Tales of crossing the Kazinga channel on a leaking canoe manned by a drunkard

I have been to Queen Elizabeth National Park for over 10 times and usually I have never missed the boat cruise on the Kazinga channel, for all this time I was sailing on an engine propelled boat manned by experienced coxwines and a life jacket has been must before my cruise trip starts. What makes the channel a must visit is the amazing but dangerous aquatic inhabitants of the 32km long channel for example the channel has the world’s largest concentration of hippos and numerous Nile crocodiles.

All that in my head I never knew that there is a human being that would risk his or her life crossing the 10minutes channel ride to the other end of the channel or I taking one of the riskiest return journeys of my life, “crossing the channel to Kazinga village to and from on a leaking canoe” manned by a drunk fisher man.

So as fate would have it, I had to collect some data about the relationship between the community and park authorities in the conservation of Queen Elizabeth national park and my case study was Kazinga village with some classmates of mine. This is in real sense had seconded us to cruise to the other end of the channel by all means, as a students who had just finished campus, we had no money to book the more comfortable and secure UWA boat condemning us to the more cheap but dangerous means.

THE JOURNEY

On that fateful day, we (3) woke up in the morning from the Mweya hostels and we consulted a friend, ranger guide on which route we would use to the docking area, where we are supposed to board to Kazinga village, we got the directions though we all seemed not conversant with the route to down the channel from the higher elevation of Mweya peninsula. We took on the journey by foot but remember we were in the park with no guide, nor were we armed, the most scary part of it was coming across fresh hippo dung in one of the small paths we were using down the Kazinga channel, but that didn’t bother us either. We sloped down up to the first open channel bank of the Kazinga channel but we weren’t seeing anything like a canoe service, what was visible was the fishing village some 400metres across the channel and two big hippos swimming near land in the water. Still puzzled on what to do we spotted some people on an adjacent open bank and we moved there and to our delight they were also waiting for an approaching canoe with red writings “transport Kazinga”

The now transport operator Park and was delighted to meet us and he quickly told us how he had crossed to and from another student some days back for the same purpose. For a minute we felt at home as he also offered to help and take us to the fishing village and guide us to the village chairmen and the people at large. He quickly told us that the fare was 2000ugx for a one way journey and the same for return which we found very cheap and we quickly entered the canoe anxious to get to the other side.

TO KAZINGA

Boarding the canoe was one other hurdle, its team work every one has to help each other in holding/balancing the canoe for everyone to enter, then later balancing it but later off we went and we are on water and the operator quickly starts telling us stories of how one of their friends was eaten by a crocodile a few days back and all they could discover was one of his legs. We started engaging him on how they manage to cross a highly infested hippo channel with canoes every day but the guy was speaking with confidence which at one time I thought it was because of the influence of alcohol which was smelling all over the canoe on top of chewing herbs (amailungi) but in 10 minutes we were at the other side of the channel safe and sound and I whispered to one of my friends that I think God still loves us.

We did our research for the next 3hours with the help of the canoe rider now turned site guide. Though some of the members weren’t willing to give us information we managed to get and fill all the questionnaires and it was time to make our return journey back to the park side. The canoe operator bragging around his fellows how he is nowadays high class because he transports university students and high profile people than his peers, we took some few photos and he later helped us board the canoe and of we went.

Every one of us would easily notice his braggery but no one would talk because once we were on water he was the king; halfway the journey we realized the was a crocodile watching all our movements in her territory and he decided to tease us by leading the canoe near her and there was sudden dead silence on the canoe, since we all feared telling him to stop risking our lives but he again diverted to the seemingly right way. He started telling us stories of how crocodiles can easily view something in water even in a two kilometers long distance, at this time my heart was in overdrive and my only prayer was reaching the bank safe. The boat was leaking and we had to keep on fetching out water which my friends later found interesting and they even recorded a video of me fetching the water out of the canoe until we arrived. I have done frightening trips, activities, like zip lining, but that was adventurous, mind blowing, and I would probably do it again but this time with my life jacket.

By Mozes Mutungi

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