbies let us walk away.

We strolled out to the main road & caught the eye of another cabbie, who could only be persuaded down to the same price, so we jumped in after we’d loaded our bags into the boot he managed to open by reaching behind the passenger seat & pulling on some ingenious home-made wire boot-latch mechanism.

Ten minutes down the main road we turned on to a dirt one, which is where the fun really began. As you’ve probably already gathered, the cab wasn’t in the best condition. The cabbie carefully negotiated the various road bumps and ditches. After a while we came upon an extensive roadwork section that was in the process of being graded, so there were long ridges of dirt narrowing the driveable width. We paused to allow an approaching bicycle with massively long wooden beams across its rear rack to slow & pull over perpendicularly to the road so we could pass.

A short distance further, we had to pull over close to the wall to allow another vehicle to pass; which is when the futile tyre-spinning of the front wheels began. Given all the passenger & luggage weight in the rear, a rear-wheel vehicle would’ve fared better. After several back & forwards attempts to get out of the ditch, during which we came unnervingly close to scraping the earth wall beside us, we all clambered out to push the cab out. Once onto solid ground, the cabbie continued to the top of the rise for good measure before stopping to let us all back in.

As if we hadn’t had enough fun already, a short distance further on, up the next rise, we hit a rock and then the cab stalled & wouldn’t re-start, sounding unnervingly dead. Then a motorbike, overloaded with grass, attempted to pass close to the earth wall, got bogged in the dirt, and stalled too. Of course, the grader then almost drove up our bum before stopping. We clambered out again and, with the added assistance of a couple of residents drawn to the spectacle, pushed the taxi uphill a short way. Our cabbie then gestured we should push the cab downhill again, as he tried to jumpstart in reverse. I had no idea this was even possible, and on the first two attempts it certainly didn’t seem to be. On the third though... hey presto, the engine kicked in, to cheers of elation all round.

Hmmm... this road is getting crowded (photo courtesy of Eirian Waters)

We made the rest of the distance carefully and uneventfully to the Lake Chala campsite. Here we had the joy of being the only residents, and after a quick rearrangement of gear in our 8-man tent, we set off on our afternoon walk around the lake.

Now, before you picture a water-side stroll, I’d best enlighten you. Being volcanic, Lake Chala is ringed by very steep walls. We embarked on a clockwise circuit, firstly striking out wide through the flatter surrounding country in hopes of seeing elephants. We saw copious quantities of elephant dung, but no elephants.

We overshot the point where we should’ve clambered back up to the hilltops, so decided to bush-bash from the road we’d found ourselves on (well & truly into Kenya by then). The bush-bashing was not a comfortable experience, as it was through acacia bushes/trees & I can now confirm their thorns are NASTY! Very sharp points, and hooked thorns, so they snare you just like a fish hook; indeed a couple of deeply embedded ones actually exited my skin again. Part-way up I got a decent stab in a finger-tip which bled beautifully, at which point I announced that, given I was bleeding, we must be having fun.

It was a great relief to gain the rim. We gazed somewhat lustfully at the strikingly blue water below; the lush forested slopes ringing it in stark contrast to the dusty semi-arid surrounding plains. In pursuit of a suitable patch of shade for lunch we stumbled upon a path down to the water – bliss. The others swam while I relaxed in the shade & photographed them swimming out to the bouy which they assumed was the Tanzania/Kenya border marker.

Back up on the rim, we indulged in various “border antics” before continuing our lake circumnavigation. We had to remove an acacia-thorn roadblock to pass by the abandoned and decrepit “Lake Chala Safari Lodge”, spectacularly located on one of the highpoints overlooking the lake. I wonder what the history is there? More intrigue!

Straddling the border

Border pyramid (photo courtesy of Eirian Waters)

It was a scorchingly hot afternoon and our path was often little more than a footpad, so a few more acacia thorn piercings were collected enroute, but we made it back to camp with an hour or so of daylight to spare.

Dinner was cooked over a wood BBQ: vegetable skewers, maize cobs, and frankfurter sausages, accompanied by cold pasta in a tomato sauce. I wasn’t enthused by the crunchy maize, although everyone else seemed to relish theirs & complimented me on my cooking of them. Many of the vegetable skewers were only half-cooked, but no-one seemed to mind. Dessert was “Smores”, which I’d never heard of. You place digestive biscuits on the BBQ with chocolate on top (to melt). In the meantime you toast a marshmallow. Then the whole lot gets sandwiched together in a gooey, melty mess.

After a pleasant lake-side morning the next day, we faced the final hurdle of returning home. We were given a lift back to Himo in the back of a ute, which flew down the single-lane dirt road doing at least 70km/hr whenever possible. Needless to say, it was a much quicker trip than our taxi ride out had been.

Finally, we squashed into a dala-dala again. As we embarked one small child exclaimed “Mzungu, mzungu”, so I said hello. The child shyly replied, so I asked “How are you?” as I caught several amused, indulgent smiles around me. And so we finally reached home, sweaty, filthy, but exultant, having had ourselves another Tanzanian adventure.