SIBILOI NATIONAL PARK

Why on earth did my friends and I decide to head 960 km north of Nairobi? An adventurous safari in Sibiloi is for those that have tired of the traditional circuit. Visitors with a pioneering spirit and a yearning for the road less traveled will find their ideas of life in Africa transformed park and without a shadow of a doubt, this was us! Shimmering like a mirage in the harshly beautiful desert landscape of northern Kenya lie the blue-green waters of Lake Turkana. On its shores is the Sibiloi National Park, harboring one of the world’s greatest treasures, the three-million-year-old, Koobi Fora palaeontological site. First discovered by Dr. Richard Leakey and his team in 1972, Sibiloi is now universally recognized as the ‘Cradle of Mankind’ and the most likely site of the biblical Garden of Eden. Why Sibiloi of all the National Parks in Kenya? personally, these are questions many people have asked me. I wanted to be among the few people who have visited UNESCO World Heritage Site, and Kenya’s most remote national park, even with the stores of bandits, we were still determined to set our foot on the magical land that allowed us to enjoy a tour in Koobi Fora, meet and interact with the local tribes like Gabra, Dassanach, and Turkana. Besides, it allowed us to enjoy activities like bird watching, viewing, and archaeological exploration, unfortunately, we only encountered one wildlife Zebra out of the many wildlife Somali ostrich, kori and Heuglin’s bustards, northern carmine and Somali bee-eater, Chestnut-bellied sandgrouse, and fox kestrel that is found in the park! We cannot forget how scratching hot and arid the park was when we visited omg! for a moment it looked like we had made the worst decision ever! we had to keep ourselves dehydrated all through, the saddest part was we could not get out of the cruiser to pee when we felt like lol! you can only imagine what we were going through. All through our travel, when we got to Marsabit we were accompanied by two amazing Park officers Grace and Richard, all fully armed and ready to strike in case they smelled a rat! we were given the full history of the park in detail, this made our journey shorter and made us more confident in pursuing the road less traveled! I remember vividly as if it was yesterday how we got lost in the middle of nowhere as we were heading to Sibiloi National park for the night, to be precise we were still out on a cruiser at 11: 00 p.m. This got us all freaked out! yet we had two great officers with us. The network was horrible! we could not make any calls to the park to inform them that we were lost! at some point, I remember I started praying out loud for God to cover and protect us! Lol! now it’s funny to look back and laugh. We finally made it to the park quarter to 2:00 a.m, upon arrival we were shown our guest rooms by one mzee wa kijiji, he became our tour guide, our chef, and cleaner for the time we were there. This was a furnished house for guests who visit the park. all we did was take a shower and straight to bed. We were hungry and tired! did I mention our packed food that we had brought with us got spoiled due to the heat? terrible experience! of hanger and fatigue. The house and the bedsheets were clean. Please don’t expect any high standard of food service, you eat what is available at that particular time. especially if you did not carry along with food. We only had a few hours of sleep and at 7. a.m we were up and ready to explore after taking breakfast! I will never forget how our cruiser got stuck in the park as we were heading to Koobi Fora Museum, this park is invaded by the outside communities who are illegally staying in the park with their cattle, families, and guns. All in all, we enjoyed this trip, we later headed to Loyangalani! story for another day lol!