Murchison Falls

By Neville Cole

Michel’s plan is shoot the Murchison Falls segment without the girls and have them meet us for the Gorilla trekking segment at the Impenetrable Forest in three days. Although clearly frustrated, Michel is determined that the documentary must go on and calls an emergency planning meeting upon our arrival at Paraa Lodge. Michel has repeated several times to everyone in earshot that if Jean and John are not at the Black Pearl Lodge by the time we arrive, he will personally cut off their testicles with a rusted machete.

Christo, as is his fashion, disappears immediately upon landing and I, in my own inimitable style, have found myself comfortable spot under the verandah out by the bar. The only other guest in the vicinity is an older gentleman drinking a gin and tonic. He is dressed in a white suit, white shirt, white wing-tip shoes, is wearing a white wide-brimmed hat, has a full white beard and is smoking from, of all things an ivory-handled pipe.

“You with that froggy film crew, are you?” he says in the drippingly precise, public school tones of a very proper English gentleman.

“I’m just travelling with them for a few days.”

“Hmmm…” he notes taking a long thoughtful puff, “Didn’t think you looked French. Still, riding around Uganda in a Russian helicopter isn’t my cup of tea.”

“Nor mine, actually” I admit. “My pilot’s gone AWOL.”

“AWOL, eh?” the gentleman sniffs. “Bloody messy business if you ask me.”

“Yes. He flew off to the Seychelles three days ago with a plane full of young ladies.”

“Left you stuck with a bunch of frogs, did he? That’s not cricket.”

“No,” I admit. “I don’t suppose it is.

“You are, I take it, an American?” the gentleman says after a long pause.

“No,” I reply. “Australian, actually. I just live in the States.”

“Different colony, same story” he replies with a wry chuckle and then finally turning to actually look in my direction concedes: “I’ve nothing against Americans, you know. I’ve worked with them for many, many years to each others great benefit, I may add.” Then, after pausing to draw a long draft of smoke from his pipe, adds without a hint of cynicism: “the only problem with Americans is…they sue.” It is no longer imperative that I actually add anything to the conversation so I sit back with my cold beer and listen to the old man ramble.

“I’ll say this for Americans” he continues happily, “their children are extremely polite. They always call me ‘sir.’ You know, I met one on my first Americans at this very lodge. 1952, it was. I was just a lad here with my father to visit the Falls. I’ll never forget that american. A big, bold, brash, whirlwind of a man. He was holding court right here in the bar when my father and I arrived. Telling the most marvelous tales of adventure. Apparently he had crashed his plane quite nearby. Trying to dodge a flock of Ibis or some such thing. Caught a wheel on the Lodge’s telephone line and his plane went right down. How’s that for luck? Got to be the only telephone line for a hundred miles! He was bloodied and bruised and broken; but that didn’t stop him coming to the bar for a drink.” The old man caught me in his gaze and asked me almost in a whisper: “do you know who that American was?”

“No idea,” I answered truthfully.

“The first American I ever met was…” like a true storyteller he takes a moment for one more puff from his pipe, “Ernest Hemingway.”

“Hemingway? Really…” I add. “Right here in this bar?”

“That is a fact,” the gentleman smiled. There’s a photo of him up behind the bar that was taken that very day.”

A smartly dressed waiter appears as if he has been waiting for his cue. “Gin and tonic, Colonel bwana,” he says quickly exchanging the empty glass for a fresh one.

“Good man,” the colonel replies, “good man. My good man in Africa, that’s who you are Thomas.”

“Thank you, Colonel bwana,” Thomas replied with a big smile, “and you, bwana? Another beer for you? It is a very hot afternoon.”

“Yes. Thanks, Thomas. Another beer sounds perfect.”

The colonel sipped on his gin and tonic in quiet reverie as I stared out over the blue and purple horizon. It was an unexpected sight after burnt reds and browns of Kenya.

“Magnificent, aren’t they?” the Colonel notes. “The mountains of the moon. All these years, I never tire of looking at them. Of course, you know of the expedition of Burton and Speke.”

“I’ve seen the movie,” I reply, fully aware that this will ruffle the Colonel’s feathers.”

“The movie? Bah!” the Colonel spits. “I’ve heard all about that movie! Completely preposperous. Total fabrication. You do know that Speke had no intention of waiting for Burton to return before presenting their findings to the Society. It was his specific intention to get back to England first and take all the credit…and I hear say that the movie actually claims in the epilogue that Speke was correct about Lake Victoria being the source of the Nile when, in fact, it provides only one of several feeder rivers to the Nile. Ridiculous!”

After my movie comment the Colonel was a lot less inclined to regale me with stories. In fact, a few minutes later he pays his tab and leaves with little more than a hrumph goodbye. I spend most of the rest of the afternoon drinking and thinking about the Africa of Hemingway, Burton, Speke and, I guess, the Colonel. This leaves me feeling uncomfortably colonial and quite drunk. As dusk is falling I decide to go back to my room to freshen up before dinner. Thomas holds the door for me as I stumble toward the exit.

“Please Bwana,” he says as I fix my gaze on a pair of grinning hyena seated like demented sheepdogs only a few feet off the path, “pay no attention to the dogs. Some of the guests have been feeding them and they are coming back every night now. Please ignore them and they will go away.”

Wandering drunk back to my room I am suddenly aware that in Africa I am more than just another colonial, I am food. I’ve read that hyena jaws are so strong they eat their prey bones and all. They may be efficient eaters but not always the most proficient hunters, preferring to clean up after lions; but how hard could if be to take down a middle-aged, drunk ex-pat Australian? I stagger just a little quicker back to my room in so much of a hurry that I do not notice the grazing hippopotamus just outside my door until I have practically tripped over it.

Asking a hippo to wipe his feet before coming inside is always a mistake..

This is not good. Many times I have been warned that hippos – especially those away from water – are the most dangerous animals in Africa. They tend to spook easily and when frightened charge with surprising speed right at their target swinging their large teeth with their big powerful necks in a six foot arc from side to side. More people are killed by hippos in Africa than any other animal, including lions.

I freeze as the hippo stares at me with beady, bloodshot eyes. I can hear it snorting with disgust and can tell it is contemplating a charge. Only now to I realize just how drunk I am. Instead of slowly trying to back away, my marinated brain decides this is too good of photo opportunity to pass up. I reach into my pocket and pull out my handy Nikon.

It isn’t so much the photo that pisses off the hippo as the flash from the camera. Emitting a sort of grumbling snort the beast turns sharply in preparation for attack. I am about to turn sharply and run myself when both my arms are pinned to my side from behind.

“Don’t move,” the voice says. “Stay right where you are.”

I do as the voice commands and, after what seems an eternity but is more likely about two minutes, the hippo walks slowly down the path to find a quieter spot to graze.

“Well,” Christo says lighting a joint and inhaling deeply, “you look like you could use some of this.”