The Impenetrable Forest

by Thor Hanson

  “But not now,” Charles concluded. The incident had taken place nearly two years ago, after only a few months of habituation. “They can’t charge now,” he repeated. “They are too calm.”

  Several weeks later we announced the beginning of our experimental tourist phase. The gorillas had been consistently passive, and we wanted to gauge their response to a series of new faces. By taking in two visitors per day, we hoped to show that the group could safely open for general tourism at the end of the month. If the influx of new people produced notable signs of aggression or fear, we could simply stop the experiment and continue with our regular habituation.

  We had no trouble finding guinea pig tourists. Complimentary tracking permits brought local community leaders and government officials, as well as a host of expatriates working for the national park system. Eager to view mountain gorillas in the wild, they all ignored the stipulation that Katendegyere group was still under habituation and that tracking could be canceled at any time, depending on their behavior.

  One of our first visitors was a good friend of mine from Kampala. Ted Hazard worked as a financial adviser at park headquarters, and his two-year contract nearly overlapped my own. I’d stayed with him several times in the city, where good conversation, hot showers, and a toaster made his house a regular Peace Corps motel. With his brother visiting from San Diego, Ted had organized a trip through several parks around the country, culminating with a visit to Bwindi and a chance to track Katendegyere group.

  “You see, these gorillas are only partially habituated,” Medad warned them, “and sometimes they can change their minds.” He was halfway through the tourist briefing, explaining in careful English the strict procedures for gorilla tracking in Bwindi Park.

  “Oh, great.” Ted exchanged a look with his brother, and they laughed, with only a hint of worry tracing their sarcasm.

  “If the gorillas charge, please you don’t cry out or try to run. No. Just crouch down and wait. Follow our example, and when the animal is calm, we will go slowly, slowly backward to our distance of five meters.”

  The gorillas had spent several days in a steep, shrub-choked valley outside the forest, and we hiked for half an hour through morning sunlight and broad-leaved banana plantations. Worn smooth by generations of sandals and bare feet, the path wound across the hard red earth, connecting fields, families, and farms. Collared sunbirds darted through the air above our heads, searching for dew and nectar in the drooping clusters of banana blossoms. The trackers diverted from the main pathway, and we began following a dry creekbed, ascending slowly toward a fragment of rain forest at the head of the narrow valley.

  The rasp of a saw echoed rhythmically through the air, and we soon met a man carrying freshly hewn mahogany planks. He balanced the load easily on his head, nimbly crossing the rocks in bare feet as he descended toward the village. Medad and the trackers greeted him and exchanged a few words. The timber was being cut to order for several carpenters in town, where the demand for hardwoods far outstripped the supply. When Bwindi was still a forest reserve, loose regulations and large-scale corruption had ensured a steady flow of illegal timber to lumber merchants throughout the district. Mature hardwoods disappeared from much of the forest before the park was even created, and most stands of native woods outside the reserve were cleared altogether. The few mature trees remaining in this valley would soon be gone, cut and sold by their owner, an irascible old farmer named Behuari.

  Less than twenty years earlier, Behuari’s valley was connected to Bwindi by a large forest that stretched for several miles along the ridgetop west of Buhoma. The area formed a central part of Katendegyere group’s home range, and although most of the trees had fallen prey to the demand for wood and seasonal croplands, the group still crossed large distances of open space to visit patches of forest like Behuari’s. More than once we had sat with the gorillas and heard a thundering crash of timber as another piece of their dwindling rain forest home was literally cut down around them. The situation seemed almost contrived, like an elaborate fund-raising advertisement for the World Wildlife Fund. It was, however, unfortunately and poignantly real, a sad microcosm of conservation problems in Uganda, where the rapidly expanding human population is pressing right up to the edge of protected areas.

  IGCP and the park had both made generous offers for Behuari’s land, but he refused to sell. He owned other shambas closer to the village, but this valley was an important family asset, something more tangible and lasting than any one-time payment of cash. In desperation we offered him a logging contract, agreeing to purchase all the timber in the valley with only one stipulation, that he left it standing. This sheme failed as well, and the trees continued to fall.

