With the hazy dawn light barely creeping in through the wondows of the Voltsberg research centre...amid the eerie morning chorus of the howler monkeys, I dragged myself from my hammock (without a doubt the most comfortable piece of jungle furniture), as we had been invited to go and see a nearby troupe of monkeys by two resident Dutch primatologists. Young, mellow, happy and very in tune with their surroundings they marched us off into the jungle. With months of studying and well-trained eyes they lead us almost straight to them, and there we sat locked in a strange duality of watching-you-watching-me for well over an hour. To see monkeys in a zoo is one thing, but to see our closest animal relatives running around thir endless canopy/climbing-frame, is a mesmerising and wonderful experience. I could have stayed longer but for the long walk ahead.

A new trail ..... what trail? Straight away it's blindingly obvious that without our accomplisheed Kwinti guides leading, we'd have lost our way in minutes ... it's the real thing completely enveloped in a steamy tangled green mass of life. Negotiating all manner of new obstacles we pushed on..... muddy swamps, mossy rocks, palm needles and dangling tree vines knocking our awkward loads... this was no ordinary "walk in the park"..... Stopping only briefly to replenish by cool jungle streams Raymond our "man of many talents", head guide, reminded us of the one step forwards two steps backward sense of jungle timing: "Only half an hour" (but wasn't that an hour ago?).

Finally we dropped our packs under a proud granite monolith at the base of Von Stockholm, and almost completey drained did shamefully little as, with intense purpose, and centuries of inherant jungle knowledge behind them, Raymond and his two helpers, Gorden and Pistol built a house... In a couple of hours of acutely accurate machete-wielding activity, it was done. And I now feel twice the city-boy I was this morning. As the magical last rays of light capture columns of smoke from our campfire the surreal and beautiful scene is amplified as Pistol (fishing one day a piranha chewed his index finger into permanent firing mode) hangs the hammocks and sings a hypnotising song to announce our arrival and peaceful intentions to the jungle spirits.........

What a day........ which is my hammock...........!

Jay

Primatologists

Building Camp