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.