Sunday 20 November
Woke up at 6.30 after another lovely lullaby storm slumber. Albert arrived round 7
and I tooled around on his motorbike for a bit. Waited at the trailhead. Went into
forest. Chilled while trackers fanned out ahead. Sly buggers came back with downcast
faces only to switch on the smile with the good news that bonobos had been found.
Brief trek and found some motion in the canopy. A few bonobos had settles here for
an afternoon siesta. I lay back against a tree directly under an infant and closed my eyes awhile in solidarity. We sat silently for about 20mins then the infant above us
woke up. His first reaction was to through some shit down at us. He then gave a
wakeup squeal and suddenly the whole area was hooting and squealing from all
angles. I had no idea so many were napping with us. For a good while they frolicked in the canopy. I counted about nine. Took me awhile to get my new binoculars
oriented on a particular bonobo, but once I did, it was like Imax- my whole field of vision was beautiful, graceful, dignified bonobo.
(Photo- Martin Bendeler)
Sometimes they would just step off a 50m branch like a Wall St suicide, plunging
down to a desired level then lazily put out a hand to grab a branch as if it had taken an express elevator down. Or they would bounce up and down on a protruding branch as
if on a divingboard, to get extra spring for a launch to another tree. Other times they would slide fireman-style down a slender branchless tree trunk. With their
hypersexual reputation in mind, I immediately thought of poledancing. Yet they projected dignified equanamity, confidence, charisma, authority and power.
Sometimes they would calmly look directly at me and I wondered what they made of
these metallic things sticking out from my eyes and my khaki plumage.
They didn't really interact with each other so much. Felt a bit perverted wishing that
apes would have sex for my viewing pleasure. They quite rightly didn't give me the
satisfaction. They moved as a dispersed group in a general direction and we followed from varying distances. Sometimes I would watch one relaxing in a crook of a tree, one leg gracefully stretching straight up, the other plucking some leaves to munch.
Another time one male sat on a branch like a teenager, legs swinging under him,
shoulders hunched, silhouetted as he contemplated the sunset. I was too busy
watching someone else through my binoculars but Paul saw a female clamber down a
tree about 10 metres away and gracefully skip by on two legs across a mossy fallen
log. So excited following alongside the bonobos that I didn't notice the long afternoon shadows and shafts of cathedral light or my grumbling tummy or parched throat. Just
as we were about to leave, a young adult male came halfway down a very close tree
and regarded us, as if giving a parting favour by posing for a photograph.
Leonard led us back to our campsite. Ate rice, pineapple and beef jerky by campfire.
Fireflies, stars through the canopy, phosphorescent leaves in the moonlight. Spoke
with Paul until relatively late (i.e. 8.30) then entered my virgin tent. Trackers snored
nearby under the stars on bamboo beds hastily hacked together by machete. They will
wake at 3am to check on the bonobo nests then we will head out together to see how a bonobo greets the day...
