Attractions in Marsabit County
31. Jarigole Pillars
The oddity of the Jarigole Pillars, a series of slender and tall pillars standing in isolation over the sweeping sun-scorched valley, is one of the most exceptional achaeo-astronimical stone pillar sites around Lake Turkana. Jarigole Pillars are among the 4 stone pillars of its kind put-up near Lake Turkana in company with Nariokotome, Kalokol Pillars and Lothagam in Turkana County. Excavation at Jarigole Pillars was led by Merrick and Nelson in late 1980’s and early 1990’s, who had suggested links between early herders and the pillar site as a domestic cattle figurine. Dating of the Jarigole Pillars and other stone pillars near Lake Turkana suggest a rapid, not a gradual, spread for the practice of building pillar sites around Lake Turkana. Jarigole and Lothagam are chronologically close but geographically distant, and, Jarigole is more than 100 kms from Lothagam by water and 300 kms by land. Kalokol Pillars near Lodwar was dated only a few years earlier than Jarigole Pillars. By and large, all the pillar sites appear to have held cultural significance for eons after their construction began. A cattle figurine at Jarigole Pillars suggests the natives using the pillar site were aware of herding. Others suggest this may have been a burial site. It’s located 2 kms northeast of Jarigole spring and 0.5 km off the road to Allia Bay Rangers Camp.
9 possible pillar sites have been cited near Lake Turkana. Five of these – Jarigole, Lothagam North, Lothagam West, Kalokol and Manemanya – consisted of massive pillars of columnar basalt and raised platforms. Each would have required coordinated labour by a large group to transport pillars up to 800 kg in weight from sources up to 2 kms away, and to build platforms up to 500 m3 in volume that may have required perhaps 50 000 short trips carrying loads of rock and sediment in baskets or animal skin pulls.
32. Koobi Fora Museum
Kenya as a Cradle of Mankind in Africa owes a large chunk of this fame to Koobi Fora Museum, which earned its enigmatic repute for valorous efforts to answer one of the most fundamental question about the evolution of man. In the recent two centuries of studies, people have tried to define the biological origin of man and his path of evolution. Notable about Koobi Fora Museum, set in a country rich in landscape and culture, is that it greatly contributes to the understanding of the origin of man as a species over the last million years. Research at Koobi Fora, on the eastern shore of Lake Turkana, began in 1968, led by Dr. Richard Leakey and, by 1994, over 200 hominid and animal fossils had been found here; more than any collection the world had ever produced in 60+ years. Unique to Koobi Fora Museum is that it plainly sets-down when the 2 sub-families of old world monkeys (colobinae and cercopithecinae) started to morphologically and ecologically diversify as documented in its formations. It holds over 10000 man and animal fossils. Koobi Fora holds the world’s plentiful record of human pre-history. The longest and most complete chronicle of human ancestry spanning over 27 million years and a rich fossil heritage stretching back over 100 million years into the dinosaur age. This is the largest and passably well-documented collection of human related fossils that exists. It is unmatched anywhere in the world, with most of its relics kept at National Museums of Kenya Headquarters.
33. Illeret Prehistoric Site
Best-known for the 1.5 million-old Homo-erectus footprint which is the second oldest “hominid” footprints ever cited, the Illeret Pre-historic Site and Research Base affiliated with Turkana Basin Institute has a lengthy history in the study of human evolution. Illeret was discovered and excavated in 1969 by Richard and Meave Leakey. In 2007, its research facility, east of Lake Turkana (about 51 kms north of the Koobi Fora Musuem) became a fully-fledged field research outpost.
34. Turbi Forest
From Marsabit Town it is 247 kms to the terminus of the A2 Great North Road at Moyale. “It does so by traversing some of the most dramatic and inhospitable parts of the northern half of Kenya. This section of road goes through the Dida Galgalu Desert and the Shinil Plains, before climbing again onto the low hills around Moyale, where the road passes into Ethiopia”. The project, to upgrade the stretch of the A2 Road from Isiolo Town to the Ethiopian border at Moyale, spanned 3 presidents and construction took 9 years. The finished product is one of the best roads in the country though, reducing travel time from Nairobi to Moyale from 3 days to around 12 hours. After leaving Turbi, the road traverses the villages and trading posts of Walda, Sololo Town, Dambala Fachana, Qate, Funyata, Odda and Butiye before reaching Moyale. Shortly after leaving Turbi Town the A2 Moyale Road skirts the southern limits of the 41 km2 Turbi Forest.
35. Sololo Escarpment
It’s unconvincing for any first-time trippers to Moyale not to get dumb-struck-in-awe by the towering monolith of the Sololo Escarpment at the doorstep of the Sololo township. This outstanding natural sculpture forms part of the stellar Sololo-Moyale Mountain Ranges which rise up to 1,400 ms in the northeast tip. The Sololo Escarpment, an adjunct of the Ethiopian Highlands, is marked by a perennial bushland thicket vegetation. From Sololo it is 83 kms east to Moyale.
Abiri Kenya 