Here we go again. I am back and relatively caught up. So we are all off to the races again.
Tuesday December 23rd, 2003
I get up at about 5:30, as do we all, since the village chief puts on the radio to listen to the news. It is very strange hearing about the performance of futures markets while in Karagua. After a breakfast of bread and tea… the containers of which we leave behind as a present, we head out. It starts off very well. A beautiful toucan sighting, and a monkey sighting within the first 30 minutes… and this before we even head into the jungle. We turn into the jungle. Wow. So, Kungulu, the other village involved with the habituating of gorillas, raided their forest. Karagua, on the other hand, is unmolested. Absolute magic. So first of all, when you leave the road, and cut into the jungle, the temperature drops a good 10-15 degrees, and the dampness mounts.. or is more noticable. The second thing that happens.. is I start to sweat. Profusely. I am a bit strange, but it is one of the things that I really like about trecking in the forest. I am totally soaked within 20 minutes. We continue hiking, and I continue taking pictures. I am starting to get a better handle on how to take pictures of the forest. It is still far to dense, and chaotic for my eyes, let alone a camera. We hike for what feels like hours, but is probably an hour or so… regularly seeing tracks and trails of gorillas. Then.. after some particularly fun stream crossings, the trackers are on to fresh tracks. One of the trackers is Baka, and the other Bantu. Both nice, and pretty quiet. The lead tracker is Baka. Older, or at least the forest has aged him. And tall for a pygmy… somewhere around 5 feet tall. We go tromping around and find the nest…apparently from the night before. The trackers ask us to wait for a bit, not mentioning the obvious, that a large group of white people will only hinder their search for signs of Gorillas. So, let me note again.. these are not the Rwandan, or Ugandan mountain gorillas. These are western lowlands gorillas, and they move fast. They aren’t habituated, and don’t sit still for tourists. The trackers come back to get us, and away we go… cross country. Well, country is a bit misleading. Through the dense jungle, not on a path, but heading through the thickest parts. Thorny vines, savage ants, mud, banches… sharpened sticks shooting from carefully placed traps.. OK, no sharpened sticks.. but it certainly felt like it. It was not easy keeping up with the Baka guide, who is half my size, born and raised in the jungle… and me with my camera, backpack and big ass… oh, and all of this has to be quiet. Sneaky quiet so that we don’t scare the gorillas away. An hour of this later, bleeding from a few cuts and gashes, we seem to be getting close. The air itself is different. The other animals seem like they are also holding their breath. We can hear them. Soft noises. We stop as the trackers try to get closer, and pinpoint their exact location. I prepare my weapon of choice (my video camera… which is better than my still camera). The trackers come back. The whole group is their, but the male has separated to the side a bit.. and he is our goal. The thing is, the group would be easier to see, but if we go after them without him seeing us, or being comfortable with us their… that leads to trouble.. and a few weeks ago the new head of the SNV in Cameroon came with his family, and ran scared when the male screamed at them (they didn’t even see him.. just heard him, pissed their pants, and left. Apparently, the yell is that scary). At this point, the trackers pick up speed, I follow but the others are having a bit of trouble keeping up. I ask the Bantu guide if he would carry my backpack, which he did. This freed me up immensely. I was now able to keep up with the Baka guide.. albiet he was much quieter. We are at the base of a hill, and turn to the left. The Baka stops. I stop. We listen. I hear the adult male almost breathing… but really, I just feel his presence. We continue along the side of the hill without climbing. The gorilla heads off. We see some fresh prints, and follow. At this point it is less about the Baka guiding, and more about the two of us tracking the gorilla down together… as the last two sets of prints I found before he did. I was also able to tell how fast the gorilla was going because of where the weight was being distributed in the print. I made my observations, and the Baka agreed. We continue to head a bit down and around the hill. The Baka stops again. Suddenly this time. My camera has been on for the past few minutes just in case. I hear the gorilla again. The Baka points. I don’t see anything. Damn jungle chaos is still to much for me. Then, I see it. A large dark shadow moving through the undergrowth. Maybe I have it on video, maybe I don’t. It doesn’t matter. He is off. We follow, but it is pretty clear that our game of cat and mouse is over. I don’t feel him anymore, and the prints are harder to find. The most amazing thing to me is how something so big can move so quickly through such dense forest hardly making a sound. We stop for a bit, and the others catch up. We continue looking for a bit, and realize that we have pretty much circled about half way around the hill. We rest and chat a bit. Apparently, the group has a pregnant female, and that slows them down a bit. The dominant male probably led us around the side of the hill while the others went in the other direction, because they were gone. Smart these gorillas. We discuss whether or not to continue after them today, but decide against it, as we are all carrying our bags, and we have been plowing through jungle for a few hours now. We find the trail again, and head to camp.
At the camp, the other two trackers are hanging out… having carried the food and other supplies with them in the dugout canous. We make lunch (rice and veggies), and set up our tents, and clean up a bit in the stream near camp. I am tired. It was only 4 or 5 hours of treking, but damn, half of it was in a constant crouching position, with constant acrobatics to avoid the thorns where possible. I also was getting a bit of grief for having taken off with the baka…which I can understand. The afternoon is over before we know it. Night falls very quickly in the jungle, and by 6 it is dark out. Not dusk, dark. We make dinner (rice with fish and veggies) and chat with each other and the guides. We talk CIAD politics, pay, and other stuff. Everyone is pretty psyched, it was a good day… and for the others, this was their first trip into the jungle. Even Mariacah enjoyed herself immensely. I mean, if this doesn’t effect you, nothing will. We are all asleep by 9.