Pink Boots and a Machete

by Mireya Mayor

  It was only when we arrived in Ujiji that we could look back and take in the full scope of the expedition. Our journey had begun more than four weeks before, 20 miles off the coast of eastern Africa. We four modern-day explorers had sailed toward the unknown, into the deep interior of Tanzania. We had traveled through the most stunning, epic, and unforgiving African terrain, fraught with danger. We had argued incessantly and sometimes laughed till it hurt. Now, as we approached a mango tree–lined avenue, it looked like the Garden of Eden, little changed from Livingstone’s and Stanley’s day. We were about to stand in the very spot where Stanley met the great explorer and uttered his immortal words, “Dr. Livingstone, I presume.”

  The immense hardships and dangers of the trip and the pain of missing my children seemed small prices to pay for the pride and joy I felt at that moment. As we turned the corner, we were surrounded by thousands of people who had come to celebrate our journey. The locals danced and clapped, overwhelming us.

  For the first time in the entire expedition, we walked side by side.

  Despite our differences, we had persevered, had survived one of history’s most treacherous expeditions, and would now forever share memories and a bond that few others could ever know. Benedict, Pasquale, the Maasai, and I forged a friendship that will last a lifetime. I still talk to them—or in the case of the Maasai, email them—regularly. (Unfortunately, Kevin to this day has kept his distance.) My two most prized possessions came from this journey. Rafael, one of the Maasai, gave me his warrior shield, which now hangs proudly in my living room, and months later, Pasquale gave me the very compass that got us through it, engraved.

  My hero, David Livingstone, died in Zambia on May 1, 1873, from malaria and internal bleeding caused by dysentery. He was found kneeling in prayer at his bedside. Britain wanted his body for a proper ceremony, so his loyal attendants Chuma and Susi carried it on a dangerous, 11-month journey to coastal Bagamoyo (where we started our expedition) and handed it over to the British authorities for transport and burial in Westminster Abbey. Before the body departed, however, a tribesman who knew Livingstone’s deep love of Africa cut out his heart and buried it under a tree near the place he had died. It was what Livingstone would have wanted.

  After this expedition, it is, I thought, what I would want, as well.

  Fourteen

  Machismo, Gorilla Porn, and My Worm

  JULY 1, 2009: By the road, a man pushed a wheelbarrow holding two plastic bags with pictures of the Eiffel Tower. He was well dressed, and under different circumstances he could have passed as a real estate agent or a banker. But what he carried in those French bags would reveal his profession. As he opened them to show passersby, I could see the anorexic carcasses of smoked antelopes. Then the tail of a smoked monkey leaped out as if crying for help. I couldn’t help but think of all the damage we humans have done at the expense of these beautiful, harmless creatures. He then grabbed his bags and entered the restaurant across the street. He came out empty-handed, presumably having sold his goods. It was the very place we had dined the previous night.

  Just 20 years ago, another lost world was discovered in the vast African Congo, revealed from high overhead on a satellite image. This secret swamp, an oasis concealed by hundreds of miles of dense jungle, was christened Mbeli Bai. The great revelation was that previously undiscovered, rare western lowland gorillas regularly visited Mbeli. The entire primatology world immediately sat up and took notice, and the stage was set for an earth-shattering performance.

  Sure enough, in 2003 a female gorilla named Leah did something remarkable.

  Leah was photographed wading across Mbeli Bai, dangerously out of a gorilla’s comfort zone, as gorillas don’t normally go in the water. She then broke off a tree branch and used it to test the depth of the water. Her ingenious tool enabled her to safely navigate the deep swamp. This was a scientific revelation, for in more than a half century of study, no wild gorilla had ever been seen using a tool.

  It was a giant leap for gorillas, one that immediately elevated Leah’s species, in intelligence terms, to the level of their tool-using chimp, orangutan, and human cousins. So who was Leah, this super-brained female? What was her story? Was she just a one-off, the Einstein of the gorilla world?

