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| Some of us runners running through the desert. |
My good friend Robert Congdon described the area around Lake Magadi, Kenya this way during a conversation with him last week as I prepared to travel down to Oloika, in Southern Kenya, for a half-marathon. My friend Matt Hall, a fellow volunteer here at ANU, and I decided we'd like to give this race a shot a couple of months ago when seeing it online. We purchased the race + tented camp option for the Saturday and Sunday. Included in our journey were transport down and lunch, dinner and breakfast. Those of you who know the African scene will recognize the phrase tented camp. Lately that has come to mean a relatively luxurious way to spend a night at a game park or the like. Thinking of this phrase, I thought something similar. I was quite excited for the weekend. Oloika is down close to the Shompole Wildlife Conservancy, a posh game park and lodge near by. I figured we'd be staying in something similar. I did some research on the area last week and discovered some pretty interesting facts. We'd be running part of our race through the salt flats on Lake Magadi, which is the world's largest producer of soda. Flamingos flock to the lake to snack on whatever flamingos snack on. Natural hot springs feed the lake with 40 degree Celsius water. From what I was discovering and from what Robert told me, I was beginning to second-guess my hypothesis about the tented camp.
Saturday came along and Matt and I ventured to our designated meeting place where we'd hitch a ride down with the race organizers and others who had bought the package. We had a multicultural van. People from seven nations hopped into the safari van and headed down to Oloika just on the southern tip of Lake Magadi. As we made the trip, we dropped roughly 4,000 feet in elevation from the elevation here on campus. The scenery was actually rustically beautiful. It was a chance to see vegetation you don't normally see around Nairobi. As we travelled we passed through little Maasai town after little Maasai town. Each of them looking like a scene straight out of the movie The First Grader, which I highly recommend by the way.
Finally we turn a corner out of the mountains to see a glimpse of the soda factory. We scurried along the road a little further until we happened upon the town. This is a public highway mind you, yet to get in and through the town you have to go through a security stop. We passed over the railway line, which must surely ferry the soda from Magadi to Nairobi where it is sold or distributed. Magadi is a fascinatingly strange town. There is no real vegetation to speak of, save for some acacia trees. The ground is basically covered in the natural for the area, gravel. There are a series of apartment buildings painted a clay color that must house the factory workers. There is a public pool in the town, which would have felt very nice. There are also these signs scattered through the town for 'assembly points'. I'm not sure when they would assemble there? A true mystery.
We pulled into the local sports/country club. The race organizers had sent down a couple of ladies to have lunch prepared for us there. The shade of the thatch roof umbrella-shaped roofs provided an escape from the heat. At the sports club they had a basketball court and volleyball/tennis court outside. These were made of gravel, so I'm not entirely sure how effectively you could play any of the aforementioned sports. Inside the club they did have a nice badminton court. We had a delicious meal of rice, chicken, beans, cabbage, and chapattis. Definitely good food for pre race day.
We were then off to Oloika. On the way out of Magadi we passed the Magadi Golf Course. Any avid golf fan, or simply anyone who has seen a golf course before would laugh at this place. It too seems to be made of the indigenous gravel/dirt. Frames of wood designated the t-boxes. I never once spotted any greens, or anything green for that matter. I had a good chuckle at this place. We made it through town and rounded the southern edge of the lake. Around a corner we saw hundreds of the flamingoes feeding. That was quite the sight. There are several such flamingo havens in the area, but I believe that was the first time I've seen them in their natural habitat. We got out to take some pictures. The dudes went and felt the salt/soda material. It matched its name in texture.
Back in the van and off we were to Oloika. We soon began to drive over salt flats and across the edge of the lakebed. Reminded me of what people say of the Salt Flats in Utah. We began to see chalk shaped into numbers on the lakebed. We guessed correctly these were markings for the race the next day. We drove up a series of small hills to a plateau. We'd arrived at Oloika. We pulled into a complex for the Oloika guest lodge. There was a lone, small house that was the guesthouse. We got out and asked where we were supposed to be. Across the way was the 'tented camp'. It was a campsite. We all gazed at each other with that look of, what have we gotten ourselves into. On the journey down we could feel it getting hotter and hotter. My guess was that it was at least 100 degrees. We were given the royal tour of the tented camp, and we all settled into our tents. This place was by no means similar to the memories of my tented camp experience on the shores of the Shire River in Malawi. In fact it was just about as opposite as you could get. This wasn't really that much of a damper; it was just adjusting to the fact that this is where we were staying.
