Vizelj – Amazon of Borcha

Before I say anything I have to admit that, even if I live in Belgrade for 27 years I didn’t know there was a river in Borcha! In my 8th grade the regulatory in geography consisted from filling the blank map. It was scheduled but never kept due to bombardment (as well as any other classes), so for my lacking knowledge of national geography I can blame no one else but America. Although I already learned in school where do the merino sheep browse and how long is Mississippi river I was prevented from learning what browses in my own neighborhood and where can I wet my feet during a long hot summer. Nevertheless, it is never late to catch on what we missed so here I am…

Channel Vizelj is about 60 meters wide and its navigable length is yet unknown to us since we paddled 5 km in both directions and there was no sight of an end. I studied the map of an entire channel thoroughly before we came and it seemed that there will be a lot of paddling, however never trust Google Earth completely… What couldn’t be seen from satellite, and what we didn’t know is that the channel blossomed and it looked more like meadow than a river. As we didn’t come to play football but to paddle, we placed our tandem kayak into water and started paddling…

Paddling through grass is an interesting experience. You don’t have a feeling that you are on water since you can barely see it, and there is a humming following you all the way as the kayak breaches through the surface fauna. The only problem is that you can’t see what is under the surface, and knowing what people usually dump here we were afraid not to hit a refrigerator or some other large apparatus intended originally for household.
However we came through without a scratch. I guess that people are aware of enthusiasts like us and were kind enough to dump their trash on the coast. Soon we came to the first turning and lost civilization out of sight. The channel is surrounded by high reed and a man can see nothing but a couple of house roofs beyond it.

We were most interested in which of animal species can be seen here so we quieted down and paddled closer to the coast. In the reed there were turtles, ducks and other interesting birds having their time in the sun. Herons were the biggest birds we saw. Most of the time one heron would be surrounded by many smaller, unknown but angry and inhospitable looking birds. We tried to socialize with them bud unsuccessfully. As soon as we would come near them they would fly away. At one point something started making noise in the reed so we courageously retreated for a couple of meters. I would be lying if I say that those crazy newspaper headlines have not gone through my mind such as “man threw a piton in the river” or “man flushed poisonous snake down the toilet”. At first I thought: What if someone threw anaconda because he got bored with it? And now it lives there feeding on birds and frogs! Maybe that’s why the birds are so angry! But then we saw that it was just some guy in the bushes. What was he doing there I don’t know. Had to go I guess.

After some time we went under a small bridge on top of which a couple of kids were fishing. Shortly after we passed it we noticed that the channel was narrowing and that the surface grass was getting denser so we couldn’t be sure how deep the channel is here, not to mention that a well known smell of sewer was starting to show. I can’t say that it was really a sewer since there was no material evidence but nevertheless we decided to turn away. Didn’t want to get stranded here after all.

All in all it was an interesting experience. It would be nice to visit the channel at some other time of the year, when it looks more like river than a meadow. It would probably be easier to paddle since you don’t have to carry the river vegetation on the paddle on every paddle. As for that negative experience, it was there but it was expected so we weren’t surprised. There were bottles, cans, plastic bags, and other types of garbage usually seen on river banks.

At the end of the trip we felt satisfaction. Navigating through the grass – rug with dragonflies, frogs and herons passing by is very exotic for me, especially in urban environment. Hence the nickname Amazon, I pictured it just like this except it was smaller off course, and you don’t have to worry about being bitten by deadly butterfly or attacked by jaguar. On the other side I wouldn’t be surprised if in the middle of all the grass, trash and sewer came out some creature much like that one from “Creature from the hunted sea”.

So long as that doesn’t happen and the channel doesn’t get overcrowded, all there is left to do for you is to enjoy the slow ride through the curvy channel. And when you get tired you can rest on some of the armchairs floating around, probably intentionally left there for us, weary travelers.

With this I finish my story of Vizelj. I’m off to do my homework. Blank map is in front of me and there is no Borchan Amazon on it. So blank map, it's time for you to learn something from me!

Categories: Rivers