The Kwinti - Old Ways
New Trail
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
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Primatologists
Building Camp
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