The Best of Wanderlust (A GeoEx eBook)

The Best of Wanderlust

Into the Congo

Three waiting men in khaki stepped forward from a fleet of Land Cruisers. Karl, in his early twenties but with sure-footed confidence, introduced himself as the head guide. We regarded him already with gratitude: Here was the leader who would guide us to the experience of our lifetimes. But there was business to take care of first. Karl confirmed politely with a smile that there were no toilets at the airstrip, only rain forest, and that this would be the reality for miles. Thus prodded, I and two others walked to the edge of the airstrip to take care of business. We folded ourselves, origami- like, to fit into the vegetation. Inside the breathing, heaving forest, we found ourselves completely invisible to each other but observed by hundreds of millions of spoon-billed, heavy leaves that quivered atop slender stems. I felt miles away from the women just a few feet from me. “That is marantaceae !” Karl shouted over the engine as the Land Cruisers muscled into the jungle and spoon-billed leaves slapped against the vehicles. I’d heard the word before in reference to the family of tropical plants that dominated this forest, but the term had been unwieldy and unmeaningful to me. Now, confronted with uncountable billions of marantaceae , I understood the challenge that the researchers in Odzala faced when they first attempted to study the gorillas. Even a family of 400-pound individuals could glide away in this landscape. At camp that night, sipping on fizzy gin and tonics with shreds of lime, we gathered for a briefing on what we were about to experience. Gorillas are dying and their conservation has been mismanaged, Karl explained. They are unlike almost all other species on earth. They have emotions and solve problems; they comprehend some of our language; they are self-aware. Yet as the human population nears seven billion, the western lowland gorilla population plummets toward 100,000. Those dire statistics had brought us here. Some of us had

previously trekked in Rwanda or Uganda to view the mountain gorilla, a species that was—you winced to think of it—even more critically endangered than the gorillas we were about to see. They described those gorillas’ gestures and displays of comfort and affection. They described seeing wonder in the eyes of the babies. They described it as life-changing, mind- bending, activism-inspiring. I was ready for that life-changing moment. I hoped I’d be struck with the same inspirational thunderbolt when a gorilla looked at me. Dr. Magda Bermejo, the project’s leader and chief researcher, joined us after dinner to talk about her work as we reclined on cushions that generously sponged back the moisture of the rain forest. Straightforward and serious, she had dedicated years of research to the preservation of the western lowland gorilla. Over the course of 10 years, she and her team had worked to earn the tolerance of the area’s gorilla families. They had endured the resistance of the marantaceae and a devastating Ebola outbreak. They earned the gorillas’ trust and the community’s support, and laid the foundation of a tourism venture with a set of protocols, accommodations, infrastructure, and a purpose: Bring people here, show them the gorillas, and then send them home to evangelize their plight. Then she said something that surprised me. “In the beginning,” she said, “when guests came, we saved the gorilla tracking for last. Not anymore. You have to go out to see them first, to calm your obsession with gorillas.” She explained that in our lust to encounter these animals, we’d fail to appreciate each part of life that sustains a gorilla: the fruit that they eat, the time of year when the trees drop the fruit, the birds that disperse the seeds of the fruit, the trees that yield twigs for the nests of the birds. “You miss the forest for the gorillas,” she scolded gently. ~~

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