KENYA’S FAR NORTH: Remote Tribes of Lake Turkana, the Ndoto Mountains and the Chalbi Desert

KENYA’S FAR NORTH: TRIBAL PHOTOGRAPHY TOURS WITH WILD IMAGES

Kenya’s wild northern frontier, with its stunning regions of Lake Baringo, the Ndoto Mountains, Lake Turkana and the Chalbi Desert, is home to some of the most spectacular tribal people in East Africa.

After a highly successful inaugural expedition to some of Kenya’s most remote regions, we have designed an extraordinary photography tour that is the most culturally comprehensive in the area, offering fantastic safaris for African wildlife in the spectacular nature reserve of Samburu and some truly off the beaten tourist track people experiences that few photographers experience.

Kenya’s Stunning Lakes

Dotting the breathtaking landscapes across Kenya are hundreds of lakes pulsing life into the country’s parched landscapes.  They are home to extraordinary communities whose way of life has defied modernisation and where, each day, people fish for crocodiles, and paddle hand-carved canoes out to fish, wash, bathe and fetch water.

It is hard to imagine scenes more beautiful than visiting Kenya’s lakes. Some of them are home to enormous flocks of flamingos; others are the only place you will find truly endangered people like the Njemps, or aquatic Maasai and El Molo people, whose cultures are so fragile they may cease to exist this century.

The crowning glory of Kenya’s lakes is undoubtedly the stunning Lake Turkana. Sometimes called the Jade Sea, it is the largest desert and alkaline lake in the world.  Necklaced by extinct volcanoes, Turkana’s turquoise waters must be experienced to be believed.  Its shoreline is bejewelled by the tiny thatched villages of the Turkana and El Molo peoples, some of Africa’s most beautifully decorated people. In the far north of Lake Turkana live remote communities of Dassanech people, who share their world with the Omo Valley of southern Ethiopia. Untouched by tourism and rarely visited by outsiders, these communities of Dassanech people adorn the landscape with their pretty, hand-crafted huts called Miede.

The Rugged Ndoto Mountains

Piercing the skies above central Kenya are the soaring granitic peaks of the spectacular Ndoto Mountains, home to the fascinating Rendile and Samburu people.  Culturally linked and incredibly beautiful, we will witness traditional dances, wander through stunning villages and explore the decoration of these fascinating people as they dress before and after their initiation ceremonies.

The Chalbi Desert

Small by African standards, yet no less beautiful, the stark expanses of the Chalbi Desert in northern Kenya are home to low-slung dunes, salt lakes and islands of stunted acacia trees.  Straddling the border between Kenya and Ethiopia, the Chalbi is home to the Gabra people, whose nomadic way of life is underpinned by their herds of camels and their colourful homesteads fashioned out of bright fabrics and water reeds.  Crossing the Chalbi is rarely achieved by many tours in northern Kenya.  We work closely with one of the finest local guides in the region to visit communities of Gabra people who have rarely met outsiders in this remote corner of Kenya.

Marsabit – the Melting Pot of Kenya

The bustling town of Marsabit is an outpost of urban civilization in the desert of northern Kenya.  Hidden within its rolling hills are farming communities of colourful Burji and Borana people who have moved here to enjoy the more fertile landscapes, after escaping from the ravages of the Chalbi desert further north.  With an abundance of rich volcanic soil and slightly more frequent rains, the area around Marsabit supports a fantastic variety of agriculture including coffee, vegetables, fruit and medicinal plants.

Join Wild Images on this culturally immersive photography tour, the only one of its kind in the warmest heart of Kenya.

Peoples of Lake Turkana and Northern Kenya

Njemps

A lesser known group of the Maasai, the Njemps are a group of island and lakeside dwelling people that resemble the Maasai in appearance but not in habit. Known for their fishing prowess and beautiful wooden canoes called Kadich, the Njemps live in the region around Lake Baringo.

While fishing is key to the survival of Njemps communities, they will also keep goats, sheep and chickens on their islands as well as harvest honey from the trunks of trees.