  Answers came just a year later with a second extraordinary photograph at Mbeli Bai. Sitting at the water’s edge, another female gorilla, called Efi, was struggling to reach plants in the swamp. She solved her problem by leaning on a tree trunk, which balanced her weight, giving her just the extra stretch she needed to pick the deep-rooted herbs. Then Efi improvised again and used the tree trunk as a bridge so as not to get her feet muddy.

  It seems that gorillas are master tool users, so why hadn’t we seen this behavior before? Was it just coincidence that both gorillas spotted using tools were females? Both sightings occurred at the same location—what’s so special about Mbeli Bai?

  Back to the Congo I went to look for answers.

  At Mbeli Bai I met the German researcher Thomas Breuer, who had witnessed and captured the remarkable photographs of the first-ever known gorilla tool use. Thomas had now studied the gorillas of Mbeli Bai for more than ten years and can recognize every individual gorilla in the region. He is a world expert on silverback behavior. Together, Thomas and I observed the gorillas from a 60-foot observation tower.

  I had a theory that was about to seriously rock the boat. Until now, few had dared to question that the giant, muscular silverbacks control gorilla society. When a silverback charges, the ground quakes. Who could argue with that? But it seemed to me there was more to gorilla hierarchy than brawn. I thought it was the females—like Leah—that secretly ran the show with their brainpower. Perhaps coy female apes had been overlooked by researchers, while they quietly reigned from a safe place behind their silverbacks. If I was right, there was a jungle full of female ape rulers.

  That thought reminded me of growing up with three mothers.

  The Congo’s swamps are the only places in the world where hundreds of gorillas regularly converge. Much more than just a feeding place, Mbeli Bai is also the metropolis of gorilla society, where gorillas build lasting relationships over the years, “friendships” that reduce aggression levels. The “bai,” or swampy clearing, is key to understanding gorillas’ unique interactions.

  But when the light fades on Mbeli Bai, the gorillas retreat into the jungle to sleep. The swamp offers only a snapshot of their lives. They spend 80 percent of their time ranging through the thick, dark jungle, where their secrets are safe. There is, however, one place where western lowland gorillas are fully habituated to humans and it’s possible to observe them up close: a bai called Mondika a few hundred miles west of Mbeli.

  My time at Mbeli was over, but that was only the first leg. After a short stint at home, I was headed to Mondika.

  A 17-hour flight took me back to the Congo with a National Geographic crew. The airport at Brazzaville was its usual chaos, with everyone pushing and shoving, cutting in line, rushing to get to customs only to wait there for hours.

  The luggage carousel must have been there for decor, as I had never actually seen it circling. I was relieved when I saw my monster bag being hauled in from the runway. As usual, trying to leave the baggage claim area was a nightmare. The concept of waiting in turn is just not part of the culture. After being shoved to the left and right, we finally made it to customs. The customs officer eyed every page of my passport as I smiled nervously, awaiting the new African stamp that would allow my reentry to this remarkable continent. But we weren’t leaving anytime soon. Together the crew and I had more than 15 bags, and the guard wanted to inspect every single one of them. All the while a dozen porters fought over who would carry our bags out.

  Once we were out of customs, our Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) contact, Rene, and our driver, Patrique, failed to spot us, despite our looking, I thought, incredibly obvious. Cab drivers surrounded us, all screaming that they were the cab next in turn, the
one to overcharge us for the ride to our hotel. After we loaded several cabs, the WCS staff showed up.

  We proceeded to unload our bags and shift them to the WCS pickup truck, with the cabbies yelling that we owed them money. A short ride later we were at the Hotel des Ambassadeurs, hyped to be one of the best hotels in Brazzaville. Once there I was reminded that a four-star hotel in an African town is the equivalent of a half-star hotel in Middle America.

  We set down our gear and headed off for a quick dinner at the Hippocampe. The great thing about the Hippocampe is that you can feast on Chinese cuisine and get Internet access. After some nem, noodles, and Twitter, I popped my daily dose of antimalarial and, back in our half-star resort, slumbered into vivid dreams under my holey mosquito net. I know…

  In the morning, Patrique picked us up more than an hour late, which is on time in Africa, and drove us to the WCS office. We were greeted by the director of WCS Congo, Paul Telfer, a tall, handsome, 40-something man with salt and pepper hair and a friendly manner. It took me a little while to notice that he had only three fingers on his right hand, and I wondered how he had lost the other two.

