Magga
on Notes from Quite Far (Cameroon), 10/Aug/2009 00:46, 34 days ago
Magga lake is a man made lake to the North of Yagoua close to the Logone River and the Cameroon/Chad border. It is inhabited by fishermen, cattle herders and ............hippo's!!A chance to see hippo's close up was not to be missed and we travelled up to Magga and stopped in a hotel close to the lake. A Pirogue hired though the hotel and was going to take us in search of these large creatures lurking somewhere in the water and weeds. Apparently there are three family groups of hippo's in differing parts of Magga and our guides in the boat were going to do their best to find then for us.Recently the hippo's had killed a couple of fishermen who got too close but we were informed that the hippo's would be scared of the outboard motor that powered our pirogue, a point proved later in the morning when we went full pelt at the head of one hippo who was swimming in the water just infront of a gap in the weeds that we needed to slip through!Alot of the lake is more akin to marsh land with quite fertile soil and grass growing. It was not uncommon to be speeding along one moment then suddenly stop in some weeds and have several cows about ten metres away chomping away on lunch.The boatmen with us who had been quiet through much of hippo hunt informed us that one of the hippo's had caught them out and sunk teeth into the back of the boat only a week or so before. Sure enough once pointed out the 2 big marks down towards the engine where suddenly obvious as teeth marks and a little unnerving. However when we found a large group of around 30 hippo's they managed to keep close enought to get one or two good photographs with out getting into danger.There are many people living on Magga lake all living side by side to these big animials. In one photo I took I had hippo's, cows, horses and people all in the frame.This village we passed on our way back to the shore is one of the permenant settlements and is home to one of the fishermen Chiefs. Most of the fishermen live in tempory homes moving when the waters rise durning the wet season. The Chiefs home however is built on higher land and is habitable all year round.