During times of drought, smaller animals are taken to the islands on boats but cows must reach the island grazing areas by swimming so when the time comes all of the cows must follow a lead cow to the right island. Perhaps selected for their navigational prowess, these head cows are never slaughtered for their meat.

The islands and land of Lake Baringo feature volcanic rocks and thermal springs. They are unusually harsh for agriculture yet the Njemps manage to grow crops by hand ploughing through the rocks to reach the soil. Their villages feature stumpy acacia trees, prickly pear, desert roses, aloes and moringa trees. Used in medicine, the Njemps will harvest the seeds of Moringa and place them in a kalabash to use as a gift of good luck for travel. The fruit and leaves of prickly pear and aloes are eaten. Holes are made in the trunks of acacias and desert roses to create beehives and chicken eggs are often taken to thermal springs in order to be boiled and eaten.

This close relationship the Njemps people have with the waters of the lake extends to the African Fish Eagle, one of the continent’s most charismatic birds. On an early morning we will travel out by canoe to meet Njemps fishermen and watch them feeding a share of their fish to some of the lake’s resident eagles in spectacular display.

Pokot

Pokot people are one of the last in Kenya who are relatively untouched. They belong ethnically and linguistically unique to the Kalenjin people of East Africa and they can only be found in the Pokot area of Karamojong in Uganda plus the region around Baringo in Kenya.

Pokot women wear extremely elaborate disk necklaces called Karen. As young girls these take the form of woven branches but after initiation they are given large necklaces made from colourful glass beads. By the time they marry they also wear large loop earrings made from brass called Tawuyi.

Men and boys go through a series of life stages starting with Karachona, or young boys, then Muren as young men and Poi as elder men.

As agropastoralists, the Pokot don’t build villages. Instead family groups live in a shared boma with a series of simple huts that have been built in a clearing of acacias. We will visit one of these pretty Bomas to learn about Pokot culture and watch a Pokot dance where the necklaces worn by the women bounce to the beautiful rhythm of drums and singing.

Rendile

Deep in the spectacular Kaisut Desert of northern Kenya, the beautiful Rendile people have created villages through this region’s most outstanding natural features, the high granitic peaks of the Ndoto Mountains. We will travel into the mountain town of Ngurunit, located in the heart of many Rendile villages to meet and photograph these beautiful people.

The name “Rendille” is a colonial misinterpretation of the word “Rertit” meaning ‘separated’ or ‘rejected’. After descending from Cushitic family lines shared by Somalis, the Rendile split off to live in the deserts of Kenya, instead of joining their Somali relatives in finding better grazing grounds in Somalia.

Today they principally occupy the regions of Lake Turkana, Ndoto and Marsabit in Kenya.

Rendile women are intricately adorned with jewelled headdresses and large necklaces made from many strands of glass beads. These colourful necklaces replace a more simple red necklace that is worn by young Samburu girls called Morans until they come of age.

Skilled craftsmen, the body adornment of men includes a distinctive ‘visor-like’ headdress worn over hair that has been died with red ochre. This crowns a look that includes a variety of different ornaments including necklaces, bracelets, anklets and belts.

It is quite something to explore these rugged mountains where we will encounter Rendile people shepherding their livestock to their grazing grounds. We will enjoy a sunrise photography shoot with a small group of Rendile Morans (warriors) during our stay and then we will spend the rest of our time visiting Rendile villages to learn about their way of life and photograph them with their beautiful decorations.

El Molo

Perhaps one of the smallest and most critically endangered cultures of Africa, the El Molo people of Lake Turkana in Kenya now number only around one hundred people who can truly claim to be El Molo. Restricted to two villages on the shores of Lake Turkana and living a life of subsistence fishing the lake, the El Molo may disappear in the next twenty to thirty years due to intermarriage and modernisation.

The El Molo language, which is closely related to the Dassanech is already extinct with no fluent speakers remaining and no education of young people. Instead modern El Molo people speak the Nilo-Saharan languages of their tribal neighbours.

