by Mireya Mayor
I had settled into my new life rather well, I thought, especially not speaking the local dialect. It always amazes me how far hand signals and pointing can take you. In the mornings I helped the women prepare the meals. Truth be told, unlike the other women in my family, I am not a good cook. Luckily, a lot of the cooking involved spitting, lots of spitting, and I can spit with the best of them. You see, the Amerindian staple diet is cassava. Cassava is used to make alcohol, known as chicha. And Guyana’s national dish, pepperpot, is typically stewed meat strongly flavored with cinnamon, hot pepper, and cassareep—a special sauce made from the cassava root. Cassava, also called yucca or manioc, has a high level of toxic cyanogenic glycosides, a pure 40-milligram dose of which can kill a cow. Improper preparation of cassava can cause a condition in humans called konzo, a neurological disease that results in paralysis, impaired vision, goiter, and cretinism. To release the toxins, cassava is soaked in water for several days. The enzymes in saliva help further the process—thus the spitting. I tried very hard not to think about the preparation while eating or drinking.
A Guyanese wildlife trader and his family lived nearby, and, hearing the village had visitors, came over to welcome us. He invited me to come along on his hunts, so on most days (with a very dry mouth after cooking) I joined the men in the forest. I didn’t enjoy this part of the day, but I wanted to learn about the hunting practices. Granted I was naive, but it was a shocker.
Monkeys, mostly squirrel and capuchin, were rounded up and crammed into small cages to be sold as food or for illegal export. The hunters would chase monkeys into trees and isolate them by pulling down surrounding trees. They often killed the females, ripping babies from their backs. Strikingly beautiful birds such as macaws and toucans were trapped, and sometimes I had to hold them on my lap in the boat for transfer to market. The trader’s wife didn’t understand why I wanted to go into the forest, saying, “It’s dangerous, you know. There are jaguars.” I knew that. But it was not the jaguars that made me want to cry. I was witnessing atrocities committed toward some of the world’s rarest and most magnificent creatures, and I could do nothing but document it.
Not only did my colleagues not know I’d been an NFL cheerleader, they didn’t know I’d never left the country before—or even gone camping. But it was now irrelevant. Yes, I had grown up a sheltered girl with a love for animals and ballet, but now I was chasing wild animals and spitting on my food.
After a few days of village life, it was time to go on in search of the sakis. The team now included an elderly Amerindian villager whose knowledge of the forest would prove invaluable; his daughter, who seemed to be in her early 20s; and her teenage brother, who was partly deaf from quinine, the malarial cure he’d taken since birth. The kids would paddle and assist us in hacking through the nearly impenetrable wall of trees. Then, of course, there was me and Dr. Handsome, who weighed in at more than 200 pounds. We would all climb into an unstable dugout canoe together. Buckets were essential to bail water whenever one of us shifted position.
We left with not much more than a bag of food, a few camping supplies, and hearts filled with hope. We planned to be away three months. After paddling for a while, we set up camp. Sleep did not come easily. Though during the day the forest seemed like a tranquil place, at night the sounds were deafening. Frogs, bats, even monkeys made up the chorus. I wouldn’t say I was scared exactly. But I was. Between that and the malarial dreams that had me covered in blood, I wasn’t overly eager for shut-eye.
The next morning we loaded our belongings into the canoe and pushed off again. I took notes on the wildlife and mused at just how small humans figure in nature. I noted the quiet surroundings. Suddenly, our guide motioned me to duck down as a boat of “port knockers” was coming around the river’s bend. What are port knockers, I thought, and why does everyone look so scared?
As it turned out, port knockers are small-scale miners who pan for gold along rivers and streams. They are the prospectors of Guyana, intrepid individuals who, like the cowboys of the Wild West, are part of the national identity and the subject of many tales. And judging by the guide’s reaction, they can be your worst nightmare. That is, if your worst nightmare is to get robbed, beaten, and possibly raped and killed if you put up too much of a fight, or if they’re simply drunk enough. We hid the boat and ourselves under some fallen trees and sat in frightened silence as the loud, drunken sailors cruised by.
