Canopy Walk
by Lucky James
It was midmorning in Kakum. The sun was up early, punching bright holes through the tops of huge shadowy trees that draped the National Park. My Ghanaian friends and I visited fascinating sites which abounded in primates and cats and birds and other assorted wildlife. Beautiful flora stretched in all directions.
“Wow, this place is so beautiful I could live here,” I joked.
Amused, Osei laughed.
“But really, these wildlife embody nature’s best,” Kosi observed. A naturalized Ghanaian, it was Kosi’s first time at Kakum National.
Finally, we reached the peak of our tour- Kakum’s Canopy Walk.
The walkway was firmly secured with pulleys and guy wires to the trunk of a massive tree. With a meshwork of ropes on either side of board floors to create a roofless tunnel, the canopy passage presented a front of harmless adventure.
I paid for a ticket and nimbly got on. Only a few paces out, it became clear that the rope bridge was not as fixated as it appeared. It swung with every step I took.
Halfway through the passage, there was an announcement.
“My friends, we are travelling at a height of over forty meters on Africa’s only Canopy Walk,” the tour guide said.
My stomach knotted. I looked down the sides of the swinging walkway and with rising uneasiness observed, several feet below, a verdant carpet of enormous trees.
I have a crippling phobia for heights. Climbing to an elevated place makes me grow woozy. As a child, fruit-picking with my friends was a pastime that caused me much anxiety. Getting up on trees to pluck fruits was, for me, an ordeal- an insurmountable challenge. I could never go past the lowest branch of a short tree without falling into pangs of panic.
And here I was in the forest of Kakum swinging involuntarily several feet above the tallest trees I’ve ever come across.
Terrified, my heart hung loose in its cavity- I literally could feel it dangling as it thumped. What if the bridge broke? Maybe it won’t- but what if some depraved person decided to sabotage the canopy walkway in order to gain instant notoriety? I clutched the rope banisters for support and took baby steps- I felt light-footed and giddy. Our gleeful guide was pointing out something to fellow tourists but I’d become deaf and blind to everything around me- wholly disabled by fright.
As the bridge swayed beneath my weight I shut my eyes, clenched my teeth, and interminably hummed the Twenty-third Psalm forward and backward.
Up ahead, Osei plodded along but Kosi walked on quite spryly. He didn’t appear a bit flustered. As opposed to the way I keeled on the rope bridge, Kosi’s easy gait was appealing to the eye. I felt a tinge of jealousy for his youthfulness and for his frequent rides on roller coasters. Maybe these have caused him to be so agile and so fearless of heights. I’ve been on a roller coaster too. But one ride on a big dipper would hardly be dosage enough to cure my paranoia for heights. Nor would it be sufficient to cast a sedating spell on this harrowing canopy walk.
The tour guide was such a drama queen. She would walk a few paces forward on the canopy catwalk like a model- then she’d do a little pirouette as she turned around to face us to continue her chatter. I guessed she did all this to entertain tourists and distract them from their fear. But I was so lost in my own world, so imprisoned in my mind that I couldn’t appreciate her effort.
At last, we arrived at the tree house on the other end of the bridge. Sighing in relief, I waited for the crowd clustering the gazebo to thin down so I could get off the hanging walkway. Meantime, the guide congratulated us on a successful canopy-trek.
Praising myself too for the incredible feat, my mind hovered to my fruit-picking days. How I hated those tall trees. They mocked me with their tantalizing fruits that remained ever out of reach. Often, I’d stay down and watch as other boys barrelled up tree trunks like squirrels and hoisted on a nearby branch. It was always a magical sight for me to behold.
Back then, people who couldn’t climb simply threw objects at the fruits. I was hopeless at that too. Whereas my companions would expertly hurl stout sticks into the tree to dislodge torrents of mangoes or oranges, I could never aim straight at those leafy tops. Frequently, the objects I threw missed the tree completely, traveling into high heavens. Everyone had to run for cover, hiding their heads from the returning boomerang that brought no fruits.
In reality, I did much of the fruit-picking. While my friends brought down fruits, I busied with the picking.
“You’ll see how quickly we get through the remaining bridges,” I heard our guide saying, most likely in response to somebody’s question.
I’d totally forgotten that the Canopy Walk comprised seven bridges, all linked together. Alarmed, I thought to get off the dangling bridges immediately. I soon recalled though that we were hanging above the forest in the middle of a jungle which doubtless housed ferocious beasts lying out of sight. Travelling back on the first bridge was out of the question because the narrow passageway only conveyed traffic in one direction.
I placed my trembly self on the second rope bridge. With chattering teeth and quaking limbs, I trudged on. Not knowing what my end would be, I lamented the short and not-so-fruitful life I’d lived. Time and again, I caught myself reciting the sinner’s prayer under my breath.
With the reluctance of a sheep being led to the slaughter, my leaden feet shuffled on. With breath held in my throat, the air in my lungs became sluggish. I had visions of me being a prey of the terrible creatures down below. Certainly, they awaited the table prepared before them- a bloody table of mangled flesh to be served anytime soon- me.
Enduring the torture of my thoughts and the buzzing train of tourists that had built up behind me, I agonized through the second and third rope bridges. My nightmarish walk on the perilous passageway wasn’t getting any easier, yet there appeared to be hope that I’d make it to the end. Inching along much to the irritation of the impatient crowd trailing me, I went through the fourth, and the fifth and them all finally.
It was unimaginable that I came through those menacing suspended bridges that swayed. Sadly, much of my journey on Kakum’s Canopy Walk was a blur. I’d bet Osei and Kosi didn’t know how my terror for heights chewed me up and spewed me out again at the end of the walk. Limp and spent, I came through wearied out- yet I was a happy man when the journey finally ended. One intuitive lesson however stayed vivid: I’d steer clear of heights altogether, especially those over dense forests and waiting beasts.
Lucky James teaches Math in a K-12 school in Nigeria. A poet and short story writer, the author is an avid reader of fiction whose writings depict the experiences of everyday people. His poems have featured in The Kalahari Review. You can see more of his work on his blog.