Their newest threat comes in the form of a wind farm which is planned for construction on the land between the two main communities of El Molo people near Loiyangalani.

Living in beautifully crafted huts made from thatched palm fronds, the El Molo use beautiful rafts made from Doum Palm logs to ply the waters and catch fish with spears, nets and harpoons. Crocodiles were once a staple food source for the El Molo but with recent conservation measures the hunting of crocodiles is now a restricted activity for special occasions. Traditional spears were fashioned from the horns of Oryx and used in these hunting expeditions for large fish and crocodiles.

Visiting El Molo communities today it is still possible to watch women engaged in the intricate weaving of baskets or drying fish. Men sit in the shade mending nets and getting ready for their next fishing trips.

During our trip we will meet a community of El Molo people for photography. Meeting and learning about the El Molo first hand is a glimpse into a world that is quickly disappearing from existence.

Turkana

Crossing into the rocky desert from the Ndoto mountains we will get our first glimpse of Lake Turkana or ‘The Jade Sea’ as it is sometimes known. This large stretch of turquoise water is actually the largest desert lake in the world and is home to four different ethnic groups living alongside each other – the Samburu, Rendile, El Molo and Turkana.

Surviving in some of the harshest landscapes of Kenya, the Turkana people in particular, are reliant solely on the sustenance provided by the water of Lake Turkana and its surrounding wells. It is a hot, harsh and dry place where every available shade is utilised to take respite from the searing temperatures.

Turkana people live in tiny villages of huts made from thatched palm leaves. Turkana women are instantly recognisable by their thick necklaces that are woven around a cylindrical framework and by their heavy silver jewellery. Married women wear large silver leaf earrings to indicate their status. Turkana men mostly dress in western clothes every day, however, during ceremonies they will wear a high headdress fashioned out of ostrich feathers and adorned with beads.

We will enjoy a sunrise photography session with elderly Turkana men and also visits to Turkana villages where we will witness an athletic traditional dance performed by both Turkana men and women.

Dassanech and Kobi Foora

Leaving the shores of Lake Turkana to drive inland, we will leave behind a small number of Turkana communities in order to cross the rock desert of northern Turkana towards the isolated national park of Sibiloi. This adventurous day drive will see us taking a small break from people photography as we stop to photograph some of the wild landscapes around Turkana. We will visit one of Africa’s last remaining petrified forests, complete with its huge trees that now lie in the desert as stones that have been decorated with amber coloured quartzite. From the petrified forests we will make our way over to Kobi Foora, the research site used by Dr Richard Leakey for his excavation work on the early hominins of the Turkana region. Located on a narrow spit-like peninsula jutting southwards into Lake Turkana, Kobi Foora is a series of stone buildings with basic and clean accommodation that will be our base as we explore this isolated area visiting remote communities of Dassanech people.

We have always enjoyed visiting Dassanech people as part of our Omo Valley tours at Wild Images. Northern Kenya, and Lake Turkana region in particularly, is the true home of these warm and welcoming people. During our drive north to Kobi Foora it is very likely we will encounter roaming Dassanech shepherds taking their livestock to the lake to drink. It is also possible we may see Dassanech people heading to the lake to fish.

Our biggest highlight of this region will be to visit remote communities of Dassanech people living more authentically than they do over the border in southern Ethiopia. The main differences lie with the size of Dassanech houses, which are considerably larger than those in Ethiopia and the more intricately decorated women who, like their sisters over the border, still wear tightly woven braids in their hair but in Kenya their jewellery is more elaborate and beautiful.

Gabra

From Kobi Foora we will travel eastwards towards the edge of the Chalbi in northern Kenya. En-route we will visit a singing well and meet our first Gabra people.

Sometimes herding animals up to their thousands, the Singing Wells of the Gabra people are known for the songs sung by Gabra men as they fetch water from deep wells for their animals including goats, sheep, cows and camels.

