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The long road home

By David Pilling

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David Pilling writes for the FT’s Weekend’s How to Spend It about a ‘human journey’ safari in northern Kenya, where he experiences the ‘brooding beauty of Lake Turkana, whipped by winds, pounded by a jack-hammer sun and bounded by folds of pink volcanic rock.’ Spending time at the Turkana Basin Institute, Kalepo Camp in Samburuland and fly camping with Koros on the southern side of Turkana, the piece is a wonderful exploration into the most ancient of lands, discovering not just the old but also the new.

‘The pilot lands with pinpoint precision on the floor of a rock-strewn valley and leads us for a few minutes to a slabby escarpment whose stones have slid down over the aeons into a cracked mosaic. There, etched into the rock, are unmistakeable depictions of giraffes, made 1,500 years ago by people who must have lived here when large animals were common.’

Photographs by Alex Kurunis.

 

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