Chimpanzees?

We were up earlier than the crack of dawn to track chimpanzees in the Nyungwe forest.  Hitching a ride from our guesthouse with some other chimp trackers, we arrived at the rainforest trailhead in the pre-dawn hours.  Facing a bleary-eyed group of nine tourists, our Rwandese guide begins to explain how the morning is going to work.  He is an uncharacteristically small, compact man for a Rwandese, but he certainly knows his flora and fauna, and he has a completely business-like attitude to the preservation of nature in his homeland.  We are not sure whether to be reassured or concerned by the fact that his park ranger uniform is vaguely reminiscent of army fatigues.

Unlike the mountain gorillas, the chimpanzees in Rwanda are not habituated to humans, and so the chances of seeing some are not guaranteed. Including chimps and monkeys in the same eco-tourism schema with the mountain gorillas is a relatively new concept to help protect these other primate habitats. The Rwandese parks ministry, Office Rwandais Du Tourisme Et Des Parcs Nationaux, has only accorded Nyungwe Forest national park status in relatively recent years, and has thus only been tracking the various monkey and chimpanzee groups during that short time frame. And while this means that chimp sitings are not assured, on a positive note, the chimps are still relatively wild and visiting them is about one tenth the cost of seeing the gorillas.

Our guide, whose name we never caught, makes a point of informing us that there are ants on the path through the forest.  "Big deal," we both think, "There are ants everywhere you go."  But we notice that everyone else has hastily tucked the bottom of their pant legs into the top of their socks.  "Soooo...these ants bite?" we ask our guide.  He looks at us wide-eyed, an expression that was to become synonymous with this man, and he nods his head vigorously.  "Army ants," he whispers.  Not caring how stupid we look, we quickly tuck our pants into our socks.

Our group begins down the trail just as the sky begins to lighten up, The Nyungwe rainforest is surrounded by agricultural land, but it does not take long to lose sight of any trace of human influence. The rainforest is dense and green and wet, and even the lightly gravelled trail eventually gives way to a small dirt track. The air is crisp and refreshing, and we take it in with a rejuvenating vigour in the early morning hours.

The group travels in relative silence for a good hour. Suddenly there is movement in the tree tops further along the path. The entire group stops dead, waiting for something to happen. Nothing. We continue.

Another twenty or so minutes pass before more shuffling of vines and leafy branches in the rainforest's upper reaches. A small group of black and white colobus monkeys is scampering about, chasing something deeper into the forest. Our wide-eyed guide informs us of the complicated relationship between black and white colobus monkeys and chimpanzees: the chimpanzees have been known to catch these monkeys and eat them, ganging up and tearing them apart; however, the monkeys still follow troupes of chimpanzees closely, because other monkey predators are scared off by the chimps. Bizarre sounding, but apparently true. The lesser of two evils, one supposes.

By this time we have stepped over a couple of nasty-looking army ant "tunnels". These ants don't form a typical ant hill, instead staying constantly on the move. The soldiers form an outer perimeter or tunnel for the workers to safely crawl through, carrying the burden of whatever victim has recently been dispatched. There are hundreds of thousands of army ants in a single, moving colony. They can tear the flesh from a dead bird in a matter of minutes. They are to be avoided.

We finally meet up with a couple of chimp trackers who have been in radio contact with our guide, in a similar fashion to the mountain gorilla trackers. There is a group of chimps on the move, and the decision is made to abandon the path in favour of trying to cut the chimps off at the pass, so to speak. The trackers move off, and we plunge into the rainforest underbrush. Katherine and I are near the back of the column.

A mere ten meters off the pass and someone is screaming, "Ants!  Aaaaaaah!  Run!" The column suddenly starts moving faster, and it is now apparent why: these army ants are not organized into a neat little tunnel that one can jump over; they are spread all over the forest floor! We hop/run through the mass of ants, nearly stumbling down the slope that we are descending. On the other side of danger we're all stamping our feet, trying to get any brazen soldier ants off our shoes and socks before they can crawl under our clothing.  Man, those little buggers are fast!

An ant has attached himself to the outside of Katherine's sock, and she makes prompt work of him...or so she thought.  Squeezing and pulling on his body to kill him, Katherine manages merely to decapitate the little bastard--but only because she's pulled the body off of his head, which refuses to release its mandibles from her sock!  In fact, the mandibles seem to pinch even harder in death, as Katherine is completely unable to get the ant head to relinquish its grip on her clothing. Ultimately, she only gets the ant off her sock by tearing it off, thus ripping a hole in the fabric. Vicious little buggers!

We start walking again, but only a few steps further and the young British guy, Rob, directly ahead of us starts screaming; an ant has crawled all the way up his walking stick and has clamped on to the fleshy bit between his first and middle finger. Somewhat in shock, he swats at the attacker, but is too late: the any is already firmly attached. He watches in distressed fascination as he can see the ant's mandibles get closer and closer together beneath the surface of his skin. Rob manages to decapitate the ant like Katherine did, but the head is still firmly attached. It takes some effort and some more screaming to pull the head lose, and now blood is flowing freely down his hand. We do another quick check on ourselves and each other for errant assailants.

It is now mid-morning, and although the sun is high in the sky we are shaded in the dense foliage of equatorial rainforest. We've now been trekking through the forest for nearly three hours, and the chimps are proving elusive. There has been the odd rustling in the treetops, but we always seem to be chasing it, never meeting it.

As if on cue, there is some inhuman screeching from the forest canopy above our heads.  In the distance, more shrieking, many different voices, as if to answer that which came from above us. It is the cliched, "Ooo-ooo-ooo! Aaah-aah-aah!  Eeee-eee-eeeeeeeeeee!", but it does not seem out of place here; in fact, it is chilling to hear these ancestral primate calls in the muggy Rwandan forest. The silence of the morning has been shattered.

We've all stopped dead in our tracks, uncertain as to whether or not we should proceed. More screeching from ahead in the forest, and although we are craning our necks and squinting our eyes, we can see nothing in the shadows of the treetops. Branches and vines are swaying back and forth. There is much movement, and more shrieking. Something is back there.

Our little Rwandese guide, wide-eyed, turns to us, and with a completely dead-pan expression, proclaims: "There are many."

The voice from above us has moved a little now, and we hurry through the underbrush to catch up. We catch a shadowy glimpse of something swinging through the trees. Fleeting glimpses, nothing more.

Then it stops. The branches have ceased moving. Silence again, save for a bird somewhere in the distance. Hidden by foliage, we move slowly and quietly to try to gain a vantage point. The male chimp comes into view for just a moment. He is high in the trees, shrouded by rainforest growth. He makes eye contact, gauging us mere humans on the forest floor suspiciously, pausing for only that brief moment before springing through the greenery and out of sight.

That was the only chimp we saw that day. We tried for another hour and half to find the large troupe that we could hear, but ultimately to no avail. We were told later by someone who knows the area that seeing even one chimp is remarkable, so we should consider ourselves lucky.

We do.