Category Archives: Adventures

Rumours of Okapis

Adventures, drc,

In Epulu, we had the privilege to see for ourselves the crazy, wonderful creatures for which the Okapi Wildlife Reserve is named. The first time you see an okapi, you are reminded of those crazy animal displays that did the rounds in Europe when Africa was first “discovered”, showing creatures with, for example, the head of giraffe but the body of zebra. Okapis are definitely weird looking enough to have been in those displays. They look like they were put together from the left-overs: the legs of a zebra, the body of a horse-sized brown antelope and the horns of, quite possibly, a giraffe. They’re like a real-life embodiment of the rumours of crazy animals brought back by long-ago explores. They are, in fact, quite closely related to giraffes (they are giraffids) but look only a very little like them and are much closer in size to a medium-sized horse.

They are also extremely endangered. Unless something miraculous happens, it seems unlikely, in a few years’ time, that there will be any okapis outside of zoos. The reserve is trying to do something about that, both through research and guarding those few okapis that remain in the wild and through a breeding programme. It is as a result of the breeding programme that some okapis are kept at the centre in Epulu where, if you’re as lucky, you can see them up close. This is a unique and precious experience because, as we learnt on the hunting trip, spotting anything in the wild of those rainforests could only be a matter of ridiculous good luck.

We head up to the okapi enclosures in the early afternoon. My day had started with a cup of coffee by the river, where I watched two giant black and white parrots, looking for all the world like gentlemen in white pantaloons and black coats arguing as the hopped from branch to branch. There was a fish eagle, too, and the ubiquitous soaring brown hawks. The pygmies arrived to sell us necklaces and bracelets. We spent the morning lazing in the gazebo by the river and then went into town for an early lunch, enlivened by wondering, as we sat on our rickety chairs in a dark little room, how in the a Saddam Hussein calendar had made its way to this hidden corner of the Congo.

And then there were okapis. They really are incredibly beautiful, if somewhat improbably, creatures. Their bodies are a rich chestnut colour, their legs and hind quarters clear, clean black and white zebra stripes and their faces ghostly, alien faces with exquisitely expressive eyes. It was feeding time and they were definitely inquisitive. Several came up to the fence to find out what was going on. One tried to lick the camera. Another stuck its super-long tongue through the fence and tried to eat the creeper on the other side. Then they’d get nervous and try on their best defensive pose: standing a little way away from us, under a tree, with their tail ends towards the people and peeking over their shoulders to see if we’d gone away.

Staff arrived with wheelbarrows full of leaves. They went into the enclosures and hung them up like clothes on a washing line. Apparently this is entirely necessary; if okapis have to lean down to eat, all the blood flows to their heads and they eventually die. The creatures wandered up to the lines on food and stood there, glancing furtively back at us. Then they’d take a bite and stand, peaking through the curtains of okapi-food leaves while they chewed. Others, clearly more interested in food than people, ignored us entirely and gobbled their way through a whole washing-line of leaves.

I could have watched all day. We took so many pictures of these strange, wonderful creatures. It was as if we were trying to capture them to take home, on the page and screen if nowhere else. I grew up in a land of game reserves. I’ve seen plenty of giraffes and impala and kudu and zebras. I’ve even seen baby rhinos and rare, secretive leopards. Okapis are special, perhaps because they are more rare, occurring only in the fast-dwindling Africa rainforests.

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Post-script

Before we went to the DRC, a journalist we met in Kampala described the situation there as, it’s all okay until it’s not. Okapi Wildlife Reserve really is one of the most magical, wonderful places I’ve ever been and when we were there it was completely safe and peaceful. Unfortunately, things don’t always stay that way. During June, the headquarters of the Okapi Wildlife Reserve in Epulu were attacked by a rebel group, apparently in retaliation for their work to prevent elephant poaching. Two guards were killed, buildings destroyed and offices ransacked. One of the surviving guards walked all night to Mambasa to call for help and the Congolese army, the FARDC, headed for the area to restore order. Early reports indicated that the village was deserted and the pygmies had fled. All of the okapis we saw at the centre were killed. While this is a devastating blow, the Okapi Wildlife Conservation team are determined to rebuild and are currently raising funds to support the families of those who were harmed, to restore the town and the facilities and to get back on track to conserve the okapis. Hopefully, one day soon, it will again be possible for others to experience the magic of Epulu. Until then, the Okapi conservation team could use all the help they can get.