  As we climbed up the valley, the banana fields thinned to a few ill-tended clumps clinging to the steep hillside. The guides had told me that Behuari planted here with no expectations of harvest. He knew the gorillas often raided these outlying patches and wanted to supplement his logging income with crop damage compensation from the park. With Behuari, we had learned that the pronunciation of his name, “be wary,” was good advice for any business negotiations.

  The trail narrowed and turned up the northern side of the valley, and we came across a group of banana trees where the gorillas had been feeding. Behuari himself stood waiting for us, wiry and fit in his ripped blue T-shirt and rounded knit cap. A scraggle of gray beard clung to his chin, and he had the callused, cracked hands of a long life in the fields. He blocked the trail as we approached, arms akimbo, and gestured at his ruined bananas with an expression of stern horror.

  The trees lay scattered about in piles of ropy white strands as if exploded from within. While Behuari lamented his loss to the trackers, I stooped and tugged up a handful of the crushed stem—wet and fibrous, like coarse, overgrown corn silk.

  The old farmer continued his rant until I urged Medad to move ahead. “Tell him we’ll come back later to count the stems,” I said. The park offered a small sum to compensate farmers for every lost tree and to encourage them not to harass the gorillas on their land. Medad translated and Behuari nodded his grudging approval. For fun I added, “And tell him he shouldn’t plant his bananas in the gorillas’ shamba.”

  Behuari looked at me warily for a moment, then barked a laugh at my crazy muzungu joke. I smiled too and watched him disappear down the trail, liking the man in spite of his determination to clear the valley.

  Just then we heard another kind of bark, the unmistakable cough of a silverback far above us on the valley wall. Climbing toward the noise, we crossed the charred lunar landscape of a newly burned millet field. Every footstep kicked up plumes of gray ash and knocked a small slide of stones and dirt down the steep slope. Much of the upper reaches of the valley had been planted at one time and lay now under a thick tangle of weeds, grass, and shrubs. Millet is hard on the soil, and fields must lie fallow for up to four years before they can support another crop. To transform the pillared greens of the rain forest into this patchwork of bracken and soot seemed like a poor exchange indeed.

  We paused to catch our breath on the heat-baked, near-vertical grade, and it struck me as a particularly terrible place for a farm. Mere walking challenged my sense of balance, let alone swinging a hoe or harvesting heavy bushels of grain. People didn’t plant on the steep hills around Bwindi because it was good land, or because they had a special desire to ruin gorilla habitat. Only one reason drove them to farm such rugged terrain: in southwest Uganda, there was little place else left to go.

  The trackers beckoned to us from above. They’d found a fresh trail, and we advanced together slowly, tunneling into the thicket. The gorillas were nearby, but we could see only a few feet through the dense undergrowth. I walked in the lead with Mishana, peering into the vegetation, disappointed that we might not get a clear view for Ted. Finally we saw an indistinct flutter of leaves and heard the long sigh of a gorilla at rest. Circling to approach the sleeping animal from above, we could just discern its dark for
m lying quietly in the shady gloom.

  Suddenly the greenery erupted with screams and a surge of animate shadow as Makale charged full speed toward us from somewhere up the hillside. We crouched in a tight group, and he loomed over us with a deafening roar, his eyes wild and angry and his teeth bared, two rows of sharp white jags in the huge red of his mouth. After an endless, gut-wrenching instant he settled back on his haunches several feet before us, squatting and glaring like some dark vision of a belligerent Buddha.

  His nervous stench filled the air with a thick, horse-and-sweat perfume as we waited for the tension to pass, holding our ground but looking downward submissively. Makale followed our gaze and noticed the panga that Mishana had dropped during the initial charge. With an almost contemptuous grunt he leaned forward and snatched up the blade.

