Hemingway Adventure

Murchison Falls, Uganda

Shoals of leathery pink hippo lie in the water in family groups, some with only their ears and eyeballs above the water. They snort, propel themselves gently about and occasionally get into a short-lived scrap, but basically they lie there in the shallows exuding a placid atmosphere of deep, vaguely erotic contentment.

We pass the time talking of our families. It's a rather one-sided conversation as Francis has twelve children to my three. When I ask him their ages his brow furrows.

'The oldest is twenty-two and the next...' His voice tails off apologetically. 'Well, there are so many.'

He has been working for the park service for over thirty years and his activities have not been confined to boat trips and bird-spotting. He has three gun-shot wounds from run-ins with poaching gangs. He pulls up his shirt and rolls up his yellow trousers to show me the scars. One bullet is still embedded in his left thigh.

We turn into a small bay about a mile down-stream from the falls, passing uncomfortably close to a rock entirely covered by the largest, most evil-looking crocodile I've ever seen. Two or three persistent kingfishers dive-bomb the frothy water around us as we pull into the shore.

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PALIN'S GUIDES

Series: Hemingway Adventure
Chapter: Murchison Falls, Uganda
Country/sea: Uganda
Place: Murchison Falls
Book page no: 185

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Kenya - Uganda