by Mireya Mayor
PINK BOOTS AND A MACHETE
PINK BOOTS AND A MACHETE
My Journey From NFL Cheerleader to National Geographic Explorer
Mireya Mayor
Foreword by Jane Goodall
Published by the National Geographic Society
Copyright © 2011 Mireya Mayor. All rights reserved.
Reproduction of the whole or any part of the contents without written permission from the publisher is strictly prohibited.
ISBN: 978-1-4262-0742-6
All photos courtesy of the author.
The National Geographic Society is one of the world’s largest nonprofit scientific and educational organizations. Founded in 1888 to “increase and diffuse geographic knowledge,” the Society works to inspire people to care about the planet. National Geographic reflects the world through its magazines, television programs, films, music and radio, books, DVDs, maps, exhibitions, live events, school publishing programs, interactive media and merchandise. National Geographic magazine, the Society’s official journal, published in English and 32 local-language editions, is read by more than 35 million people each month. The National Geographic Channel reaches 320 million households in 34 languages in 166 countries. National Geographic Digital Media receives more than 13 million visitors a month. National Geographic has funded more than 9,200 scientific research, conservation and exploration projects and supports an education program promoting geography literacy. For more information, visit nationalgeographic.com.
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Human dedication
To my mother and grandmother, for always encouraging me to dream. To my loving husband and soul mate, Roland, for being an endless source of love and support. And to my daughters, Emma and Ava, for inspiring me to leave a better world behind.
Nonhuman dedication
To all the furry, slithery, slimy, scaly, and feathered creatures I have had the honor of encountering in the wild. You have filled my untamed life with purpose and adventure.
Contents
FOREWORD
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
INTRODUCTION
Chapter 1
GIRL SCOUT REJECT
Chapter 2
ANTITHESIS OF A SCIENTIST
Chapter 3
CHEERLEADER IN THE MIST
Chapter 4
SEDUCED BY SIFAKAS
Chapter 5
CAUGHT ON FILM
Chapter 6
DON’T LET THE LIP GLOSS FOOL YOU
Chapter 7
GORILLA WARFARE
Chapter 8
KING KONG IN MY POCKET
Chapter 9
SHARKS, SQUID INK, AND A FRYING PAN
Photographic Insert
Chapter 10
MY FEAR OF HEIGHTS CONQUERED (SORT OF)
Chapter 11
LEOPARD ON A GURNEY
Chapter 12
THE VAIN GIRL’S GUIDE TO SURVIVAL
Chapter 13
A NEAR DISASTER, I PRESUME?
Chapter 14
MACHISMO, GORILLA PORN, AND MY WORM
Chapter 15
EXPEDITION: LIFE
Foreword
Dr. Mireya Mayor reminds me a little of myself. Like me, she loved being with animals when she was a child. Like me she imagined herself trekking into far off jungles. And like me she followed her dream until it became reality.
As a small girl growing up in England I spent hours alone up my most special beech tree in our garden, getting close to the birds; reading about Tarzan of the Apes; and daydreaming how I would grow up, go to Africa, live with animals, and write books about them. In those days girls did not have such adventurous opportunities—everyone laughed at me. Anyway, we had little money, Africa was far away, no tourists flew back and forth, and World War II was raging. So I studied the insects and birds in our garden and walked with my beloved dog, Rusty, on the cliffs rising up from the beach.
Mireya also began her career in her backyard, in Little Havana. She too spent hours in her special tree—hers was a mango. She watched lizards, she kept a variety of insects and other creatures in her house, she cared for stray dogs. She and I both made observations on chickens. We both had strong mothers and grandmothers. And we both owe a great deal to the National Geographic Society, which helped us to achieve our goals.
My dream led me to Africa to observe wild chimpanzees; Mireya’s led her to the rain forests of Latin America, Central Africa, Madagascar, and various other exotic locations, including into the depths of the ocean. We both ended up as primatologists with Ph.D.s. I discovered that among other unexpected skills, chimpanzees have the ability to use and make tools. Mireya discovered a species of mouse lemur new to science—and persuaded the prime minister in Madagascar to create a national park to ensure its protection. Indeed, we are both passionate about conservation of the wild places where we love to be.
But whereas I stayed in the same place with my chimpanzees for years, Mireya is a true adventurer whose concern for a number of critically endangered animals has led her to explore some of the most remote places left on the planet. These journeys exposed her, time and again, to very real dangers, from charging gorillas and great white sharks to sinister bacteria that invaded her body in a place far from any hospital.
Pink Boots and a Machete is a wonderful read, spiced with descriptions of the lighter, more humorous aspects of a life spent in wild, unconventional places. But it also details the very serious side of Mireya’s research. Indeed, throughout the book, Mireya the scientist is very much present. I have had the opportunity to meet many researchers and conservationists, and some of them stand out. Mireya Mayor is one of them.
