The Best of Wanderlust (A GeoEx eBook)

The Best of Wanderlust

Into the Congo

the butterflies that had exploded into the air at my tent and commented on how many there seemed to be here. “That’s a good thing to see,” Karl said. “Butterflies are a sign of a healthy rain forest. A healthy any ecosystem, actually.” How? A butterfly’s biological needs are so precise, their metrics for survival so small, that if you see them recurring year after year, it means the region has a stable enough climate to sustain their annual life cycle. I suddenly marveled at this cluster, a glittering still-life on a steaming pile of poop that was unaware of their role as a spokespecies for the health of the planet. My anxiety began to ripen into awe. As the days passed, I recognized the shapes of plants beyond the dominant marantaceae . Suddenly, no two leaves appeared the same—as though each plant had been confronted with the same question of survival but had come up with a different answer. I came across a species that curls its leaves when touched, and we took turns stroking our fingers down its stem, causing it to shiver and retract. Each time we passed this plant, I paused to tickle it, engaging in a fresh dialogue with the forest that started when the obsession with gorillas ended. One afternoon, as I trailed behind the group, a flicker of movement on the ground beckoned to me. I stepped closer. It was a scene of carnage: an army of ants overtaking a grasshopper. The grasshopper thrashed pitifully. The ants were improbably huge as if each segment of their bodies was magnified 100 times, and they were relentless. I felt a screaming pressure on my calf. My eyes dropped and zoomed to see renegade ants seizing my boots, my socks, the hem of my pants. Sweat formed immediately as ants used their jaws to pick-axe up my legs. A member of our group noticed my panic and shielded me as I tore at my clothes, dislodged the last of the ants and composed myself, but I spent the afternoon slapping intruding hairs away from my face or startling at the

unseemly lunge of a marantaceae leaf. The Congo was a full-body experience, I thought the next day as I stepped carefully over a hissing rope of ants that bisected our trail. It was impossible to appreciate with sight alone. We had come to see gorillas, but for the rest of the trip, we could not rely on our eyes to give us the returns we expected. Rarely did an animal expose itself. Rather, a noise or track would make us twist and contort just in time to see the whip of a disappearing tail or the flash of an iridescent feather. But instead of disappointment, I felt breathless elation as again and again, we experienced meaningful encounters from suggestions of a presence. Karl saw the knuckle-drag of a chimpanzee and his eyes widened as he appealed to us to consider the possibility of our sharing the same space with wild chimps that might never have come into contact with humanity before. As I considered this, I felt a thrill that I had never experienced from staring at something and clicking a shutter. Here was the V-shaped footprint of a Congo clawless otter. A tree that evolved without bark so it wouldn’t be engulfed by strangler figs. A skyscraper of spider webs, built communally, where all spider residents split the spoils that fluttered in. Humans could also eat the web in an emergency situation, we learned, if they were inclined to boil it into a foul-tasting stew. ~~ One morning, we waded across a shimmering bai , a salt marsh rich with minerals, into the jungle. As we neared the edge of the forest, hundreds of green pigeons rose from the trees in a tremendous exhalation. As we stepped into the jungle, smells crawled up my nostrils: rotten and sweet, vegetative and fresh, sticking to my face and clothes. Suddenly, the bush near us spasmed. At the front of our cortege, Karl’s whisper had all the urgency of a scream: “ Bongos! ” We moved clumsily toward the source, hearts pounding, then caught our breaths and squatted to glare through the

24

25