Lake Turkana stretches south for 250km from the Ethiopian border, down through Kenya's arid lands, bisecting the rocky deserts like a turquoise sickle. It's hemmed in by sandy wastes and black-and-brown volcanic ranges, and the lake scene changes constantly. The water, glassy, milky blue one minute, can become slate-grey and choppy or a glaring emerald green, sometimes even jade, the next.

 

The lake was discovered for the rest of the world only in 1888 by the Austrians Teleki and von Hohnel , who named it "Rudolf" after their archduke and patron. Later, it became eulogized as the "Jade Sea" in John Hillaby's book about his camel trek. The name "Turkana" only came into being during the wholesale Kenyanization of place names in the 1970s. By then, it had also been dubbed the "Cradle of Mankind", the site of revelatory fossil discoveries in the field of human evolution. And it was becoming something of a spiritual mecca for atavists, an excuse for a week of riotous assembly in a safari lorry or a dignified weekend in a Cessna and a lakeshore lodge.

But to depict Lake Turkana as "Kenya's latest touristic discovery", as one or two glossies would have you believe is, thankfully, a monstrous piece of hype: there are two lodges, one on each shore, catering for perhaps a dozen people between them at any one time. Otherwise, there are a few B&Ls, one or two windy campsites and that's it. As yet, the only asphalt - that certain sign of imminent change - is the crooked finger that reaches north from Kitale to Lodwar and on to Kalokol on the western shore.