I'm supposed to be on a grand adventure, but I've mostly hung around, waiting.  When I think adventure I don't generally think of them as being tedious, but I suppose that's the way that it works.  On even the most epic quest, there will be days, weeks, or months where nothing happens.  Anyways, I'm bored in Lodwar and happy to take a little side-adventure up to Lokichoggio. 

It should be interesting.  Lokichoggio is a bizarre place.  The town sits on the border with southern Sudan and exists solely for the NGOs.  Tiny Lokichoggio has an international airport, which is reputed to be the 2nd busiest airport (after Nairobi) in Kenya.  Planes loaded full of relief supplies land and take off constantly.

Nothingness

After a quick breakfast, I rush over to catch a bus I find both a big bus and a shared minivan heading to Lokichoggio.  In Eldoret, I'd learned my lesson - buses can take hours to fill up - so I grabbed a seat in the minivan. 

Just as I had heard, the road is fantastic.  Our van speeds along down it.  Unfortunately, we're overall making very slow progress.  At every little village we stop to load or unload people.  On occasion we stop to load or unload goats, which are very unhappy about being stuffed into the tiny trunk space behind the last seats.  And sometimes someone gets off in the middle of nowhere, with no villages in sight, presumably to walking towards their home, somewhere out there in the middle of nowhere.

The trip is not particularly scenic.  In between the mountains there is an impressive amount of nothingness.  There are a few shrubs, a few rocks and nothing else.  The fact that people live out here rather shocks me. 

In Lodwar, you see traditionally dressed Turkana people, but they seem out of place - not working, not selling, not doing anything in particular.  It's very different seeing them out here in the context of their surroundings.  But other than a few herders, it's hard to tell what they do out here either.

Camel crossing sign

Camel crossing

Further down the road, still cruising through the nothingness, I heard a strange moaning, wailing sound.  My fellow passengers began talking about it and pointing off into the distance.  Dots off in the distance were headed this way.  The van stopped.  As the dots came closer, I saw that four Turkana men were carrying a screaming woman.  "Abduction", explains my neighbor.

Then the men drop the woman in the dirt beside our van.  Everyone in the van was amused and laughing, except the woman lying in the dirt.  She definitely was not laughing.  I have no idea what's going on!

A screaming Turkana woman lying in the dirt, with 4 men standing over her, was an amazing, intense and shocking image.  My camera was in my lap.  I was ready to take the picture, but didn't know what the hell was going on.  I didn't know how armed these guys were, or how they would react to having their picture taken. 

Taking a photo first, and asking permission later is the way to get great shots - but I guess I'm not a war correspondent yet.  I'm not willing to risk my safety (or even the safety of my new camera) for a fantastic photo.  I decided not to take the picture. 

After a few minutes the van continues on its way.  I ask for an explanation of what exactly "abduction" means.  I'm told that there are arranged marriages.  Sometimes, the parents agree but the daughter does not.  In these cases, friends of the groom come over to her house and carry her away.  In some cultures the bride is supposed to be an innocent, scared virgin; If she doesn't act scared they'll question her virginity.  Everyone else thought the abduction was funny so perhaps it was all a bit of an act.  Unfortunately, I don't think that I'll never know how much of the bride's terror was real, and how much of it, if any, was acting.

The van stopped at a town called Kakuma and everyone got off.  I've once again made a mistake.  I ask around and I find out that the bus was a direct bus, which goes non-stop to Lokichoggio.  The van sat idle in Kakuma for an hour as it very slowly filled up again with passengers.

After Kakuma we pass a pair of refugee camps - one for Somalis and one for Sudanese.  I'm specifically told not to take any pictures.  There isn't much to see.  Mostly I see signs for NGOs and a chain-link fence.

Only very rarely does it rain in Lodwar.  Lokichoggio on the other hand is wedged up against mountains so it gets lots of rain.  We drive through a heavy downpour outside of Lokichoggio.  The nothingness is transformed into a maze of intertwining brown rivers and streams.  The rain doesn't slow down our trip; we fly down the well-paved UN road.  Before reaching Lokichoggio the rain stops and the sandy dirt quickly slurps up all traces of it. 

I'm in a hurry to get my passport stamped because I still have to find a ride back to Lodwar, but I also need to stretch my legs, so I walk the mile out to the airport.

There were only a few vehicles in Lodwar.  Lokichoggio is full of them, and they all have NGOs logos emblazoned on them.  Walking through Lokichoggio like browsing through a NGO catalog:  Unicef, SLIN Mine Action Team, Norwegian Christian Fund, Red Cross, UN, UN, UN, Save the Children, Oxfam, Doctors without Borders.  That's just what I saw on the walk to the airport.

I arrive at the airport.  The immigration office is a window with one guy working behind it.  I fill out an exit form, hand him my passport, he stamps it and we're done.  That's it.  All that way and all that hassle, for just 5 minutes work. 

I hitch a ride back into town (with a Red Cross truck) and look for a ride back to Lodwar.  There's only one vehicle going, and it's the same van that took me out here.

Getting out to Lokichoggio took a long time, but the way back drags on forever.  The last few miles seem to take hours.  With all the stops the trip took more than 11 hours rather than the 6 I had expected.  I arrived in Lodwar well after dark and completely exhausted

Days like this are exactly why I love to travel by land - you never know what's going to happen. 

But indeed it can be exhausting.  I think I'll have a rest day tomorrow.

The trip from Nairobi to Addis Ababa was interesting enough that I wrote it up as a daily log.  If you'd like to read it from the beginning click here:  [ Leaving Nairobi ]

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