Published 4th Jan 2019
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Lake Bogoria National Reserve:
So I made the decision to bravely venture into the above national reserve with information that there may be little to see and the 18km stretch of road into the reserve would be bumpy. They didn’t lie.
Due to whatever natural reason, the tectonic plates shifted and all the lakes in the Rift Valley have had their water levels increase. Lake Bogoria is one of them. Unfortunately, this means the lake increased from around 32km square feet to 40km square feet, thus engulfing the original tarmac road that would go along the lake as well as submerge all the beautiful geysers that would splash hot water majestically into the air. The Baringo County government has had to create a murram road higher up (actually the second attempt since the first one was also submerged) and this is through some very rocky areas that could easily damage vehicles with a low clearance. This being January too, most of the flamingos have migrated to Lake Natron to breed and will only be back around July. I am told that then the whole lake is a beautiful pink!
Nevertheless, we got to learn a lot from the ever-resourceful tour guide who came along with us. We experienced the pungent smell of rotting algae (food for the birds), saw a few dik diks, baboons, monkeys, squirrels, a tortoise that had stopped to sip fresh water from an underground stream and plenty of birds. Lake Bogoria is a very long and thin lake. Alkaline in nature having no outlet and thus does not sustain much in terms of animal life. the birds that flock the lake feed on shrimps and algae. The pink colour of the flamingos is from the food they eat. Flamingos are white in colour when young.
We did manage to get to the hot springs that are 18km along the tough road. We’ve experienced hot springs before in other counties. I found these ones quite fast in boiling the eggs. The temperature of the water is around 103 degrees Celsius.
Lake Bogoria, being a top revenue earner for Baringo County, is indeed a must visit but with the knowledge that the geysers are now history and do visit when the flamingos are back! Oh, and please go in a 4X4 vehicle though I saw a grader clearing the road.
lizwala 