  From the standpoint of developing safe, ecologically responsible tourism, this was a low point. Our first visitor from park headquarters had been instantly charged, and now the gorilla was armed. I turned to Ted and attempted an encouraging “no problem” smile while Makale twirled the long knife in his hands, alternately sniffing and biting the handle and blade. Several minutes passed, and I had visions of him cutting himself on the sharp steel, but he handled the panga gently, even nimbly in his huge, leathery fingers. Abruptly contented with his inspection, Makale threw the blade back to the ground at our feet, his expression seemingly tinged with a look of smug satisfaction.

  Behind me, Medad was sitting on his walking stick, trying to keep it hidden under a layer of trampled vegetation. Makale picked him out immediately and reared up, screaming, to lunge over our heads and grab at the stick. In this situation, Medad really had only one logical course of action: he let the gorilla take the stick.

  Makale gripped his new prize and moved a few feet off, sniffing and biting the smooth wood as he had the panga. He held it out in front of him and peered along its length as if inspecting a rifle barrel for flaws. I cringed every time the stick passed into his mouth. In a project designed to minimize the risk of disease transmission, having a gorilla lick recently handled equipment ranked pretty high on the list of catastrophes. When Makale moved toward us again, we held our collective breath, and I tucked my camera under my jacket, dreading what new object might catch his attention. But he came only to return what he’d borrowed, leaning forward and gingerly sliding the walking stick back into place under Medad, exactly where he’d found it.

  With a final haughty glare, Makale left us, striding nonchalantly up the slope. His broad back mingled quickly into deeper shadow, and there was a moment of silence in the thicket, like the heartbeat pause between a good punch line and laughter. Nervous energy drained from the air in a rush, and we found ourselves suddenly smiling and shaking our heads with relief and awe.

  Below us, the first gorilla turned over with a soft rustle of branches and slept on, completely oblivious to our encounter with its comrade. The whole drama had taken less than twenty minutes, and we could have pressed on. But Ted and his brother looked like they’d seen enough, and none of us were too excited about following Makale deeper into the undergrowth.

  “Well, that’s what we mean by partially habituated,” I whispered as we backed slowly away.

  “So,” Ted replied, never without a comeback, “when they’re fully habituated, do they pick up the machete by the right end?”

  “Exactly,” I laughed, and started the long hike back.

  Actually, Makale’s habituation was making definite progress. We had obviously progressed beyond the fear stage. Our presence still annoyed him on occasion, but he no longer found us particularly alarming. The new challenge would be to control his boundless curiosity. Luckily, equipment inspections didn’t become a habit, and the rest of the month passed without incident. Katendegyere group opened for business on time, the trackers got their bonus, and our guinea-pig tourists were replaced by paying customers. We concluded the experimental tourism phase with two significant results: a new regulation requiring everyone to leave their pangas and walking sticks at least two hundred meters away from Katendegyere group, and a lingering rumor that armed gorillas were roaming the depths of Bwindi Forest.

  10

  A Strange Man

  You know what I always was—made up of queer materials, and averse to beaten paths; unfortunately, not fitted for those harnessed positions which produce wealth; yet, ever unhappy when unemployed, and too proud to serve…

  —Samuel Baker, before leaving to explore the Nile, 1861

  On a fine morning in the dry season, I set out with the trail crew to build footbridges over the Muzabajiro River. Clear weather allowed for a full day’s work, and we always scheduled major construction projects for the dry months. The Muzabajiro wound its way three times through our new loop trail, and even the trackers had slipped crossing its slick, smooth stones. Eventually, the Muzabajiro Loop would become a major path for gorilla tracking and forest walks, but we needed sturdy stream crossings before we could open the route to tourists.

  Bwindi’s first trail crew varied more than Makale’s mood swings, or the price of eggs in Kihihi. From young men paying off dowries to teenagers earning their school fees, a crowd of hopeful workers gathered at the office each morning for the chance at a day’s wage in the forest. The chaos of picking out a crew involved long heated arguments and a continuing lesson in village politics. Finally, at the risk of playing favorites, I began choosing from a small group of regulars, hoping to one day hire a permanent team.