Hunting with pygmies

Adventures, drc,

Not a lot of people spend Christmas Day in a rainforest hunting with pygmies. Not a lot of people ever get the chance. Not a lot of people take the chance of travelling this far and this far away from the “normal” and the familiar. Christmas afternoon in 2011 was just that for me.

We headed into the forest with a guide from the reserve. This time we were allowed to go in, knowing that we wouldn’t get lost. We turned off the road and started along a path. Soon, the forest surrounded us. High above, anthills clung to giant branches. Bugs buzzed and crawled. Plants grew up above head-height, making it impossible to see around the next bend in the path. The ground was wet. Everything was damp and clammy and humid. The path twisted and wound through the jungle. The trees soared above us. I don’t think I’ve ever seen trees that tall. High, ancient giants. I wonder how old they might be.

We find the pygmies in a clearing, where they have made a fire and sit smoking. Rumour has it they use marijuana in their preparations. They finish their hunting ritual and our cheeks are dotted with charcoal from their fire. Quietly, inconspicuously, several pygmy men lift coils of what appears to be rope, coils almost as big as they are and slip off into the jungle. We hurry along behind them, slipping and chattering and inhaling occasional spider-webs.

After a while, we stop. Ahead of us, stretching far to right and left, they have set up nets. What looked like ropes were rope nets, now expertly attached to branches and bushes and tree-stumps. Around us, one or two pygmy people ready their bows and arrows and settle down to wait, while the others melt into the trees.

We stand, quietly. Birds call, insects chirrup. Occasionally someone changes position and snaps a twig. It sounds like a gunshot in the quiet. After a while, we hear eerie cries from the forest. Slowly, they come closer and closer. Some are like birds, some like wild dogs, some impossible to describe. So strange, so unfamiliar. So eerie.

The hunters slowly come into view. Fanned out in a semi-circle, they draw nearer, slowly, inexorably, beating the leaves with sticks and calling their eerie cries.

This is how they hunt. Calling and crying and sending small antelope into the nets to be captured and killed with arrows and bows. This time they are unsuccessful. Perhaps because the clumsy outsiders have scared off their prey.

We head to a different place to try again. It is incredible to experience. The eerie calls in the dense rainforests. The weary eyes and solemn faces of the pygmies. Their incredible deftness at setting and taking down their nets. The quiet and the waiting. I find myself noticing the insects and the trees and the looks that pass between a young pygmy man and a woman with carrying a baby. On their last try, it looks like they have caught something, but the pygmies are unlucky today. We head back towards the road, knowing that we will probably never experience anything like this again.

The humidity in the rainforests was terrible and stepping out onto the road is a relief. Two of us head to the town to pick up supplies (i.e. water and beer). While we are there, a huge thunderstorm builds up. A cold wind stirs the dust and swirls the leaves, rattling bottles and rooves. As we walk back, the storm breaks. Glorious, cool drops of soaking rain shatter down around us. By the time we get back to the house, we are soaked. The rain pours. The storm is beautiful. We sit down to Christmas dinner, in the candlelight, as thunder rumbles and lightning flashes outside our stone house, deep in the rainforests on the bank of the Epulu river.

Okapi Wildlife Reserve, Epulu, DRC

Adventures,

The Okapi Wildlife Reserve is a magical, magical place. It sits in the middle of the world’s second-largest rainforests, which, like the Amazon rainforests, hide weird and wonderful creatures, so crazy many people have a hard time believing they exist.

We arrive on a Saturday afternoon, after a long and miserable bus trip from Bunia. The guard meets us at the registration office and checks us in. We have booked months earlier, via email and fax. A letter from the reserve confirming our booking was necessary to apply for our visas.

Two twin rooms, one single room. He leads us off to the accommodation. We’re staying right on the Epulu River. The river is huge – a wide, rushing world of water, with birds fishing and islands in the middle. We discover later that what we’re looking at is only half the stream; the river here is split into two. Epulu River is a tributary of the Congo River. The seed is planted of dream of travelling on a boat up that mightiest of African waterways.

