Niger River Project

We leave the chimp sanctuary after two days. It’s a shame to leave, but having rested, washed and crossed the necessary palms with silver, we feel the pull of the bush once more.

The section ahead of us is possibly the wildest so far – the very heart of the Parc National du Haut Niger (National Park of the Upper Niger) as it’s known. This means, probably, more of everything – hippos, rapids and who knows what else.

We reckon it’s going to be another three days’ canoeing before we hit Kouroussa, where this stage of the journey will come to an end. On what I estimate to be the second of these days, there’s a large section marked “rapides” on my French map, the only specifically named section of whitewater on this part of the river. If we had problems with the unmarked rapids further upstream, what, I wonder, awaits us here? It’s a feeling of excitement tempered with trepidation.

To begin with, at least, the going is good. Before our eyes, the river seems to be vanishing, losing body and momentum as the dry season takes ahold. You can see it if you look at the rocks lining the river bank – a dark, wet line showing where the level of the river had been presumably only hours before. It’s quite incredible how quickly it’s dropping.

And it’s hotting up too. By late morning, the heat is so intense that attempting anything other than flpopping down on shady rock seems a feat.

The good news is our innards have stopped playing up. The bad news is that one physical discomfort has been replaced by another, in the form of swarming sand flies, as we think they are.

These little airborne nuisances tend to come out after about 3pm devouring ankles, legs and just about any other bit of exposed flesh. They’re smaller than mosquitos, but, if possible, more of an irrititation. Their bites draw blood, and leave your legs looking like they’re suffering a severe dose of acne. They also carry a nasty parasite beginning with L, whose name I can’t recall, but which can leave you with nast scarring. Still, it has a gestation period of up to 18 months, so no point worrying about that now.

Our camping spot on the first evening out of the chimp sanctuary is a beautiful one, a patch of flat bush above a long, smooth rock that juts out into the river. “It’s almost too good to be true,” I say to Dan.

“We might live to regret this,” he nodds.

Something we’ve learned about the bush is that being in most places thick and impenetrable, those bits that look inviting to human beings because they aren’t thick and impenentrable also look inviting to other of its inhabitants. It’s a lesson we’ll fully appreciate tonight.

The first sign that we might have picked a bad spot comes as it’s getting dark, when from the bush behind us a frantic screaming gets up. It’s an unmistakeable sound, one we’ve become more than used to over the passed couple of days: chimps.

This time, though, they’re not behind stout iron bars as they were only a day and about 15 miles ago at the sanctuary. This is the real deal, wild chimps that will rip you apart as soon as take a banana from you. And, from the sound of it, they’re only a few hundred metres away. Suddenly that suggestion of a path leading from the bush and through our (now not so lovely) campsite to the river takes on a new significance. Could it be the chimps’ favourite route down to the river for an evening drink?

We stoke the fire and turn in for the night, ears cocked. The chimps indulge in some more of their social shrieking, but soon they too settle down. I drift off.

The next thing I know, I awake to hear Dan extracting himself from the womb of his fancy cocoon hammock. He pads down to the river for pee. Half awake, I’m aware he’s gone for some time. I think I can here him cursing and slapping in the dark. What now?

Eventually he looms out of the night. “We’re in big trouble, boy,” he says. I’m bolt upright in bed. The boats gone! We didn’t secure it properly! It’s drifted downstream to God knows where!

“Ants. They’re everywhere – all over the rocks, around the tent, on me. Everywhere.

Is that all? “Well, there’s not much we can do about it now. Let’s deal with it in the morning,” I mumble from the security of the tent. I hope I don’t sound too unconcerned as Dan ouches and slaps his way back into the hammock and spends the next ten minutes picking off the ones that have hitched a ride on him back into the hammock.

Morning comes, and we greet the day warrily. At first, things don’t look too bad, but then it’s clear: there are ants everywhere, great lines of them, busy workers scurrying around while the mean soldiers ants look on, ready to sink their disproportionately sized mandibles into your flesh and not let go.

Then a shriek from the bush behind us reminds us of the other peril at hand; this morning the chimps sound even more worked up, and they certainly sound closer.

It all becomes too much. We break camp at speed before finding an ant-free patch of rock for our porridge. We’re just breathing a sigh of relief when an loud buzzing heralds the next assualt, this time from the air – a swarm of bees attracted by the sugary water in the bilges of the canoe, the result of sweet papers we’ve dropped there.

Slapping them away, we neck our porridge and throw the bags in the boat. The safest place is the middle of the Niger River where the only the thing that can get you are hippos. Ants? Hippos? I’ll plump for hippos any day. At least you can see them before they take a bite.

Since leaving her gluttenous, muddy banks, the river hasn’t been a visual presence in our lives, yet she has remained at the forefront of our minds.

The canoe trip was an endurance event which suited me fine. I’d been suffering with the usual third world gripes for a few days, so was itching to get away from the contaminated ‘arse paper’ money which we seemed to be handling by the truck load, and get out into nature.
The fact that I almost lopped off one of my fingers in the process, gave me a heightened awareness that we were a long, long way away from help. A&E and other services and amenities we all take for granted every day in the first world, but they’re a dream for the vast majority of people here.

The days of endless blue skies were punctuated with the piercing screach of the Ibis, a sound which for me will be forever East African. Each paddle stroke was the focus of our world: like the cadence of a peddle stroke, the revolutions propelled us forward; the sound of water being ripped as the stroke ended, changed with the slightest shift in the angle of the blade. Our world had shrunk, but all our senses were magnified.

There were no people. Anywhere. Not even cruising at 33,000 feet above our perspiring brows.

Our close encounters with the hippos were adrenaline filled. The fight or flight mechanism kicking in within a pounding heartbeat. The trumbone-esque booming calls leaving no doubt as to their latent power.

Their shyness made photographing them pretty impossible. After shooting the last set of rapids just outside Kouroussa, we took one by surprise and were literally a few metres away, but it dived instantly, sending out a sizable bow wave, leaving us scanning the murk intently for any trace.

We quickly realised that the river experience was enhanced a few key elements: flat ground and a couple of trees (for my hammock), easy access, firewood and lack of biting insects. From about 5pm we were on the look out for an outcrop of rocks, obvious visual features on google earth, where we had a good chance of finding all of the above.
However this was no guarantee, as the ‘ant incident’ testifies…

Ps. Uploading pictures at this time is proving difficult. Seems like this blog needs quite a recent edition of windows to do such an ‘advanced’ task. Something in which this ‘terminal’ (an apt description) is sadly lacking. In fact nine of the keys on this keyboard have been re-written in felt tip and the desk has a strangely satisfying ‘give’ like the end of a diving board…

Pictures as soon as, people.

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Our first day on the river is bizarre. Suddenly there are no people. It's a crazy thing about Africa, that even when you think you're ... [Continue reading this entry]

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