  Paul let us know that our filming permits were not quite ready and that the Congolese government was making more demands. In lieu of actual fees, it wanted a photocopier, laptop, and projector. He was scrambling around Brazzaville trying to find them and assured us not to worry. Later that afternoon, the government agency also insisted, curiously, that we provide 350 sheets of tin. Paul had whittled them down from 400. We agreed to all of their requests, just thankful we didn’t have to bring the sheets of tin from the States.

  Paul introduced us to Dr. Ken Cameron, a field veterinarian carrying out a project on viruses, with a strong focus on Ebola. A classic example of the kind of emerging virus people fear—it kills both wildlife and humans with horrible efficiency. In people, Ebola causes fever, headache, joint and muscle ache, sore throat, and weakness followed by diarrhea, vomiting, and stomach pain. In addition, many suffer internal and external bleeding. The virus has primarily affected remote villagers who most likely contracted the disease from infected bush meat. In rural Africa, hunting has brought Ebola out of the jungle and into the marketplace. Outbreaks in Congo and Gabon in 2002 and 2003 alone killed as many as 5,500 gorillas and an uncounted number of chimpanzees. It also flared among people in the region, killing dozens.

  Ken and his team were working on developing a vaccine and trying to find ways of administering it to gorillas perhaps via fruit. But that was complicated, as dosage would be difficult to control, and other animals might eat the fruit. He assured us he would contact us if he found any gorilla carcasses. Hazmat suits would be the required attire.

  Later that night we met again with Paul and Ken, this time for dinner. Sitting by the Congo River overlooking Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly known as Zaire), Paul told us stories of living in Sierra Leone during the civil war of the 1990s. He recounted sitting in his car watching guards as one by one they pointed their guns at vehicles lined up at a checkpoint in front of him and pulled the trigger, killing the occupants. He said a guard was poised to shoot both him and his wife, Trish, when another young guard recognized the rat sticker on his car that identified his project. The guard recognized Paul as the man who had saved his mother’s life and yelled, “Don’t shoot! He saved my mom!” They spared Paul and his wife. I wondered if it was during that war that he lost his fingers.

  Four years later, Paul and Trish returned to the war-stricken country and stayed for several more years. He showed us a picture of a chimpanzee that had been anesthetized and pointed to two gloved hands. He said, “Those are my hands. I was helping chimpanzees suffering from Ebola, when one of the chimps turned on me and bit off my fingers.” Just then our appetizers arrived. Finger food.

  Paul warned us that Kingo, the male silverback, and other members of the group that we’d be following for the next several weeks at Mondika get “dangerously close,” especially the two juveniles. If I were to get between Kingo and his kids, I’d be in for it. “Gorillas,” Ken added, “like to bite your head, the worst place to be bitten. Or they aim for the balls.” It would make a wonderful visual. But I felt safer knowing that. Another reason women make good field researchers.

  Back at the hotel, I shuffled into my cocoon of holey mosquito netting, where I transformed into a grumbling grub.

  I emerged predawn, still pretty grublike. The crew and I took an early Air Congo flight to Ouésso in the north. One large waterproof equipment case went missing in transit, but everything else, including my monster bag, arrived. Seconds after we stepped off the plane onto the runway, the skies opened and soaked us and our luggage. A duck wrapped in cardboard was unloaded from cargo; it must have been grateful for the rain shower, probably its last.

  We were met by Rolan, our Congolese guide from WCS. I found myself now the translator, as he had spent 12 years in Cuba and spoke fluent Spanish. We loaded our bags onto the backs of two pickup trucks and headed to the port by the Sangha River, where two pirogues awaited us. Pirogues are normally propelled by oars, but these were motorized and furnished with camping chairs. It would have felt like a relaxing cruise had it not been for the beating sun.

