The Landscape
A lake that shouldn't
support life — and yet
Fed by mineral-rich springs and the seasonal Ewaso Ngiro river, Lake Natron sits in the floor of the Great Rift Valley at temperatures that can reach 60°C and an alkalinity close to that of ammonia. Sodium carbonate deposits stain the shallows deep red and orange, the work of salt-loving microorganisms that thrive where little else can.
It is this hostility that makes Natron precious: the lake is the only regular breeding ground in East Africa for the lesser flamingo, whose eggs are safe here from predators that cannot cross the caustic flats. Some years, more than two million birds gather on its surface at once.