We’re staying in one main house and one rondavel. It seems no-one else is here. We let the guys stay in the house and the two girls take the rondavel. It’s perfect. Three windows look out towards the river, maybe 10m from our door. Inside, the two single beds sit comfortably under a huge mosquito net, one that doesn’t have holes in it. There is a bookcase and a desk and three chairs with a coffee table. Outside, in the impossibly tall trees, monkey chatter and leap and play.

The main stone house has a covered veranda looking out at the river and a lounge and dining room where we gather for meals and in the evenings. The place has electricity some of the time, so computers and mobile phones can be charged in the lounge. Not that phones are important – there is no mobile phone reception at Epulu.

There is also, to our great joy, a block with toilets and showers and running water. The window of one of the showers looks out at the river. The kind of luxury for which you would pay thousands of rands in most places. We all feel very lucky to be here.

For the first time in days, we spend an evening together, just us, at the place we are staying. We take pictures of the river at sunset. A lady from the village, organised through the reserve, comes in to make us dinner. Bush meat, rice and vegetables, washed down with the inevitable Primus.

After dinner, we sit outside on the veranda and watch the river and chat. We have the music on in the background. At about 10pm, the electricity goes out and we light the lamps instead. Someone gets out the fiery poi. Later, when the stars are out, we walk up to the bridge to take pictures and simply enjoy the beauty of the night-time river. The stars are amazing, the night is beautiful, the river sounds are lovely. It is humid and warm and peaceful. A group of people walk past us on their way home from church and greet us cheerfully.

I wake the next morning just as the sun begins to peak through the early morning mists. Outside I can hear the rushing river. By the riverside, two bright green tropical parrots leap from branch to branch. Monkeys came down from the ancient trees to see what is happening. The air was rich with the sounds of birds. One, I still wish I knew which, sounds like liquid music. It is exquisite. There is a thorn tree, an acacia like those at home, but this tree’s yellow flowers all look like they were wearing pink feathered head-dresses.

Breakfast is omlettes and bread and we open the cheese we have brought from Bunia. Cheese for Christmas. The morning is lazy and peaceful. At about 11am, we go up to the gate and get the guards, with their machine guns, to pose for a Christmas picture with us and the blow-up Santa Clause we’d picked up in Bunia. The guards were wonderfully friendly and more than willing to be in our picture.

Around lunchtime, we wander along, across the bridge where we’d been the night before and across the second bridge, towards the dense rainforests. We are about to venture into the forest, in search of the old broken wooden bridge we could see from the road when the local people stop us. We would learn later that they did this entirely for our own good – we would have been lost in those forests within a few minutes and quite possibly never found again.

Instead, they lead us through an open gate and down to the rocks by the river, near the second bridge, to a spot where the pygmy children like to play. We sit on the rocks and watch the local children. Several of the elders sit with us, although age is so difficult to determine when the people are all smaller. I’ve never seen pygmy people before. It’s odd. It’s a little like walking into a history book to meet a people who are almost gone. But also seeing that they are ordinary people.

Sitting quietly on the rocks, I am so aware of the river. Down here, we are looking across the water at the forests rising from the river’s edge. One tree grows in the middle of the river, white-water rapids visible through a hole in its roots. Near to where I sat, navy blue and red dragon flies hover and flit across the water. Young pygmy men fish in this river. We see them one morning casting their nets in the river outside our rondavel. Another time we watch them barter, negotiating the value of their fish.

It is blisteringly hot and humid when we go back to our house to rest and get ready for an afternoon of adventure.

The days pass slowly here, filled with so much and yet somehow restful. One afternoon one of our group spends hours sitting under the trees near the okapi enclosures, recording the sounds and the light of the forest. I find a million chances to use my new binoculars and see all the birds and the creatures around the river. We rest, sometimes together, sometimes alone. All of us spend time writing, capturing thinking. It is as if we have found a secret safe space, away from the rush and the cellphones and the constant edge of danger that permeates everything in the Congo. Months later the park is attacked by rebels but those days we spent by the river were peaceful and happy, unexpectedly perfect.