  Climbing now through the lush green tea fields below Dominico’s farm, I paused to look back at the day’s crew. Each man carried a heavy building pole and a sharp, double-edged panga, the universal tool of rural Africa. They hauled the poles lengthwise on their heads, balanced on tiny cushions of woven banana leaves. I had tried this only once, giving up after a brief stagger with screaming neck pains and one firm conclusion: hiking the winding trails of Bwindi with a tree on my head was a skill I’d never master.

  I greeted the men as they passed me on the narrow track, relying on one of the only practical vestiges of colonialism, English names. Most people in Uganda took a Western name in addition to their family and tribal titles. The combinations often sounded incongruous, but when the local alternative was a tongue-tangled attempt at Rwahamuhanda or Kawermerwa, it was a huge relief to be able to call someone Stan.

  Today, Noah was the crew’s nominal leader. He had finished primary school and knew a bit of English, which, combined with my “Speak & Spell” Rukiga, was a passable form of communication. Richard and Samuel followed him up the trail, two rangy, slightly nervous-looking youths in matching sky blue sweaters. They claimed to be students, although I never saw them any closer to a schoolhouse than the local tonto bar on market day.

  Stanley brought up the rear and gave me a big smile from under his head load. “Agandi, Boss!” He was about my age, hardworking, and commonly regarded as the strongest man in Buhoma. “Boss” constituted the bulk of his English vocabulary. He used it as a sort of universal noun and managed to fit it into nearly every sentence we exchanged. As far as I could tell, I was Boss, he was Boss, the gorillas were Boss, and so was his panga. I often wished that I knew a similarly versatile word in Rukiga.

  From Dominico’s place the trail wound through abandoned millet fields in a steep valley along the creek. The forest rose on one side, towering and ancient in its shade, while lush shrubs and saplings erupted into life in the clearing. We walked through a sea of neck-high greenery, pale and new and scattered across with white blossoms like handfuls of tiny pearls

  As we descended toward the forest edge I mused about entering an African jungle with companions called Noah, Richard, Samuel, and Stanley. Quite an illustrious group in the annals of adventure, from the greatest biblical wanderer to three of the most intrepid European explorers to ever reach the African continent: Richard Francis Burton, Samuel Baker, and Henry Morton Stanley.

  To the outside world, nineteenth-century Africa truly was The
Dark Continent, a blank enigma on every map. Port cities like Zanzibar and Mombasa gained fame as exotic centers for the slave and ivory trades, but the interior remained a mystery. Merchants relied heavily on middlemen among the coastal tribes, and penetrated inland only when the nearby stocks of elephants and slaves were exhausted. These traders, mostly Arabs and Turks,* pioneered exploration in East Africa, establishing caravan routes deep into the Sudan and across modern-day Tanzania in the early 1800s. While they held commercial goals above cartography, tales of great mountains and vast inland lakes accompanied their shipments of ivory to the coast. When these stories reached Europe, adventurers began preparing to chase the ultimate geographical prize of the century: discovering the source of the river Nile.

  On setting out from Cairo in 1861, Samuel Baker wrote: “Before me—untrodden Africa; against me—the obstacles that had defeated the world since its creation.” For millennia, the Nile’s headwaters eluded scholars from around the civilized world. Ptolemy, the great historian of ancient Greece, drew a map in the second century AD that put the source in a theoretical range of high peaks he called the Mountains of the Moon. Since that time, no one had been able to confirm or refute his claim, all explorations having been turned back by hostile tribes and an unforgiving landscape. To people in Europe and America, venturing into the African interior was an almost unthinkable feat, the equivalent of modern space travel. And, like astronauts, the early explorers crossed into the unknown driven by a fundamental curiosity, a fascination with the natural world, and a not-insignificant desire for personal glory.