Lake Baringo

Lake Baringo is the freshwater exception in a valley of soda lakes, and it is the one Rift lake where the day is spent on the water rather than beside it. Boats work the shoreline and the volcanic islands, hippos surface a few metres from the bow, and the cliffs behind the western shore hold a set of birds found almost nowhere else in Kenya. It is also the lake the rising water hit hardest.

Why Lake Baringo Is Different from the Other Rift Lakes

Baringo lies in Baringo County at the northern end of the main lake chain. Kenya’s Ramsar Information Sheet for the site puts it at 975 metres above sea level, about 60 kilometres north of the equator, 140 kilometres north of Nakuru city and roughly 300 kilometres north of Nairobi. It is fed by the Molo, Perkerra, Chemeron, Ol Arabel, Mukutani and Tangulbei, and it has no surface outlet.

Despite that, and despite the high evaporation rates of the rift floor, the water stays fresh. The accepted explanation is underground seepage through a fractured lake floor, and the Ramsar sheet notes the belief that water leaves at Loruk in the north and re-emerges as springs feeding towards Lake Turkana.

That single fact separates it from almost everything around it. Fresh water means fish, and fish mean cormorants, herons, kingfishers, fish eagles, crocodiles and a fishing economy. Tilapia, Nile perch, catfish, barbel and marbled lungfish are all present. The neighbouring soda lakes, thirty minutes and a different world away, support none of that.

The common claim that Lake Naivasha is the only freshwater lake in the Kenyan Rift is simply wrong, and Baringo is the reason. The two lakes sit at opposite ends of the chain and are the only members of it where a traveller can expect hippo, crocodile and a working fishery.

Baringo is a Ramsar wetland of international importance, designated on 10 January 2002 as site number 1159. The wetland site covers 314.69 square kilometres in total, made up of a water body of 166.62 square kilometres and a riparian zone of 148.07 square kilometres. It is not a national park or national reserve, has no gate around the lake and no park entry fee, which is why the experience here is organised around boat operators, camps and community guides rather than a protected area authority.

Boat Trips on Lake Baringo and the Volcanic Islands

The boat trip is the day. Small open boats run from the camps and landings around Kampi ya Samaki on the western shore, usually for an hour to two hours, working the reed margins, the cliffs and the islands.

The Baringo County Government lists seven islands: Rongena, Samatian, Ol Kokwe, Parmolos, Gibraltar, Lokoros and Devil’s Island. Ol Kokwe is the largest and the centrepiece, an extinct volcano rising from the middle of the lake with hot springs and fumaroles along its shore and sulphur deposits where the steam escapes. It is inhabited, and boats land there. Gibraltar is a small islet best known for a Goliath heron colony.

Hippos are the constant presence and the reason boatmen keep their distance from the reed edge. Nile crocodiles are numerous and are seen on the banks and the island shores. Neither animal is a reason to avoid the lake and both are a reason to take a local boatman rather than improvising.

Swimming in Lake Baringo is not a good idea anywhere the local boatmen do not swim. Hippo and crocodile are both present in numbers, and hippo in particular are most dangerous when a boat or a person is between them and open water.

Birdwatching at Lake Baringo

Baringo is one of the great Kenyan birding sites and has been for half a century. The county government cites over 470 species for the lake and its surroundings, and the area went into the record books in 1986 when 342 species were recorded in 24 hours.

What makes it special is the combination of habitats within a few kilometres: open fresh water, papyrus and reed, acacia bush, and the cliffs of the escarpment behind the western shore. The cliffs are the draw for serious birders, holding Hemprich’s hornbill, Verreaux’s eagle, bristle-crowned starling and a set of dry-country specialists that are difficult elsewhere in Kenya. Goliath heron, African fish eagle, pelicans, cormorants, jacanas and a long list of waders work the water and the margins.

