#ExploreTurkana: A Photo Essay

Written by | Adventures

What do you get when you take a random group of adventurers on a tour of the world’s most beautiful place?

A few weeks ago, our friends at Turnup Travel went on a whirlwind tour of Turkana with fellow adventurers. A vast land of immense beauty, Turkana is the home of the Jade Sea, some of the most beautiful people in the world living under a sky so dramatic it could be its own story. 

The magic of Eliye Springs

This story starts, like any story worth telling, with people. There are beautiful empty spaces in the world but whatever their form, they remain mostly that, empty. Can a place be beautiful if there’s no one to see it, to experience it?

Turkana is the land of a colorfully dark-skinned people, experiencing a vast space of sea, desert, rock, and adventure. The people of Turkan, colorful and powerful in their history, are a story untold.

Their space, Turkan, is the beginning of the human story.

An archaeological nude, if you may. The Nariokotome Boy was quite the looker though, for his time.
What this caption doesn’t say is that Kimeu and Leakey were the original turnup travellers. They’ve been chased by crocodiles and lions, and Kimeu once unknowingly spent the night with a cobra that bit him when he tried to leave their warm cocoon the next morning.


A story of a place so beautiful to those who know its true spirit, that it can only grow.

So what do you get when a group of thrill-seeking adventurers land in this vast, beautiful land, and its wanderlust soul?

First, they will shock this woman at Napuu Drip Irrigation Scheme. “Are you photographing me or the vegetables?
Then, clothes will be replaced with shukas and kangas, and shoes will be forgotten. For there are beaches to be explored, waves to be felt.
“Walking along the sandy beach, she touched my soul. I knew when I woke up the next morning, she’d be there.”
Then they will not trust their eyes anymore, so they will send a drone out, and try to act calm as it hovers over them.
At night, past some curfews and with as few clothes as decently possible, the ball will fly.
Occasionally, there will be “I am the king of the world” moment, while standing on the actual king of the world, the monster that plies these lands.
Is the bird still the word?
The great chariot of this adventure takes a break in the shadows.
Can we try out the boat ride? Go faster! Go faster! Okay, okay, not that fast. Whoa. Watch your speed man, and how do you even know where we are going?
…and what do you do when they keep reminding you ‘utarudi tu?” You send them photos!
One of these things is not like the others.

But it’s true what they say, every great adventure must come to an end too.

All images courtesy of Turnup Travel

Words by @Owaahh

Turnup Travels organises adventures to places throughout Kenya that might or might not end up with you glaring into the sunset while half-submerged in water. They are fun ambassadors, and every trip is by design a total turnup. 

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Owaahh, 2017

One story is good,

till Another is told.

Last modified: February 12, 2020

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