Hi all,
I thought I'd write a trip report about our trip this January up Lake Turkana's eastern shore and into Ethiopia's Omo Valley without our own transport. I spent months searching for information online prior to the trip. However, I could not find any useful information for people planning to do this without their own transport or even accounts of people having done so. I hope therefore to provide the information here that would have been useful to us before planning our trip.
This was the end of a 3 weeks in Kenya including Diani Beach, East Tsavo, Nairobi, Naivasha, Hell's Gate, Aberdare, Nakuru and Lake Bogoria. Those places have of course all been covered in detail on this forum and in guide books before, so I won't bother writing a trip report. All I'll say is that in each place we were able to cheaply and quickly organise everything on the spot without going through any tour companies. We only booked accommodation in advance and drivers for safaris upon arrival. This gets you the same safari experience for a fraction of the price, as far as I could see.
Anyway, back to Turkana and Omo. There is no official border crossing between the two, although there is an Immigration Office in Omorate, the first town you come to in Ethiopia, where you can get your passport stamped in. However, you also need to get your passport stamped out of Kenya. This must be done at the Department of Immigration in Nyayo House in Nairobi, which is open only on weekdays. It was a fairly painless process and they gave us 2 weeks to get out of the country, more than enough time. The only thing I would mention is that the woman behind the counter was not aware of this process and at first refused us. When we insisted that it was possible she called a colleague who corrected her and explained how to stamp us out of the country in advance.
We took one of the daily buses north from Nairobi to Marsabit and stayed in a hotel near the bus stop. From Marsabit buses go to Loiyangalani on Turkana's Eastern shore 2 - 3 times a week. We got one the day after we arrived and stayed in a guest house near the bus stop.
You can also apparently get to Loiyangalani from Maralal, but it's much more difficult as there are just occasional trucks going and not a scheduled bus service as there is from Marsabit.
We'd phoned in advance to one of the guest houses in Loiyangalani to ask for a car and driver to take us to the Ethiopian border. They'd asked for 40,000 shillings but agreed to 30,000 in the end. However, when the car turned up at our guest house it was fully loaded with goods, the driver was exhausted from driving all day and all night and was going to drive overnight to Ileret (last major town before the border with Ethiopia's Omo Valley). We would have to sit on the back on top of a huge pile of furniture and other goods, holding on for dear life.
Luckily we were able to refuse, as while in Loiyangalani we had found another option - a Kenyan Wildlife Service vehicle going up to Ileret the next morning. They agreed to take us to Ileret for a much more reasonable price of 15,000 shillings in much more comfortable conditions. On the way they then agreed to go all the way to the border for 25,000 shillings.
The drive to the border is around 10 hours from Loiyangalani, not 2 days as I had read previously online. The border is a tiny village, the name of which I cannot for the life of me remember. There are no border facilities there whatsoever, just a small painted rock marking the border. I asked around about Fort Banya, which I had read online as being the name of the border crossing, but nobody I asked anywhere between Loiyangalani and Omorate had heard of it.
A local guy in the border village let us put up our tent on his property, fed us and gave us super-strong local home-brew, which was nice. The next morning we hitched a lift on a truck from the border to Omorate, where we got our passports stamped in at Immigration.
There are 2 - 3 buses a week onwards from Omorate to Turmi, Jinka and even Arba Minch, and we were able to get seats on one with no problems.
Advice for anyone attempting this route without their own transport:
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From Nairobi to Marsabit to Loiyangalani is easy on public transport.
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From Loiyangalani to Ileret we found two cars going in the space of 24 hours. Whether this is typical or not I cannot say. On the way we passed 4 - 5 cars.
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From Ileret to the border and from Ileret to Omorate there seem to be lots of motorbikes going every day. Either you could try to hitch a lift, or pay someone to take you, either way I don't think it would be a problem.
4.From the border to Omorate there seem to be a fair number of trucks going. I don't think anyone should have problems catching a lift on one.
- From Omorate on to the rest of Ethiopia is easy on public transport.
From Marsabit onwards the area felt really traditional and remote. Around Marsabit there were a few people wearing traditional tribal dress and the number went up and up until Loiyangalani, where almost everyone was wearing it.
In Loiyangalani I'd recommend the 6km walk to the museum on the lake shore, if you can hack the heat and lack of shade! The museum itself is quite interesting, but on the way you will also get great views over the lake, pass herders' straw huts and see them with their camels and goats.
From Loiyangalani to Ileret is spectacularly remote with really Martian desert scenery. There are no villages here, but you often pass herders with camels, goats and donkeys. We even saw nomads migrating with a long caravan of donkeys packed up with all their goods and possessions.
The drive from the border to Omorate is also interesting, as you pass several villages of the Dassanech tribe which are rarely visited by tourists, compared to the ones nearer Omorate. Again, lots of people wearing traditional dress in everyday life.
Getting around between towns in the Omo Valley by public transport is easy. Getting out to tribal villages is also quite easy and can be arranged on the spot, either by walking to nearby villages or by hiring motorbikes to ones further away. Most towns have a local guides' association who can organise this for you at reasonable prices and know the dates of festivals in nearby tribal villages. Plenty of budget accommodation in towns such as Omorate, Turmi and Jinka, with really rough single rooms (we saw one with a bat living in it!) starting at 50 birr, space for pitching your tent at a campsite for 150 birr, or campsites with their own enormous tents for 200 birr, which were big enough to stand up in and sleep two people very comfortably on extra-large mattresses.
Hope that's useful!