Not only does this extraordinary woman have the courage and fortitude for the explorations she undertakes but she has the intellectual curiosity to answer questions previously unanswered. And she has the kind of imagination and sense of wonder that leads her to ask the right kind of questions.
Mireya understands the importance of spreading her conservation message, and she frequently speaks at colleges and universities, inspiring young people, especially women, to follow their dreams no matter how impossible it may seem to do so. She is the living embodiment of someone who did just that and who is still, vividly and enthusiastically, living and loving her childhood dream.
Jane Goodall Ph.D., DBE
Founder, Jane Goodall Institute
and UN Messenger of Peace
www.janegoodall.org
Acknowledgments
Thanks to all who devote their lives to nature, inspiring others to marvel at its beauty, revel in its wonder, and protect its existence.
There are many critically endangered animals that need your help. If you have any questions or would like to sponsor an animal or make a donation that will help protect some of these endangered animals and places, please email me at [email protected].
You can follow updates for my upcoming shows and track my adventures at www.mireyamayor.com.
To help orphan chimpanzees, please visit the Jane Goodall Institute at www.janegoodall.org.
There are many people whose love, talent, and support made this book possible—far more than I have space to include here. Thank you all of you—you know who you are.
My beautiful daughters, Emma and Ava, whose mere presence could make me smile during the most frustrating of times, i
nspired me and motivated me to want to make the world a better place, even before they were born.
Thanks to the three most influential women and people in my life, my mother—my grandmother, and my aunt—whose patience, support, and unconditional love carried me through the best and most trying times:
Mami, thank you for always encouraging me to follow my dreams and for enabling my animal habit. I could never thank you enough for believing in me and for encouraging me to pursue the unimaginable with or without fear.
Mima, your strength and resolve gave me my own strength to attempt the seemingly unimaginable.
Tia Ica, thank you for paying for my braces when I was a kid, so that monkeys wouldn’t now laugh at my teeth, and giving critics less ammunition.
Special thanks to Emilio, my cousin, who is like a brother, for being the man of the house, and for all the beautiful letters he wrote while we were oceans apart.
I wish to thank my family for their patience and support during all the years and holidays I spent away from them so that I could pursue my dream. Many thanks also for accepting late-night phone calls due to time zone differences.
A special thank-you to my graduate adviser, Dr. Patricia Wright, for always encouraging me and filling me with hope. Whether sharing a tent, partying with the villagers, or meeting with government officials, it was always an honor to explore Madagascar with her.
I am also grateful to Dr. Linda Taylor for awakening my curiosity and love of primates, and for inspiring me to pursue this field. Her unceasing support and guidance, and glowing letters of recommendation, have opened many doors.
I am grateful to Dr. Edward Louis for tremendous help in collecting samples, and for teaching me lab techniques at Henry Doorly Zoo in Omaha. His academic guidance and friendship were without equal.
I am indebted to the National Geographic Society Committee for Research and Exploration for its long-term financial support. Conservation International and Primate Conservation Incorporated have also provided key finances for my expeditions.
A special thanks to Tim Kelly, David Royle, Geoff Daniels, Maryanne Culpepper, and Keenan Smart for taking a chance on me and enabling me to share and speak my wonder to a large audience. Also, thanks to all the field producers, assistant producers, researchers, and countless others (too many to name) at the National Geographic Society for their shared enthusiasm and insatiable thirst for uncovering nature and wildlife.
I am very grateful to Ashley Hoppin for her friendship and for presenting me and my research to National Geographic.
Collective thanks are expressed to my friends, professors, Stony Brook University staff, and colleagues who helped me at various stages of my research.
To the governing agencies that have granted me permission to research their national treasures and landscapes, thank you. Also, to all of the amazing people in the villages I’ve traveled through in far and remote places, thank you for your kindness, generosity, and hospitality.
Thank you, Elizabeth “Symmie” Newhouse, for your excellent editing, making my crazy adventures take a readable form.
Thank you, Jes Alexander, for going beyond the call of friendship and reading every single draft of this book.
Thank you to my agent, Eric Lupfer, for translating all the legal stuff I don’t understand and for being awesome.
Thank you, National Geographic Book Division’s Editor in Chief Barbara Brownell and the editor of this book, Susan Straight, for believing in my work and making it possible for me to share my story.
And finally, my husband, Roland Wolff, who is last on this list but first in my heart. Without his love and undying support I could not have written this book or continued to pursue my research and explorations. Thanks LOML, I couldn’t have done any of this without you. For always supporting me, even when you deserved more than I could give, thank you.
