The year of El Nino
A short account of the El Nino rains that arrived just as we started the construction of Sarara Camp in 1997
"We had just started the construction of Sarara Camp when the next challenge descended upon us. It was 1997, the year of El Nino. Exactly on time, the 15th October, the rains arrived. But these were no ordinary rains, these were proper El Nino rains.
In short, about 2,500 millimetres (100 inches) of incessant thunderous rain fell over the next six months, turning the landscape from a semi-arid acacia savannah into something more akin to an impenetrable green jungle.
Huge boulders the size of a car got dislodged by the floods and were sent hurtling down the mountainside towards us. Giant trees crashed to the ground as sodden roots gave up their grip on the land.
Biting insects in all forms, shapes and sizes erupted by the millions from their hidey holes and most extraordinary of all, lungfish started to swim in the flowing sand luggas.
The majority of the Samburu that we spoke with had never ever seen a fish on their desert landscape before. They were terrified of them. These lungfish had clearly been hibernating for an age, probably somewhere deep in a damp cave since 1963, at least 34 years since the last major flood in Kenya."
- written by Piers Bastard who founded Sarara Camp
It's hard to believe that the landscape has been through so much change over the past 25 years. We hold on to our deep belief that the landscape is resilient and that change is the only constant.