Unfortunately, we wouldn’t see any monkeys that day, and as the sun was setting, we tied up our canoe, set up camp, and rested our bodies on damp hammocks. I was starting to think we would never find them and that, anyway, I wasn’t cut out for this. That night I learned how the rain forest got its name. It rained longer and harder than any storm I had ever endured in Miami during the hurricane season. On the upside, the pots and pans we left out overnight sparkled in the morning. Nature’s Maytag, I thought. But then I noticed that in the mad rush to get the tarps up I had forgotten to bring in my designer field vest. I glanced at the label and swore it was mocking me: Dry Clean Only.
The rain never really let up, and over the next several weeks I was awakened daily by howler monkeys. Howler monkeys are like rats in South America. Anyone who has spent the night in a South American rain forest has at the very least heard them from a distance. I think they actually take great pleasure in waking people they have identified as “not a morning person.” Howlers will find the tree you are under and perch there while making their incredibly loud cry. At first, I thought it was exciting and added to the experience of living in the wild. Soon I just found it annoying. But since there was no chance it would stop, I’d get out of my hammock, bathe in the river, filter some water, take my antimalarial pills, throw on my boots, and wonder what the cheerleaders were doing that day.
Tarantulas soon became an even greater nemesis. They would climb to the top of my backpack and nestle in my long, tangled, wet hair. It was not easy digging them out. Leafcutter ants cut highways through the backs and tongues of my boots left on the ground overnight. A vampire bat took a chomp at my foot hanging off the hammock during sleep, and mosquitoes had a field day on wrists and ankles that rubbed too close to the mosquito net. Somehow they made it under the net, too, and most of the night I was killing them and checking for spiders. I quickly learned that mosquitoes actually love deet. Though I can’t prove it, I think deet makes them stronger.
We were starting to run out of food, and morale was sinking, so we decided to seek a village to restock our dwindling supplies. We found a lovely elderly Guyanese couple living on the river’s edge who seemed more than happy, eager even, to have us stop. Given how remote the area was, I suspected they didn’t get many visitors. As a city girl, I could see the appeal of living far from the masses under the tall forest canopy, with only the sounds of birds, frogs, and monkeys. This had to be one of Earth’s last remaining paradises, recalling places written about by 19th-century explorers. No roads at all. At night nothing but stars and the pale light cast by the moon. It was surreal. The couple had created a beautiful floating garden that I hoped to emulate someday when I got back to civilization—whatever that meant. They stuffed us with papaya and delicious pink juice made from a local fruit I had never heard of, and told us stories about saki monkeys. I would have gotten more excited had our first sighting not been in their pot.
We spent two days there, resting and taking refuge from the rains, and then it was time to push on. We traded some of my batteries and a lighter for papaya, the mystery fruit, and condiments. As I looked back, the couple stood waving, and I was sure there was a tear in the woman’s eye. I knew exactly how she felt. For two days the place was magical, but I don’t think I could have lasted there very long. The only buzz in these parts came from bees.
Another day passed, and we continued on our journey to find the rare monkeys. At that point I wanted to proclaim all monkeys in Guyana, except howlers, extinct. And then for the first time…SAKI MONKEYS! I screamed, “Look, sakis!” Dr. Handso
me asked where. “There! In that tall tree!” I took a GPS reading, jotted our sighting in my waterproof notebook with my waterproof pen, and followed the creatures until the sun went down.
I was officially a scientist.
As we were drifting to sleep that night, we heard loud splashing in the direction of our boat. I stumbled to turn on my headlamp and prayed it was not a port knocker who had found us. I saw not one but two intruders. Inside our canoe, a couple of very large, curious river otters were playing with our gear. They jumped out at the sight of my light. It made an already good day perfect.
Feeling optimistic and reenergized, we continued our search. Along the river’s edge, we spotted sakis again. But what were they doing in a group? These were supposed to be monogamous creatures, their units consisting of only male, female, and offspring. Monogamy had disappointed me once again. I came to realize later that this was a very interesting finding, indeed, and that it had recently been written up in a scientific journal.