Introduction
Dripping in sweat under the Congo sun, surgically removing worms from our feet, and fighting off tsetse flies, the film crew and I were gathering the last of our gear and embarking on a grueling three-day journey home after a month of tracking gorillas. I was already beginning to suffer post-expedition blues, knowing I would miss waking up to the sounds of chimps overhead and the morning mist lingering over the forested hills. But as we hiked out of the jungle, nearly waist deep in swamp, I couldn’t wait for a hot shower and clean clothes. After a few hours of paddling down the Sangha River, we saw the Cameroon border and knew we were nearing civilization. Civilization in this case was relative, but a bed, shower, and lukewarm beer were all the amenities I needed.
As the sun set, we hit the shore at Ouésso, a town in the northern Republic of the Congo, lying on the river and surrounded by rain forest. Linked by ferry with Brazzaville, it is known for its nearby Pygmy people. We would be flying out, but the journey had taken us into nightfall, so we’d overnight in a hotel and continue to the airport in the morning. One cold shower later (they lied about the hot water) and a bad night’s sleep in a mosquito-infested room, I prayed our flight to Brazzaville would take off; in this part of Africa, canceled flights were the norm. After four weeks in the Congo wilderness, Brazzaville would seem like New York.
A wooden shed, a picnic shelter as a VIP lounge, and three umbrellas made the Ouésso airport seem positively bustling. Entering the shed, we stood in line, anxious that our gear would be too heavy. It was. But as the customs agent rifled through our belongings, he fixed on a copy of Us Weekly I had stowed in a pocket. It wasn’t the actual magazine he was interested in but one of its photos. So after some rapid-fire multilingual negotiating, it was agreed: Our gear made the flight, and the agent had my copy of Us Weekly, with the full-page photo of Kim Kardashian in a bikini.
We stood under the tree that marked the departure area with a small brigade of people, dogs, and chickens. When they called our flight (six hours after its scheduled departure), we dashed for the plane, finally collapsing into our seats, relieved that we were headed home.
Almost.
Before we even made our run down the bumpy runway at Ouésso, and the dust, the vivid greens, and that airport washed from memory, I had pulled out my journal and begun writing down everything I could remember of the expedition. The jet had already left the ground, ascended to about 10,000 feet, and been cruising along for some time before I looked up from my notebook and out the window. The last things I expected to see at that altitude were trees, but there we were, dancing above the treetops like we were about to land in the jungle. This wasn’t good.
I shook Andy, my cameraman, who had dozed off, and said, “Why are we flying so low? I think something’s wrong.” That thick blanket of trees looked nothing like tarmac, much less a clearing. Andy’s eyes went from sleepy slivers to oversize saucers as if he’d been awakened by a stun gun. A small panic erupted in the seats around us, as the plane bucked and shimmied along the top of the tree line. Then suddenly and without warning the plane ascended again, and we all breathed a sigh of relief.
It was short-lived.
My eyes remained fixed on the window, and I heard that sound a car makes just after the Check Engine light comes on. Except this wasn’t a car—it was a commercial jet struggling to stay in the air, and I was in it. Soon the plane was descending, as if we were making an approach to the airport, but there was no airport, just a thick blanket of trees. I looked back for a crew member, only to see the flight attendants in their jump seats, heads below their knees. Then my life began to flash before my eyes. Was this it? Were these the last minutes of my life? After all the expeditions, all the dangers, all the times I had sidestepped death from disease, hunger, infestations, angry gorillas, stampedes, and so much more, I was going to die in a plane crash?
Was this someone’s idea of a joke?
One
Girl Scout Reject
MAY 27, 1987: I just found a newspaper clipping with a picture of my mom making her great escape. Her face shows both fear and courage as armed men assist her onto the boat.
I’ve heard the story endless times, but it never gets old. She said she looked at all the men carrying guns and stepped onto the boat knowing she would never go home again. It was a forced adventure. She made herself look only to the open waters, making sure she didn’t catch a last glimpse of the island she was leaving with nothing but fear, anger, and the clothes on her back.
Crashing on a Congolese flight, waking up in a brothel, fighting off venomous snakes, and averting having my head ripped off by a silverback gorilla might read like a Harrison Ford movie script. But these were just a small part of my last expedition. I’ve come close to death more times than Elizabeth Taylor has said “I do.” In fact, were I a cat, I’d have one more go at it. Maybe.
It could be argued that my job is somewhat suicidal. I’ve dangled on the end of a fraying rope 14,000 feet above rocky ground. And I’ve nearly starved to death more than once, though that was soon remedied by my mother’s Cuban cooking. But still, I have looked death squarely in the eye, and that is my point.
I’ve come to understand that the problem isn’t the close calls you are aware of, but rather the unseen ones that silently rear up, a lesson deeply embedded in me at the not-yet-ripe age of 22. Carrying a teddy bear backpack and sporting the perfect ponytail, I happily traipsed through the jungle abyss of Guyana’s interior, hacking my way through impenetrable forest and thinking the main dangers to be fer-de-lance snakes and drunken miners. Little did I know that by the time I left the jungle, I would have less than one day to live. That’s right. Less than one day to live.