Lake Baringo, 10 Feb 2007: Crocs, hippos and deep water soloing
by Lianna
From
the dry dusty climes of Ol Lolokwe, we headed to the Great Rift Valley and
Lake Baringo, very rich in bird life but most famed for hippos, crocodiles
and its lush leafy surrounds. As the crow flies, it's not a great distance
to Baringo from Ol Lolokwe, but in a country where the infrastructure is still
developing, we had to drive around in a giant W, south, then north, then south
again, then north again. As we were getting quite close, an oncoming and crazily
swerving truck wobbled past us. Suffice to say that wing mirrors are easy
to replace out here!
So we were already pretty tired and travel-weary when the road disappeared.
One minute we were driving along decent tarmac in the fading light and the
next minute the tarmac had gone, lying in a jumbled heap some distance downstream
in a newly formed river, replaced by thick green bush. Never mind, nothing
a little rally driving through bog, scrub and a small river in a 22-tonne
truck couldn't solve.
Lake Baringo is surrounded, on its western shores, by a long rocky escarpment
- the reason for our visit. About 8km long, about 80m high, and made of some
kind of ironstone at a guess, the whole region has about 15 established routes
most of which Hot Rock put up in 2005. So we spent a good few days redressing
this balance, mostly listening to falling rocky projectiles as they whistled
past helmeted heads, hanging off mediocre belays near hornets' nests, warding
off an occasional passing troop of aggressive baboons, not forgetting the
local kids that have a habit of standing right beneath you as you climb, directly
in the line of fire of any falling rock! Still, at least all this adrenaline
was put to good use and resulted in about 20 new routes between S and E2.
Then we decided we needed a day off - a bit of relaxing down time in which
to climb without feeling scared, so we jumped into small boats one morning
and motored off to Devils Island for some deep water soloing. Deep water soloing
in a lake famed for its hippos and crocs. Hmmm. Best not fall off?
But
fall off we did (maybe the crocs know about falling rock?) 
We
had a great day climbing all sorts of routes and problems above the lake's
murky brown waters (poor land management and over-irrigation in the area have
caused water levels to drop and the lake to silt up dramatically over the
past 15 years). We spent lots of time jumping off the island into the water,
swimming, playing in the small balsa-wood fishing boats used by local fishermen
to catch the Nile perch common in the lake. We watched some very graceful
diving by Vicky (and quite a lot of less graceful diving by other people),
shaded from the heat under the bushes trying to avoid the giant ants that
seem to like biting people where ants really ought not to bite people, and
wandered around on the island in search of the elusive waterbuck and the more
ostentatious fish eagles. People logged some impressive airtime, Tom especially
(as per usual), when he pulled a toaster-sized bit of rock off and fell, admittedly
from no great height but in a very strange body-position. He then decided
he wasn't bruised enough yet, so he had to jump from increasingly high bits
of the island until he couldn't really sit down anymore. Ouch!
Night
times were no less interesting, given the lightning and thunder storms, and
the 20-odd hippos that came out of the water to graze in the campsite each
night. It's currently breeding season, so the big daddy hippo was especially
loud and aggressive. Lying in your tent at night, after being shown to it
by an armed Askari (local guard) to protect you from any hippo that decides
to charge you, listening to the rain beat down and the hippos so close to
your tent that you can hear them pulling the grass out of the ground. It's
pretty special.
