Lake Turkana also known as Lake Rudolf is the world’s longest permanent lake of the desert and also the longest alkaline lake that is located in the Great Rift Valley of Kenya. If talking about volume it is regarded as the fourth biggest salt lake in the world that contains potable water and shelters the wildlife in abundance. Tourists highly admire the lake’s beauty which features insurmountable attractiveness, volcanic rocks, mesmerizing hills encircled by bright sunshine and shining nights and they take cheap flights to Nairobi from where they reach this dazzling destination with the drive of approximately 2 days.
The lake covers an area of about 180 miles with sparkling water and is an ideal spot for those travellers who want to experience the diverseness of archaeology, anthropology, ornithology, culture, game wing, fishing, astronomy, adventure and photography. The lake gained its fame after the expedition of Count Teleki in 1888 and to honour the prince of Austria he named the lake as Rudolf.
It is also known with the name of Jade Sea because of the blue-green colour that forms as the algae gather on the surface. It stretched from Omo valley to Barnido some 800 years ago so it is now nourished by three rivers which are Kerio, Turkwel and the Omo. The writer John Hillaby has admired the lake with the words of ‘varying mood’ which is sometimes stormy and sometimes it makes you feel the oceanic tranquillity.
The lake contains almost 50 different breeds of fish amongst which 11 are endemics such as H. Turkana, H. Rudolfinum , Haplochromis macconneli, Lates longispinis, Neobola stellae, Brycinus forex and Barbus Turkana and B. minutus where as the non-endemics are the bichirs, Nile tilapia, African Arowana, Mormyrus kannume, Nile perch, Distichodus niloticus and various other species. Approximately 10,000 years ago Lake Turkana’s water level was very high and it used to flow in the River Nile and that is why it provided habitat to crocodiles and thousands of fish species. It also serves as the home of various bird breeds of Kenya amongst which Wood Sandpiper, Little Stint, Common Sandpiper, Greater Flamingo, African Skimmer and Heuglin’s Bustard are very common.
Besides, the lake contains the largest population of Africa’s Nile crocodiles and their count was declared as 14,000 in the book named as Eyelids of the morning by the great author Alistair Graham in 1968. Apart from this a large number of turtles also exist in the water of the Central Island. You will love to observe the grazing predators and mammals of the grassland such as Burchell’s Zebra, Grevy’s zebra, Beisa Oryx, the topi, reticulated giraffe and Grant’s Gazelle, who are the prey of cheetah and lions.
Kenya is planning to build the largest wind power system of Asia with the use of lake water as it can produce 300 MW of power supply and can operate 360 wind turbines each of them functional with the energy of 850 kilowatts. The best time to visit Kenya is from the month of July to December as the season is dry and you can enjoy your tour of its extreme.
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