Lake Elementaita

Lake Elmenteita, also spelled Elementaita, is a soda lake, in the Great Rift Valley, about 120 km northwest of Nairobi, Kenya.  Elementaita is derived from the Masaai word muteita, meaning “dust place”, a reference to the dryness and dustiness of the area, especially between January and March.

The nearest town to the lake is Gilgil and is visible along the Naivasha Nakuru highway.

The lake is a protected area due to its bird life fame and also it has been named as one of the heritage sites together with the Lake Nakuru and Lake Bogoria by UNESCO.

At the southern end of the lake are the “Kekopey” hot-springs, in which the Tilapia grahami breed. Very popular for bathing, the local Maasai claim that it can cure AIDS. The reed beds nearby are fishing grounds for night herons and pelicans.

The Lake Elmenteita area saw its first white settlement when Lord Delamere (1879-1931) established Soysambu, a 48,000-acre (190 km2) ranch, on the western side of the lake. Delamere gifted the land on the other side of the lake to his brother-in-law, the Honorable Galbraith Lowry Egerton Cole (1881-1929), part of whose “Kekopey Ranch”, where he is buried, is preserved today as the Lake Elementaita Lodge.

Over 400 bird species have been recorded in the Lake Nakuru | Lake Elmenteita basin. Elmenteita attracts visiting flamingoes, both the Greater and Lesser varieties, which feed on the lake’s crustacean and insect larvae and on its suspended blue-green algae, respectively but since introduction of Tilapia from Lake Magadi in 1962, flamingo population has dwindled due to many tipalia eating birds feeding on Flamingo chicks and eggs.   Over a million birds that formerly bred at Lake Elementaita are now said to have sought refuge at Lake Natron in Tanzania.  Human activity has also contributed to the decrease in their population.

The lake’s shores are grazed by zebra, gazelle, eland and families of warthog.

The lake is normally very shallow (< 1 m deep) and bordered by trona-encrusted mudflats during the dry seasons. During the late Pleistocene and early Holocene, Lake Elementaita was at times united with an expanded Lake Nakuru, forming a much larger dilute lake. Remnants of the former joined lake are preserved as sediments at various locations around the lake basins, including former shorelines.

Nearby attractions include the Kariandusi Museum, an important prehistoric site where stone hand axes and cleavers were discovered in 1929 by Louis Leakey.