We spent a few weeks hacking through thick forest, following the animals as best we could. I was no longer as terrified of tarantulas as the first time one perched on my backpack, though I still scoured the forest floor with my light at night. My eyebrow tweezers, which had been ridiculed by my colleagues, got new respect as the favorite tool for removing ticks and leeches from hard-to-reach areas. I learned that, in addition to the havoc wreaked by leafcutter ants, leaving boots out overnight was a very bad idea because of all the things that could crawl inside, which you only discover after you’ve given them your foot for breakfast.
I had also found various clever ways of avoiding our assistant’s request to help trap the very large and deadly fer-de-lance snakes. Her brother, in particular, had a fascination with these animals and wanted us to help stuff them into a box for closer observation. Luckily, they were only able to find one on their own. I never let on that I seemed to trip on these fearsome snakes at every bend.
The snakes and tarantulas were a small price to pay for the beauty of Guyana’s interior. Nothing describes a wonder like Kaieteur Falls. This waterfall is about five times higher than the more well-known and relatively wimpy Niagara Falls and about twice the height of Zimbabwe’s Victoria Falls. Its distinction lies in the unique combination of height and volume, making it one of the most powerful waterfalls in the world. It is no less than a four-hour vertical climb from the base at around 280 feet to the summit at just under 1,900 feet. One point on the hike is now officially called the Oh My God, as that’s what people say when they realize what they have to climb. I was grateful to be as fit as a professional cheerleader.
Perhaps more impressive than its size is the fact that the waterfall sits in a nearly pristine rain forest atop an ancient plateau known as the Guyana Shield. This geological phenomenon is said to be the oldest layer of rock on Earth, at 2.99 billion years. On the edge of the plateau I got to see some rare wildlife, such as the golden frog and the harpy eagle, and tracks of the elusive jaguar. Every winded step was made worthwhile.
Kaieteur Falls is said to be named after an Amerindian chief by the name of Kai, who canoed over the falls to his death. Apparently, he did this in order to protect his tribe from a rival Carib tribe and the disease that had affected them. The word teur is native Amerindian for “falls.” Whether Kai’s sacrifice worked is unrecorded, but I have to wonder how plunging to your death over a waterfall would act as a vaccination, however good the intention. There are still no safety rails at Kaieteur Falls, and approaching its edge is risky. But looking over its rim, I could feel the power. Before I knew it, my arms lifted, and I felt I could take to the air and soar. Perhaps the great Amerindian chief had felt a similar compulsion.
The Guyana expedition was soon over, and I returned safely to the joys of hot showers, electricity, and a comfy bed, but I was a different person. Comfort could not keep me around for long. I had been bitten by the bug, quite literally. I switched majors and applied to the top-rated anthropology graduate department in the country, at Stony Brook University, where I would go on to pursue a Ph.D.
I would return to Guyana the next year, just long enough to almost die. As earlier recounted, that return trip ended a few weeks short, with my hands becoming increasingly more swollen and red. By the end, they looked as if I had dipped them in a pot of scalding water they were so blistered and distorted. They got so bad I had to cover them with a blanket in town to avoid the stares.
I never did find out what caused my hands to reach the size of basketballs. Apparently, the red streaks on my legs signaled that I had a blood infection traveling toward the heart, spelling doom. To this day, I do not discuss the details with my mom. But I can’t help wondering if I should have stayed away from the Kool-Aid.
During the course of two expeditions, I had evolved from naive cheerleader to daring explorer. Or perhaps I was a daring cheerleader and naive explorer. Either way, as I lay in a hospital bed for almost two weeks, hooked up to antibiotics and steroids, I never stopped dreaming of my next adventure. After a full recovery I applied for another grant. I had found my calling. Guyana would not be the last place where I contributed my spit to a village meal.