The local guiding tradition here is unusually good. Guides around Kampi ya Samaki have worked the same cliffs and reed beds for decades and know exactly where the difficult species sit, and hiring one converts a pleasant morning into a serious list. Birdwatching in Kenya covers how Baringo fits into a national birding route.

Flamingos appear at Baringo occasionally, usually when neighbouring soda lakes become unsuitable, but this is not a flamingo lake. Travellers who want flamingos should look at Lake Bogoria, half an hour south.

The Rising Lake and the Drowned Lodges

Baringo rose further than any other lake in the Kenyan chain except Solai. The 2021 Kenyan government report prepared with the United Nations Development Programme recorded a rise of 8.2 metres. Satellite land-cover work measured the lake at 13,075 hectares in 1989 and 20,931 hectares by 2020, an expansion of about 60 per cent with the great majority of it concentrated in the decade after 2010.

The consequences were severe and are still visible. In 2020 the lake burst its established shoreline and submerged the tourism infrastructure along the western shore, with Lake Baringo Club, Roberts Camp, Island Camp, Soi Safari Lodge and others flooded, in some cases to the roofline. Villages around the lake were displaced, among them Kampi ya Samaki, Ng’ambo, Salabani, Loruk and Kokwa. Estimates of displacement across the lake run to tens of thousands of people.

Published area figures for Lake Baringo have not caught up, and they are not measuring the same thing. The Baringo County Government still quotes 130 square kilometres, which was the pre-rise lake. The satellite measurement gives around 209 square kilometres of lake for 2020. The Ramsar figure of 314.69 square kilometres is the whole wetland site including its riparian zone, not the water. A traveller should check which of the three any given number refers to, and should expect the shoreline on the ground to differ from the shoreline on the map.

The wider explanation sits on the Great Rift Valley page, because every lake in the chain rose at once for the same reasons.

The Il Chamus and the Communities Around the Lake

The lake is home to the Il Chamus, also known as the Njemps, a community historically unusual in this region for combining pastoralism with fishing. They fish from narrow rafts of ambatch wood and live around the shore and on the islands, Ol Kokwe in particular. The wider county is also home to Tugen, Pokot, Turkana and Rendille communities, and Marigat is the main market town serving the area.

The rising water has pressed hardest on exactly these communities, taking grazing land, homes, schools and landing sites. Visitors who take a boat or a guide here are engaging with a local economy under real strain, and it is worth paying for guiding properly rather than treating it as an extra. Cultural tours in Kenya sets out how community visits are arranged.

Getting to Lake Baringo and Where to Stay

The approach is north from Nakuru on the Nakuru to Marigat road, continuing past the Lake Bogoria turning to Marigat and then to Kampi ya Samaki on the lake’s western shore. Published distances from Nairobi run between about 290 and 300 kilometres depending on the route taken, which is a four to five hour drive in normal conditions, and the lake sits about 140 kilometres north of Nakuru.

Accommodation clusters at Kampi ya Samaki and along the western shore, with camps and lodges also on Ol Kokwe and Samatian islands reached by boat. Several of the shoreline properties were flooded in 2020 and have rebuilt or relocated, so checking current status before arriving is sensible. Camping is available at the lakeside camps rather than through any park authority.

Almost everyone who comes here combines Baringo with Bogoria. The standard shape is a night at Baringo with a boat trip at dawn, a drive south to the Bogoria geysers, and on to Nakuru or Nairobi. Nothing about the two lakes overlaps.

When to Visit Lake Baringo

January to March and July to October are the dry, reliable months, with firm roads and calm mornings on the water. This is a hot, low-lying part of the valley and the middle of the day is fierce, so boat trips run early and late. Wind gets up across the open water in the afternoons, which makes for a rough and wet ride.

The rains from mid-March into June and again from October into December bring heavy going on the murram approaches and a lake that rises further. Birding is at its best from about October to March, when Palearctic migrants add to the resident list.

Questions Visitors Ask About Lake Baringo