Lake Natron
"A lake the colour of a wound, ringed by flamingos that found paradise in poison."
Lake Natron does not look like it belongs on this planet, and the closer you get the stranger it becomes. It lies in the far north of Tanzania, hard against the Kenyan border in the floor of the Gregory Rift, and it is one of the most caustic bodies of water on Earth. The alkalinity is so high it can preserve the carcasses of animals that fall in. When I read that in advance I assumed it was travel-writer exaggeration. It is not. The place is genuinely, beautifully inhospitable.
A landscape that means it
What gives Natron its astonishing reds and oranges are salt-loving microorganisms thriving in the shallow, mineral-choked water, and from the air the lake looks like spilled paint. We did not fly over it, sadly, but even from the cracked shoreline the colours are unreal. The shore crunches like burnt sugar underfoot, white crusts of soda salt fracturing into hexagons, and the heat sits on you like a hand.
And yet this murderous chemistry is exactly why the place teems with life of one very specific kind. Lake Natron is the single most important breeding ground on Earth for the Lesser Flamingo. The corrosive water keeps predators out, so the birds nest in vast numbers on salt islands the rest of the food chain cannot reach. Standing at the edge, watching tens of thousands of pink birds shimmer over a red lake, Lia said it looked like the planet was showing off. I had no better explanation.
The mountain that made it
Looming over the southern shore is Ol Doinyo Lengai, the Maasai “Mountain of God,” an active volcano that erupts a rare, cool, black carbonatite lava found almost nowhere else. The mineral-rich runoff from its slopes is what feeds the lake its lethal cocktail. Hardy souls climb it through the night to reach the summit at dawn; I looked at the perfect, brutal cone and decided my contribution would be admiring it from a camp chair with a cold drink, which I consider a valid form of mountaineering.
We did walk to the nearby Engare Sero waterfalls instead, a string of cool pools in a gorge a short drive from the lake, where a local Maasai guide led us scrambling up the streambed. After the furnace of the shoreline, plunging into that water was one of the purest pleasures I can remember.
Practical, and a plea
Natron is remote and rough; the road in from Mto wa Mbu rattles your fillings loose, and you will want a guide and a sturdy vehicle. Go in the cooler months if you can, carry far more water than feels reasonable, and tread lightly. This is a fragile breeding site, and the flamingos do not forgive disturbance. Admire from a distance, take photos, leave the salt islands entirely alone.