My Gurara Falls Experience

Late Post...Sowwi

Did I tell you about my Gurara Falls experience?? Obviously I didn't! Carried away by election fever, thankful it is over. So here it goes.

One of the Saturday's, my hiking group in Abuja, Abuja Harsh Harries made a trip to Gurara Falls in Niger state. I thought to myself  "What could be exciting in Niger State?". I guess I did not imagine that such a beauty could be in Nigeria talk more of Niger State, I only thought it existed in the movies. It was a beautiful adventure with my group, we had so much fun, so much to eat and drink and I made new friends. As my Papito taught me, that it is good to always know about where you travel to or go to, in the midst of the fun I took a little stroll then I met a man, in his mid sixties from his look, he looked like he was from there so I engaged him in a conversation about the falls. And luckily for me, he happens to be the Manager of the falls! I took my pen, book and began to write. Here are some things I noted down about the falls from Mallam and nice pictures i took with my iPhone.

The falls has its source in Kachia in kaduna state. Kachia is a local government in southern Kadunna state. It meets river Niger in kogi state. The gurara falls was discovered by a hunter by the name Buba (probably hunting for meat for his lovely wife) while he was hunting from Kaduna state, he came across the falls. When he discovered the water falls, he decided to settle around the water fall but due to ‘spiritual problem’ and bad dreams he was having he had to leave to the nearest village by the junction. The name of the village is called Bornu and it is just a 3-minute drive from the Gurara falls. Gurara has a community called Gurara which is ruled by a king.

The hunter, Buba started to worship the river and doing sacrifices though the sacrifice has stopped due to the European people. During the time of sacrifice, the sacrifice was done with a human life, the first male of a member of the family chosen by the god in that community of bonu will be sacrificed to the water. But this action has been abolished by the entrance of Christianity and Islam. In 1979 the government of Niger state came to gurara falls and made it popular. Buba’s family is also part of the community, some of his descendants are working in the falls, while the others are spread in different works of life and are wealthy now.

In the history of gurara, there was a taboo that existed (tho it is no longer in existence). The taboo was that, if one should visit the gurara falls and says “ Is this he Gurara falls?” in a mimic kind of way, something bad must happen to the person. In the olden days, they had number of days that is forbidden from visiting the falls ad if you visit, you might be blocked by a python.

The gurara river has about 48 different type of fishes. But there is one important fish it has. This fish is not up to 1 cm in size. According Mallam, this fish is very important to them.  He said this fish moves annually at least 2-3 weeks in a year from ending of October to early November and they move in a group.. They are the only fish that climbs the water fall to go to the source. The fishes come from the source in Kadunna, settle in the base of gurara falls for 3 weeks and then climb back up through the falls back to the source.  This fish is said to be so special hence they named it “The Healing Fish” and it is black and white in colour. They look out for this fishes and when they catch them, they eat it in its raw form for medicinal purpose to cure infertile men, barren women, diabetes and many others. When eaten, they taste so bitter. 

He went further to explain the fishes are very dangerous. I asked how? He explained that during the time of their movement, they can cause accident in the river. He said that before the fishes climb the falls, they would rest for 2-3 days at the base of the falls the very deep place where people often swim and assemble together that it is often mistaken for a rock. The place they assemble is so deep like the dept is three times the hills, over 900 meters. The fishes will rest there, when one is swimming, and probably gets tired and want to rest on one of the rocks, the person may not know that the rock is nothing but the fishes that assembled to rest! Ha! and when you step on them, they will now disappear and the person could sink and get drowned. No one knows the time the fishes come back to the falls so they are on the look out for them. It is strongly advised not to swim because of this and also because the water is very deep, rocky and moves with high current.

The Gurara has a festival called Gurafest, it takes place once every year on December 26^th

And a lot of people travel from all corners of the world for the festival. Among it they also have the fishing competition, boat regatta, canoe regatta, pot regatta, local boxing, many competitions with prizes to be won, different cultural exhibitions and cultural performances from different artists. among many others. They celebrate the culture of the community during the gurafest. From April through August, September and October, the  current of the falls are very high and from December through January, February, March, the water is at its lowest. 

As a foodie, I asked for the special food in gurara. Mallam said their special food is pounded yam with yakuwa, gawuta, and tuwon dawa.

I was so engrossed in the history when i heard the driver horn and Efe my new friend calling me for us to go home. Waw! Time really flies. Who knows where next i am going to? Hmmmmm. Take a trip to Gurara and thank me later.

XoXo