  We passed the Cameroon border and within an hour and a half arrived at the edge of a village, where naked kids played in the river. The children ran out of the water and threw on some tattered clothes, eagerly posing for our cameras. A truck soon pulled up, and we set off on a four-and-a-half-hour bumpy journey to Mondika Base Camp. On the way we passed a few villages and logging trucks loaded with mahogany trees. We eventually arrived, and an Ambien and an antimalarial later, I was out.

  In the morning we loaded the truck once again and drove nearly an hour to the beginning of the trail, where our porters met us. We set off by foot to Mondika and reached a swamp a short time later. Because of the rains, I had imagined a much wider and deeper crossing so was relieved to find the water only thigh high. It was a 20-minute swamp walk, though, and I felt bad for the 16 porters carrying our heavy gear, especially the one who had gotten stuck with the generator.

  Nearly four hours later, we arrived at the Mondika camp to an awkward and lukewarm welcome from Patrice, the site’s Congolese manager. It appeared we had awakened him, and, still groggy, he was not the least happy to find cameras and a crew asking for food and tents. My cameraman, Andy Mitchell, quickly went native, walking around the camp barefoot in his boxers and bathing in the stream by the kitchen area. James Manfull, my producer, spent the afternoon in the out-house. We made a great first impression.

  An Italian researcher named Roberta quickly filled us in on the two gorilla groups we’d be following. She described the two playful juveniles in Kingo’s group and two of the females: Mekome, who liked to stay near Kingo at all times and had a son with him named Ekendi, which means “love” in BaAka; and Ugly, who had furrowed eyebrows and didn’t like people, often taking swats at them and biting three. One of the trackers still bears the scar on his knee. I asked for a good physical description, as I’m keen on keeping my knees.

  The second group was not nearly as habituated, still charging two to five times a day. That group had one very aggressive female that recruited the others to join in. Roberta warned us that the females would come very close and try to grab us by the legs. She cautioned that if the gorillas managed to grab us, they would undoubtedly bite.

  She then enumerated all the other things that would bite us at camp—namely, tsetse flies, filaria-carrying mosquitoes, and, not least, the leeches and black water snakes in the river. I glanced back to see Andy prancing in his skivvies in the leech-and snake-infested water.

  The next morning I woke up at 5 a.m. after having been awake late into the night. Seemed the BaAka workers were a happy bunch and fond of loud music on their crappy transistor radio. But what had really kept me up was the sound of gunshots ricocheting in the dark. This prompted me to search for my knife and keep it nex
t to my sleeping bag. What I would do with it, I had no idea. The next morning everyone said they’d heard the gunshot, too, but had no explanation.

  I walked into the dense forest with the film crew, Patrice, and the trackers. We found Kingo, the gorgeous, 400-pound silverback, nearly 45 minutes into our hike. His juveniles approached me, as I was told they would, and sat a mere three to four feet away. This was absolutely awesome. They began running in circles and chasing each other, and I was careful not to get between them and their father. But we soon got a chest beat and a charge. Not from Kingo, but from the kids, who tried their best to display like their enormous father. They looked disappointed when their efforts elicited only giggles from us, so I shot them a scared look. That seemed to please them.

  It was hot and muggy, and the insects were enough to drive you mad—sweat bees and ants, in particular. That day we spent nearly five hours with the gorillas. Gorillas are big eaters; they munch, belch, and fart all day long. Mostly, we watched them feed on leaves and fruit. Kingo would make contact with the females by approaching them and making deep, short, grunting sounds, before dozing off while the little ones slept only a few feet away. Gorillas spend about 30 percent of the day eating, 30 percent foraging and playing, and 40 percent resting and sleeping. That is really all they do all day. Gorillas, I thought, know how to live.

  We left the gorillas sleeping in the swamps and went back to camp, where, following their example, I ate and went to sleep.

  The following day I was exhausted. I had spent most of the night scratching bug bites, unable to resist the urge. After removing a tick (good ol’ tweezers) from my inner right thigh, I saw that I had an unusual swelling on my leg. Rather than worry about it, I quickly jumped into my clothes and went for breakfast. The dining hall, or “hell,” was filled with filarial flies. I took breakfast to go, opting to eat in my tent even though it felt like an oven. The sun was beating down on it something fierce, but it was the only place to steer clear of the bugs for a while.