THAT ONE DAY ON A BEACH IN MEXICO

One late afternoon, sometime during 2015, Elsebie and I rolled onto a beach in Baja California, Mexico, to meet up with Leonie and Peter for an evening of wild camping. They were heading north to Alaska with their two Honda CRF250’s and we were on our way south to Patagonia with our Suzuki DR650’s.

All of us have been on the road for a good while. During the two previous years or so, we had continuous contact via social media to check out each other’s routes for tips and suggestions. This one evening fling was pure luck, as our paths would cross that day on the famous Mexican peninsula.

IT FELT LIKE WE HAD BEEN FRIENDS FOR YEARS, ALTHOUGH IT WAS THE FIRST TIME WE MET.

We left everything at the bikes, took the rum and tequila, and wasted no time hitting the beach and surfing to cool off. As it always goes with overlanders and bikers, we soon started discussing the limitations, lack of function, and pricing of motorcycle luggage and travel gear overall. All four of us were old hands at overlanding and motorcycle tripping, so the stuff came naturally.

At one stage, one of us (no one knows; the tequila also talked a bit) said, Why do we not try and make our own stuff? For a few minutes, there was only the sound of the waves, laughter, and more laughter as we thought it was a brain-dead suggestion.

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And that, boys and girls, is how the idea of Turkana started. The name Turkana was shamelessly stolen from “Lake Turkana”, one of the most remote and harshest places in Africa—an area between Kenya and Ethiopia with a green border crossing.

It is not a route trotted to death by overlanders, as it is so challenging and difficult to travel. Taking you between Kenya and Ethiopia, this almost 1000km route winds alongside the beautiful turquoise-coloured lake.

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It is extremely remote with virtually no infrastructure to provide support and therefore requires your gear, vehicles, and body to be reliant on itself as stuff cannot fail there.

As we have all ridden through this area and had to agree that this beautiful yet tough place was one of the harshest routes we encountered on our round-the-world travels, we decided to use the name Turkana as a symbol of our adventure-inspired and functional, high-quality brand that we would like to build.

Michnus
CESRTAP – Chief Executive Struggling Rider for Turkana Adventure Pleasures

Turkana Gear - The Toughest Modular Soft baggage waterproof motorcycle adventure enduro