The bridge he ordered to be built Idi Amin, the sublimation of the African tyrant, over the gorge of the great river long ago it was devoured by the fury of the current. They say that in 1962. Only lasted a year standing. After, the Nile he swallowed it with the same ease with which he drags stones, logs and sediment on his great journey to Egypt. As it has been doing since the Nile is Nile. Now, to one side of the channel there is only a concrete pylon, as if the river wanted to record its victory over the battered audacity of man. Jealous of his bravery, it spits foam and splashes on our faces as soon as we try to get close to photograph it, balancing on slippery stones. Doing the mzungu, ultimately.
We are alone here, in the so-called Top of the Falls, the viewpoint over the almost 50 meters which is the main claim of the national park of Murchison Falls, the largest Uganda (its surface exceeds that of the entire province of Álava) and one of the most beautiful, blessed as he is by the Lake Albert and the Nile. It took us more than six hours to get there from the capital, Kampala, no more than 40 kph. But none of that matters anymore as we jump from stone to stone looking for the best frame for the photo that shows our daring when trying to capture the waste of vigor of the White Nile. We end up drenched as it comes down on us, suddenly, all the heat of the tropics.
Jealous of his bravery, it spits foam and splashes on our faces as soon as we try to get close to photograph it
Here it came in 1864 marriage Baker, Samuel and Florence (the tenacity of this woman following her husband's adventurous impetus for unexplored Africa would deserve to have left some mark on the local toponymy), becoming the first Europeans to travel this section of the river between Lake Alberto and the cataratas Karuma. The discoverer of the Sources of the Nile, Speke, he had already referred in his writings to this waterfall, but he spoke through the mouth of the natives, Well, he never saw him. The Bakers baptized the waterfall with the name of the president of the Royal Geographic Society, Murchison, that has survived to this day. And that Amin renamed them as Kabarega Falls, in recognition of a historical king of Bunyoro, one of the ancient kingdoms that lit up present day Uganda.
Time passed as quickly as current. The minutes were not seconds, but liters of water, the same water rushing to the vacuum sandwiched between the rock walls, to get lost in the clutter steam. Down there, the Nile regained its calm and, multiplying its channel, he walked away through the heart of the savanna with indifference, speckled with foam that remembered the great leap he had just overcome. Where sight was lost we had to cross it to reach the Paraa Safari Lodge, strategically located on a promontory above the river.
Time passed as quickly as current. The minutes were not seconds, but liters of water
The proximity of the park's northern limits to the refuge of the fearsome Lord´s Resistance Army (Lord's Resistance Army), the guerilla of Joseph Kony, surely the most wanted man in Africa, has caused more than one problem in the past. The hotel we were going to was destroyed by the Kony militia rebels (who is now taking refuge in the Central African Republic) in the late 80, which forced it to be closed for a few years for security reasons. Much later, in 1996, the park had to close as it became the scene of the fighting between the LRA and the Ugandan Army. The sporadic raids of the Kony guerrillas (responsible for the death of some 10.000 civilians and the kidnapping of more than 30.000 children) eleven people were killed in March 2001 just a few kilometers north of Paraa and, in november of 2005, the manager of one of the park hotels in Northeast Murchison, the most dangerous area in the park historically.
In that startled past I was thinking while, espantando moscas tse-tse, we were heading to Paraa on a road that was a blood line surrounded by vegetation that seemed to want to surrender the road due to exhaustion.
Espantando moscas tse-tse, we were heading to Paraa on a road that was a line of blood
We arrived with the last lights of the sunset and the image could not be more idyllic. The waters of the Nile fell docile, reflecting in the stream the surrender of the sun. Across, on a hill, you could guess the buildings of the hotel, rebuilt in 1997. To cross to the other shore, the north, you had to wait for the ferry and a wait was never so pleasant.
While a bus loaded with schoolchildren preceded us, we wander along the riverbank between barges rocked by the Nile and women with their colorful kikois, soaking up the magic of the holy river. After, already on its waters, we just kept silent while our shadows were drawn in the current with the same haste with which the day began to say goodbye to us. The tourist shootings of yesteryear had completely vanished. Now it was time to enjoy the hotel, whose gardens the elephants frequented, of his hypnotic views, from the overwhelming stillness of the night. Of the blessing of the Nile.