These incredibly beautiful camel nomads of the Chalbi desert live their lives under the main tenets of protecting land, animals and fellow Gabra. Their most symbolic identity lies with “a poor man shames us all” and as such they practice the mutual survival that is characteristic of many desert nomads. No Gabra may be allowed to go hungry, go without animals or be refused hospitality or assistance, therefore visiting these people is one of the true high points of our expedition. Not only do they live in beautiful ‘homesteads’ or “iolas” with huts constructed from fabric and sapling wood by Gabra women. These are separate from smaller huts built in groups by Gabra men at the foraging grounds. The reason for two separate village constructions is simple. The Gabra believe that camels are unpredictable, won’t forage near their own dung and they destroy the vegetation within nine miles of their home, hence smaller animals are allowed to stay in family villages while Fora are established elsewhere to look after camels.

Visiting communities of Gabra people we will get to experience life as they know it while we learn about milking camels, husbandry and how they survive in Kenya’s harshest desert region. We will enjoy meeting these remarkable people over drinks of camel milk tea or fresh camel milk, both of which are delicious!

Leaving them from our base in North Horr we will travel out onto one of the largest salt pans of the Chalbi where, with luck, we will see more Gabra people harvesting salt to sustain their animals.

Burji

At the turn of the 20th century, the Burji community arrived in Kenya from Yavelo Province, Ethiopia, courtesy of the then-commissioner of the Marsabit District in northern Kenya. To encourage farming in his administrative area and feed the colonists and inhabitants – the Borana, Rendille and Gabra – who were predominantly pastoralists, the British colonial official decided to ask his Ethiopian counterpart to send a few Burjis, renowned for their farming and entrepreneurial skills, to initiate farming in Marsabit. Experience had shown that the local communities could not rely exclusively on livestock as their sole source of livelihood. The British Consul at Mega in Ethiopia agreed to the request and sent a few Burji to Kenya, where an administrative post was set up in Marsabit to oversee the growing of crops.

Sadly, and while it was well intentioned at the time, the British action helped to create a minority culture of the Burji in Marsabit and they are now suffering from marginalisation even today.

Of all the groups of people we will meet on our tour, the Burji are perhaps the most vibrant. They have superior agricultural skills and we will learn that they can almost grow anything they need including plants used in medicine and even coffee! We will visit a community of Burji people living in the region around Marsabit who will educate us about their specific traditions while we take photographs and sample some of their amazing home grown fruit, vegetables and herbs.

Borana

Another group stemming from Ethiopia, the Borana are one of the largest sub-ethnic groups of Oromo speaking people in northern Kenya. Ethnically they are closely related to the Gabra people we will also meet on our trip.

Borana women are known for their beauty and for keeping their hair using a ‘butter’ made from animal fats. Perhaps the most fascinating aspect of their culture, however, comes with the naming tradition for their children. For the first two to three years of their lives, Borana children run around unnamed. Unlike other African children who are named either before or at birth, Borana children are named during a ceremony that can last for three days in specially constructed houses for the event.

We will visit a small Borana community at sunset to learn more about their traditions and take photos.

Samburu

Our final group of people we will meet on our tour is probably one of the most beautiful. Kenya’s stunning Samburu people are related to the Maasai and Njemps, sharing their incredibly decorative jewellery that is worn by both Samburu men and women. We will stay in a beautiful tented camp at the base of Mount Ololokwe, a mountain that is sacred to the area’s elephants who will actually climb up the steep slopes of the mount on their knees in order to drink from the freshwater spring on the summit!

The Samburu revere elephants as part of their folklore, believing that god made elephants and humans as brothers. For them elephants not only clear paths through the bush, the broken wood and dung they leave behind help the Samburu to build fires.

Sometimes known as the butterfly people of Kenya for their brightly coloured traditional dress, the Samburu are stunningly beautiful to photograph. We will visit a family boma at the base of the mountains to witness Samburu life and also enjoy a sunset shoot with a friendly group of Samburu Morans nearby.

On Safari in Samburu National Reserve

In the heart of Samburu county, the stunning Samburu National Reserve is our final stop on the tour and our place to relax and enjoy some final wildlife safaris before we return to Nairobi.