Matt and I went and registered. We were given our race numbers. They were probably the highest numbers either of us has ever had. Matt had 34 and I had 35. Our friends who were running the 10k had numbers 1 and 2. We unpacked out things into our tents, which were at least 15 degrees warmer than outside, and then gathered under the shade of a thatched roof structure. We stayed here in shock with our fellow travelers for a little while. Matt and I then went and explored Oloika. It didn't take much time to explore it. Metal houses, churches, and businesses were strewn about. We practiced our best Maasai and Swahili with the townsfolk. All of them are Maasai or have Maasai heritage. Most of the people were in their traditional garb. We explored until the kiddies runs. There was a 5km race and a 1km or so race for them. A Kenyan kid won the 5km race. In the smaller race, there were some very young kids! One of the girls looked about 3. Cute stuff! Matt and I cheered them on with a group of kids from the town. They were inquisitive as usual. Some spoke broken English and a few had learned to be almost fluent from their school in Magadi. We talked about various things with them. We asked what their favorite classes were, etc. Some kids said math, which Matt enjoyed (having a doctorate in the subject) and others said CRE (Christian Religious Education), which I enjoyed. The one kid was incredibly knowledgeable about the Bible because of this, and we quizzed each other on various Biblical things. I asked him if he knew what sport his t-shirt was from (it was a Cubs shirt) and he said it’s from the sport where they throw a ball to one another. I also asked him where all the dads were as I'd only seen a few in the whole town. He said they are shepherds, which I figured and had told Matt previously. We then said goodbye and it was time for dinner.
Dinner was pretty similar to lunch, but very tasty. As it began to grow dark, more and more campers arrived. After dinner I called it a night, for I knew we'd have an early start with the 7 o'clock race start time. Unfortunately, the temps hadn't cooled down all that much, if at all. The sweat was still dripping off of me even in my briefs. It was very windy outside, so I tried to figure out how to open the windows in my tent. They were covered with a thick netting to keep bugs out, which hadn't arrived yet. I therefore just opened up the tent door. When the winds died down, I heard the faint wine of mosquitoes grow closer and closer. Attracted to the scent of my body, hundreds gathered around my tent. I managed to get the tent door close with only a few entering my tent. They were enough to give me about a dozen bites. I tossed and turned in my sweatiness till about 1am when I finally dozed off. I woke up a couple of times during the night to use the choo (Swahili for bathroom/toilet). Thankfully, they actually had toilets installed in outhouse looking buildings. They just had no seats. During one such usage, I lost my left contact. I was thankful for the spares in my backpack.
Morning came, and I was thankful for the rest. I downed some water first thing to give it a chance to get a decent way through my system before race time.
Matt and I went to breakfast and had a couple of bananas. Then, we all began to gather for the race. We all found it quite comical to watch a man approach the start shirtless (he was the only one) and puffing away on a cigarette. Surely he didn't need one last puff right before the start? The race director showed us a hand drawn map of the route. It looked relatively simple to follow. There would also be marshals stationed through the race directing us and giving us water bottles. We started in a flash. Mr. Smoker/Shirtless man was out to a fast start with a pretty speedy lady. Matt and I were in the following pack. There were several parts to the route that weren't on the map. The main three things were three u-turns which threw us all for a loop. We began by running off the plateau of Oloika down to the left. U-turn number one was there. We came back to town and then went straight from where we had started. Matt and I were in the following pack for most of the race. Even though this place was so hot and desolate, there was a real beauty to it. The course took us pass small settlements outside of town. Maasai kids and adults alike greeted us as we went. At around km 8 or 9 we made our way down to the salt flats. We spent a good amount of time running on them. Another thing that wasn't on the map was that there was no bridge across a river area. Instead we had to run through it. After the salt flats/lake bed, we got to the final hilly section. This is where most of us really faced the music. In the conditions, those hills seemed like killers. After about 20 minutes in this section a saw a man waiting for his wife. He offered the hope that the end was near. It was. Right over the next bend was Oloika. I crossed the line in 1hr 52 mins and in 7th place. I feel like were it not for the conditions, I could have faced the hills stronger and finished around 1hr 38 mins. I'd kept a pretty good pace with a Frenchmen a few hundred meters ahead up until that point.
After the race, everyone was in search of soda or maji (water) baridi (cold). There wasn't a single fridge in Oloika. Matt and I found some relatively less than warm sodas. I'd also brought down some Gatorade/energy type drinks, which were warm, but replenishing to Matt and I. For the weekend, I'd also brought down 4 litres of my own water, and consumed another litre and a half of water from the race organizers. My backpack was way lighter on the journey back. The journey back was good. I'd suggested to the driver we stop off at the Magadi Sports Club again to get some soda baridi, since all of us wazungus were craving a cold beverage. That was a pleasant refresher.
Matt and I will surely never forget the experience of this race. In many ways it looked like Arizona. The drive felt like driving down into Death Valley. It was great to get out of Nairobi and experience some of the Maasai culture. This was the 4th annual Shompole Marathon. A few of the people had done it last year. If I was still living in Kenya this time next year, I'm not sure whether I'd return. Though, I probably would in order to try and conquer those last few hills better than this year. I'd probably do some training up on the Ngong Hills to prepare better like my Maasai friend Jack I'd seen up there in November. It was a journey, and an unforgettable experience. It would have been nice if someone came into my tent and said April Fools as I was preparing to sleep in my sweat, sadly no one appeared.
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