Attractions in Marsabit County
21. Songa Conservancy
The 1,011 km2 Songa Conservancy, to the north of Marsabit National Reserve, is dominated by arid grass-land plains. It is marked by diverse landscape with thick grasslands and bushy savannah with numerous acacia trees to the south and thick forest vegetation to the north, close to Marsabit National Reserve. It primarily serves a buffer and wildlife dispersal area. The overall goal of Songa Conservancy and its two adjacent conservancies is to achieve sustainable use of natural resources and optimize ecological functions, especially water, grazing land and energy. Bordered by Jaldesa, Shurr and Marsabit National Reserve, Songa acts as an important wildlife corridor and dispersal area for elephant and buffalo during the rains. Key wildlife species include elephant, buffalo, Beisa oryx, lion, Grevy’s zebra, lesser and greater kudu, leopard, among others. Songa Conservancy has five small shopping centres in Kamboe, Karare, Parkishon, Hula Hula and Songa. There are schools and health clinics in all these locations. There is also a water bottling company around Songa and a police post in Leyai.
22. Melako Conservancy
The 387 km2 Melako Conservancy is best known as hot-spot to view the rare Grevy’s Zebra, hosting almost 200 Grevys, which represents 9% of the global population. Began in 2004 under the Northern Rangelands Trust, and covering the five locations of Laisamis, Koya, Lontolio, Merille and Logo Logo, Melako Conservancy’s main focus has been on sustainably managing their rangeland to ensure both their livestock and wildlife continue thrive and flourish as well as improving security and relations with neighboring tribes. Sirikoi Lodge (Lewa Conservancy) has been hugely supportive of Melako, bringing guests here to experience the wilderness and learn more about NRT’s work. Visitors pay a conservancy fee which provides valuable revenue for the community. Sirikoi is looking to expand their involvement with NRT in the future, a prospect many communities in the northern conservancies look forward to. The main Isiolo-Moyale road passes through the settlement areas of Merille, Laisamis and Logo Logo. Other roads are murran/earth roads which connect to the villages and outlying areas however many of these roads are impassable in the rains limiting access to the livestock markets, relief food and trading, and security operations.
23. Marsabit Cemetery
During the Second World War, Marsabit had several guard posts overlooking the “main route” between Kenya and Italian East Africa (Somalia). “Marsabit, in the Northern Province, consists of a small range of hills running up to about 5,000 feet, mostly covered by forest. It has a plentiful rainfall and pleasant climate, but the surrounding country is desert. This small frontier post is 350 miles from Nairobi, and some 200 miles from the railroad at Nanyuki”. The War Cemetery, with a low fence, is a small enclosure within the Civil Cemetery containing the graves of 24 East African soldiers who died during the 1939-1945 wars nearby Marsabit, which were but extensions of World War II. One of them is not identified. There is also a special memorial headstone to an East African soldier known to be buried, but whose grave could not be traced. Marsabit Cemetery is found within Marsabit Town, open Monday-Friday 06:00 to 18:00.
24. Gof Choba
Gof Choba is located only 23 kms from Marsabit Town along the A2 Marsabit-Moyale Road near the KBC Transmitting Station. “Gof Choba is the whooper on the left – to the forbidding black moonscape of the Dida Galgalu Desert. Dida Galgalu means “plains of darkness”, according to one Boran Story – Richard Trillo. The cauldron like depression of Gof Choba is ringed by a scenic backdrop of hills, diverse flora and rugged plains. It is one of the more spectacular craters within easy reach from Marsabit National Reserve. Gof Ano and other smaller Gofs sits just 5 kms northeast of Gof Choba. Quite a common occurrence north of Marsabit, gofs speckle the landscape. Other notable Gofs include Gof Redo, Gof Dakara, Gof Bongore and Gof Anno. The craters are due to volcanic activity.
25. Chalbi Desert
About 1 km north of Marsabit township and right after Marsabit Airport is the turnoff to C82 Maikona-Kalacha-North Horr Road travelling northwest across Chalbi Desert through Maikona and Kalacha before reaching North Horr, 196 kms away. From North Horr the road then travels southwest to Loiyangalani 85 kms away. For all its glory as the only true desert in East Africa, Chalbi Desert is not completely barren, bleak or dead. It is patrolled by desert hogs, Somali ostriches, hyenas, antelopes and Grevy’s zebra. And from time to time groups of camels, sometimes in a caravan of a thousand, can be sighted trotting across Chalbi Desert in search of water at one of a handful oasis notably of Kalacha Oasis. Spanning 100,000 km2 biased towards a flat sheet of sand stippled with dunes, this off-centre landscape is a mute gospel of Kenya’s ecological diversity. The petrifying silence, wind rushing through twisted shrubs and whistling over the dunes, ratifies the scale of desolation of the dusty desert cleansed and ruled by the power of the mighty Africa sun. True to form, Chalbi (which in the native Gabbra language means hot and salty) is torrid with midday temperatures often hitting 50 Degrees Celsius. In turn, the hot and glaring sun creates beguiling mirages and transmutes miniature bushes and rocks to appear as moving game, obscuring objects in the distance. Chalbi Desert can be explored on a long day out from Marsabit; for those not aiming to get as far as Maikona or North Horr.
Abiri Kenya 