Spanning both sides of the Ewaso Ng’iro river, Samburu is home to some unique wildlife including Grevy’s Zebras, Beisa Oryx, Gerenuk and Reticulated Giraffes. It also features a stunning diversity of birds including pretty Vulturine Guineafowls that we may see while we are out on safari searching for other African wildlife including elephants, lions, leopard, buffalos and antelopes.

With a relaxed schedule of sunrise and sunset safaris based at our luxury lodge, we will have time in the middle of the day to have a siesta and enjoy nature or download some photos from the trip.

Our tour will end with a final safari in Samburu before a drive to Nairobi airport.

Why travel to the Ndoto Mountains, Lake Turkana and the Chalbi Desert of Northern Kenya with Wild Images?

Currently there are few photographers and photography tour companies offering trips to northern Kenya.  We have decided to offer a unique alternative to the more standard itineraries on offer in this region by combining visits to ethnic groups like the Njemps and Pokot people in the region of Lake Baringo with an adventurous traverse of the borderlands between Ethiopia and Kenya exploring the Chalbi Desert and remote Sibiloi National Park.

By joining a Wild Images tour we work with an unrivalled level of ground expertise and local guides who are well connected to the various tribal people of northern Kenya.  Our leader has almost thirty years of travel experience in Africa and knows Kenya extremely well.  As we travel through remote villages we believe that the best images come from photography of people in a two way situation.  We encourage our guests to chat to local people through our interpreters, laugh with them, engage with them and simply enjoy the experience of being immersed in their world.  As the body of work from our tour shows, we don’t just simply pass through villages spending less than an hour to get photos. We stroll around enjoying places, we sit in the shade with local people and drink tea with them.  Join us on a journey where friends are made alongside beautiful images in one of the most spectacular tribal regions of east Africa.

Accommodation & Road Transport

In Nairobi we will stay in hotels of a very good standard. Accommodation on the tour varies from safari lodges to tented camps and basic guest houses that are clean with functioning electricity and plumbing in ensuite facilities. Shared facilities only are available on three nights of the tour at Kobi Foora and at our tented camp in Samburu.

Road transport is by converted 4×4 vehicles with inverters for charging batteries and numerous sockets. A fridge is also included in the vehicles to keep drinks and other items cool.

Walking

The walking effort is easy throughout.

Climate

Most days in northern Kenya will be warm or hot, dry and sunny.

Photographic Equipment

For most photography of the people in northern Kenya, a travel lens of around 24-105mm on a full frame DSLR or mirrorless body will be essential. Sometimes a 70-200mm (on a full frame) will be useful for such things as a a dance or ceremony, should we witness one.  A wide angle lens of around 16mm or  smaller will be perfect for working with the people inside small huts.

If you prefer to photograph people from a distance, then please consider bringing a larger zoom or telephoto lens. It is our experience that sometimes people can feel a bit intimidated by large cameras and lenses so you may wish to bring a smaller sized zoom lens like a 100-400mm which doesn’t appear as intimidating as a large fixed focal length telephoto lens.

Such a lens can also be useful for any wildlife we encounter during the safari part of our trip. Since there are no weight restrictions for small flights on this tour you may wish to bring a large prime to photograph the wildlife we will see on our safaris inside Samburu and also for the bird photography opportunities around Lake Baringo.

If you bring a good quality bridge camera instead of a DSLR or mirrorless it will be best if it has an optical zoom of 18-20x or more, combined with a reasonable wide-angle at the other end of the zoom range.

If you have a phone or tablet that can be used for photography, you may find these quite useful around people.

Similarly if you have a Polaroid camera like the Leica Sofort or an Instax Mini, these are wonderful to have on hand when you spend time with tribal people. If you decide to bring one of these, please bring lots of film with you as the photographs you produce will be quite popular!

Drone photography is permitted on this tour. If you plan to bring a drone with you there are some flying limitations that we can brief you on before you join us and while we are travelling.

If you would like to talk over suitable equipment, please contact our office. We will be happy to advise.