Four
Seduced by Sifakas
JUNE 2, 1997: I walked for hours today with blistered feet, and the only thing that kept me going was thinking about the possibility of seeing one of the rarest and most endangered primates on earth. It amazes me that there are animals we still know nothing about. It has been weeks, and we have only caught glimpses of these forest ghosts. I fear that this expedition will fail. I fear for their future. These strange creatures leap from tree to tree unaware that they and these forests are on the verge of extinction.
I had come to Madagascar to do what no other man or woman had done before, to look for and study an almost extinct form of lemur called Perrier’s sifaka. There were no photographs of these animals, only line drawings. A sobering article entitled “Death Row” in a 2000 Time magazine declared the animal nearly vanished. I was going in search of one of the most critically endangered primates in the world.
I learned later that, although nothing was known about the Perrier’s sifaka, a beautiful, all-black, elusive creature that lives in a forest in Madagascar’s northeast, I was not the first to attempt to study it. A number of highly respected primatologists had tried. After a fleeting glimpse, or at most a momentary observation, these researchers, one by one, had returned empty handed. Seems like these ancestral primates sometimes dubbed “dumb monkeys” were capable of outrunning, if not outsmarting, world-renowned scientists. Desperate to learn about this mysterious tree dweller and to make a small dent in the science, I became passionate about studying them.
It may not surprise you to learn that most donors were hesitant to hand a former cheerleader a wad of money and send her off to one of the most isolated regions of Madagascar in search of a needle in a haystack. But one grantor did. His name is Russell Mittermeier, president of Conservation International, a primatologist and herpetologist with a Harvard Ph.D., a successful activist, and a kid at heart. With an enviable head of thick gray and white hair, Russ continues to collect Tarzan novels and memorabilia, and his sense of wonder and amusement is intact after more than 30 years of fieldwork. For fun he still likes to go out and catch frogs. Perfectly at home in the forest, he himself is not unlike Tarzan.
Thanks to Russ, I found myself in Madagascar, and one day I ran into him on the streets of Antananarivo, the capital, recognizing him instantly from his picture in Time magazine, in which in 1998 he’d been named one of the “EcoHeroes for the Planet,” and in the many books he had written. We agreed to meet for lunch that day. I not only wanted to thank him for his financial support, I also wanted to pick his brain about the black ghosts I was going after. Russ had been one of the lucky few to briefly see these sifakas while researching a feature he was writing for Outside magazine. Sitting in the restaurant of one of the city’s ritziest hotels, the Hilton, Russ warned me of the difficulties I woul
d encounter. The list was long. I studied his face and the charming, nonchalant way he talked about his travels and adventures. Here was an academic legend, a hero in the flesh. I found myself with a bit of a schoolgirl crush and awed that I, a poor excuse for a Jane, was having lunch with Tarzan.
As Russ spoke, I began to identify qualities in him that I like to think I possess myself. He is a go-getter. His curiosity and passion are insatiable. And best of all he likes to follow his gut, which must be what caused him to take a chance on me. It was clear that, like me, he was a bit of a paradox. While he could endure the grueling heat of the jungle and months of living out of a tent, he also had a taste for the finer things in life. A wine connoisseur, he was as comfortable talking to the A-list celebrities he entertained at fund-raisers as to village elders. As we sat and ate what would be my last good meal for quite a while, I knew he liked my enthusiasm and felt he noticed the same stubborn qualities in me that had led to his own success. With a boyish laugh, he asked me about having been an NFL cheerleader. I could tell he would soon become the one cheering me on. “You’re going to go far,” he said. With that, he sat back, smiled, and continued to ask about my days as a pom-pom girl. I think the fact that I had been a cheerleader had only helped seal the deal. Perhaps he saw in me some Jane and just enough Tarzan.
That I would “go far” was an understatement. To see this lemur, I had already traveled halfway around the globe. From Miami, I’d flown across the Atlantic to Paris, then through the islands of Réunion and Mauritius to Antananarivo. Almost 48 hours after setting off, I had landed in Madagascar. The final leg, to Antsiranana, on the northernmost tip of the island, would be reached aboard an old prop plane.