“even the darkness will not be dark to you;
the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you.”
Psam 139 (NIV)
Just before the New Moon in October 2025, 18th to 20th, I finally went to a place that I had planned on visiting for a while: Eliye Springs Resort on the Western shore of Lake Turkana. Turkana is a county in North-Western Kenya, bordering Ethiopia, South Sudan and Uganda. It is vast, semi-arid, extremely sparsely populated with only one major(-ish) town, Lodwar.
Going there by car would take 2 days if driving carefully, and so I took a flight to Lodwar instead, and went on the remaining 50km to the lake by taxi. But before that, I paid a visit to Francis, the maker of the Turkanascope, as you might remember, who lives in Lodwar. We had a look around his workshop:
Then, Francis joined me to go to the lake. We went with a taxi driver who is a friend of Francis, and who stayed with us at the lake. According to Francis, it rains only 2- 3 times a year in that area. However…
Thankfully, the rain was soon over, and we proceeded without issues. Until the last stretch of the road just before the resort, which is really sandy, and we got a bit stuck.
This was resolved with the help of palm leaves and some pushing. Finally, we arrived at the lake. The resort used to have a lot of space and a wide beach. But the lake level has been rising over the last decade or so, and now has flooded large areas. I set my telescope up on a platform which once was the base of one of the guest Manyattas; its outer edge already hangs over a little cliff that the lake has formed.
There is minimal light pollution in this area, so the sky got very dark at times. Some lights from the resort itself were there, but Rolf, the owner, and his staff, turned most of them off. The remaining ones could be blocked easily enough by the surrounding palm trees.
At other times though, there was quite a bit of haze in the air, which reflected the remaining light enough to take noticeably away from the darkness.
During the good periods, observation was excellent. The central Milky Way and the also very dense section in Cygnus looked fantastic in the early night. Many other objects were also observed.
On the next day, I discussed with Rolf about the possibility of fostering an astro-tourism setup at the resort, to which he is very open. They actually have a small telescope at the resort, and they planned to project live images from it in the restaurant. But nothing really yet that would entice other amateur astronomers to travel there, at least not without considering other attractions.
The resort also has the challenge that the lake’s water level is rising, and so the resort is loosing land. There used to be a huge wide beach, which is all but gone now. Rolf’s plan is to build new houses a bit up the cliff side, a few of which he has already built.
In any case, not only Rolf but also his staff are very much interested in astronomy and the potential tourism aspect of it. So the next night, we did a joint observation session, and were also joined by a few other guests.
We had a good time together, though most folks didn’t last all too long into the night. So later I had the night just for myself again, and this night turned out to be clearer.
It was a bit windy, but moving around the round Manyatta, I was able to mostly doge it wherever I wanted to look. It was a great night observing, with little sleep, and made the trip very worthwhile. Next day, it was already time to travel back to Nairobi.
But this will surely not have been the last time for me to travel there, I’m looking forward to the next time already!