Kampi Ya Samaki

The night I spend camping wildly on a viewpoint with panoramic view to the south-west across the whole lake. Pretty epic spot for a sundowner! I read that the Robert's Camp on the western shore - famous across overlanders - is closed temporarily due to flooding. This I want to investigate further and first of all find myself trapped between Loruk with a flooded road and a military post. In order to process south to my destination I have to take a northern detour where in turn I am held back by this military post telling me that the road northwards to Kapedo is highly dangerous. There have indeed been some shootings recently. But they are pretty stubborn to understand that I want to go south and not north and just came because of the detour. I have to fight-off an armed security patrol for these 5 km of detour. Ridiculous they are!

Of Robert's Camp there is nothing left. Just the cottage roof tips. The water reaches up the whole access road because of this mysterious water level rising of all rift valley lakes. I get talked into a boat tour and indeed have some time left before I have to arrive in Eldoret for a new Covid test which I need for border crossing to Uganda. I negotiate a good price and it turns out that the money is well invested because the community-managed boating club makes a great impression to me. They have good equipment and professional personell. My boat guide is a smart one knowing everything about the lake, the environment, all plants, all birds, all animals. Usually this place must have been crowded with tourists! It is a very special situation being here as the only one now and experiencing the whole tragedy about the flooding. All hotels and lodges are completely sunken! The water rose by 14 m and went down again a few. The lake's shore moved in parts around 600 m further inland. Not only tourism died in an instant, people also had to move their homes. The hippos have a hard time because their grazing lawns disappeared and they have to stay closer to the humans now. Friendly crocodiles are floating like logs near the shore and it must be a bird watcher's paradise here! My favourite is the Northern Carmine Bee-eater which usually is just a migration guest and should have left by December but recently his schedule changed they say. Bee-eaters in general just look amazing in flight with their fancy wing cut but low above your head with the perpendicular sun shining through their colourful feathers this one is an extraordinary feast for the eyes. And this epic scenery of rising escarpments in the background!

At 1200 I leave and arrive at 1500 in Eldoret to get a sample taken in a private laboratory. The hospitals don't do Covid testing for travel purposes at the moment because they are low on test kits.Read more