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| Baboons on shore of Lake Tanganyika - Gombe Stream |
I awoke to the sound of measured footsteps on the pebbled beach and quickly zipped out of my sleeping bag. Two short steps later, I was out of my closet-size room and in the communal eating area of the hut looking through the steel-mesh enclosure that separated me from the jungle. An askari was approaching. His heavy-cotton uniform was a stylized composition of color: a reckless meld of giraffe, zebra, leopard, and eland in camouflage hues. The soles of his falling-apart combat boots flopped about like a pair of fish out of water. He had come to guide us over the Rift Escarpment, into the wilds, so our group could observe Gombe chimpanzees in their natural habitat.
Our group of seven was once part of a larger group that had completed then split off from an expedition whose purpose was to retrace the route of newspaperman Henry Morton Stanley to find Dr. David Livingstone, an early European explorer. Our trip to Gombe Stream National Park in Tanzania was our reward for surviving the grueling safari.
Our journey to Gombe had begun in a small fishing village on Lake Tanganyika where we hailed passage aboard a boat by waving a white t-shirt from shore. Several boats of various sizes and shapes skimmed by before we attracted a small boat crewed by two Tanzanians. We negotiated a fare of 10,000 schillings ($50 U.S.) for our group’s 10-mile passage aboard Inkunge.
Inkunge was a modest boat about 12-feet long with three horizontal planks for passenger seating. The vessel was rough-hewn: a montage of weathered wood held together by industrial staples. A Johnson-25 outboard motor clung to Inkunge’s stern, and a four-prong anchor hung from her bow. She was a slow-leak of a boat: a rusty metal bailing bucket was continuously in use by one of the boatmen. There was not a single life jacket on board and, with some reluctance, our group crowded into Inkunge.
As we made laggard passage northward on the great African lake, one of the boatmen held up an empty fuel can in viewing range of every village that we passed. The third village was covered in smoke that spewed ash from a searing fire. Villagers formed a line from the lake to the burning huts on the hills, passing buckets of water hand-to-hand in a tedious but determined effort to douse the blaze. At village four then village five, the boatman continued to hold up the fuel can. A villager in the sixth village en-route to our destination flagged us to shore. There, our boatman purchased enough fuel to complete our two-hour passage to Gombe. One of the women in our group, a flight attendant, who had traveled to Africa many times said, “TAB! That’s Africa Baby!”
As a United States citizen traveling in Africa for the first time, I learned firsthand that TAB is waiting many days for a “scheduled” train, plane or dhow to arrive, then, once aboard, waiting longer. TAB is where every road was an unpaved, battered washboard populated by work trucks, flesh-eating ants, and barefoot villagers who muddled through the scat and tracks of wild animals carrying stupendous loads. TAB is where the villagers ask to touch your straight, blond hair then offer you a chai, a chapatti, and a chair while they inquire about your watch, your hiking boots, your compass, and your clothes. TAB is where one-half bar of soap and one-third roll of toilet paper is meant for two people for a four-night stay in a “hotel” with no electricity or running water. TAB is where wild herd animals lope across the savannah by day, and lions prowl at night, roaring just outside the campfire.
TAB was our first look at Gombe from Inkunge on Lake Tanganyika where we were enamored by thatch dwellings and a baker’s dozen of baboons on the beach. We had come to see chimpanzees and were unaware that Gombe Stream was also home to several troops of baboons. From the lake looking toward shore, it appeared as if the baboons had built the low thatch dwellings, and we were the human extras in Planet of the Apes. The scene was complete when we disembarked and a sign on shore warned:
“...obey all rules or you may be responsible for the shooting of a wild animal, an animal who has more right to live in Gombe National Park than you do. You are entering his home. Please do not endanger his life.”
A short time later, on my return trip from the Gombe Stream jungle outhouse, I had occasion to heed the wildlife warning. The number one rule for the remote outhouse is to keep it locked from the outside so a human will not find it already occupied by a baboon or a chimpanzee. Once inside the outhouse, a sign instructed me to lock the door not for privacy, but to prevent a startling visit from a curious primate. I completed the locking in followed by the locking out, then bounded down the path toward the lake just as a slender green snake slithered into the privy.
In the middle of the path, blocking my way, was a large male baboon. A boulder with eyes, he looked impassable. When having a chance encounter with a baboon, the askari had advised our group that one should squat low and avoid eye contact. To do otherwise may result in a boxing match. I averted my eyes quickly and squatted lower than a toadstool. Time passed. My legs ached; still I was afraid to look at the path ahead. When I finally glanced up, the path was clear and I proceeded to the lake with caution.
Bathing in Lake Tanganyika was an exceptional luxury in Tanzania. While on The Stanley Expedition, our group had to bypass many water activities for fear of contracting bilharzia, a water parasite that burrows through the skin and infests internal organs. My bathing reverie was short-lived, however, when the floppy-soled askari stopped by and said, “No crocodiles have swum in this part of the lake for many years.”
The morning of the next day, the askari came to our hut to guide our group to view the chimpanzees. Living inside the steel-mesh hut was like being in a cage. Though it kept the primates out, it also served to give us humans the experience of what it is like to be on display in a zoo. The baboons stood outside the enclosure and hollered and gawked at us. And, just like those humans who poke at birds in cages, the baboons put their great, dark fingers through the wire openings to jab at us.
The askari led us up into the hills of Gombe with the soles of his boots flapping with military imprecision. I made a mental note that when I returned to the states, I would make a donation to the Jane Goodall Institute to cover the cost of hiking boots for the guides at Gombe Stream.
The day was hot and dry so we stopped at a tall, narrow waterfall to rest. The ground where we sat was wet and mossy. The cadence of the falls seemed to be the music for thousands of butterflies, which hovered about like tender, white cherry blossoms riding the breeze. In the quiet of the moment, I understood why British primatologist Jane Goodall had come to choose her life’s work in Gombe Stream.
We continued the hard hike upward to the escarpment, sometimes catching sight of Lake Tanganyika below. At the top of the rift, the askari signaled us to be still; there were chimpanzees up ahead in the feeding area. The feeding area was open and grassy with the surrounding Equatorial forest and the protective trees being a distance away. On the verge of a close encounter with wild chimpanzees, I recalled the animal advisory tacked to the wall of our hut (emphasis mine):
Chimps are three times stronger than the average man...and have been known to leap up, hit, and pound people who annoy them. And: Chimps have been known to seize, kill and eat small human children... And: If a male chimpanzee charges you, stand up and hold onto a tree. Be calm.
Our group sat tentatively on the dry ground as benign-looking chimps scratched, stretched, ate bananas, and groomed one another. Each time I raised my camera to take a picture, I felt intrusive, like a paparazzi exploiting a celebrity’s privacy. I shot only one photograph. It shows an adult female chimpanzee gnawing on a leafy branch.
I left the group and returned to the hut alone along the beach route. Just outside the hut was a large, vacant tree. I sat down to a simple meal of plantains and rice as a troop of fifteen baboons filled the tree like large plums, their primate scent mingling with my food. The troop played, petted, teased, mated, nursed, frolicked, screeched, scrambled, swung, and otherwise carried on while I observed them behind the safety of the mesh enclosure. Compressed into a single hour in a single tree was a microcosm of a millennium of baboon life. It was wild. That’s Africa, Baby!
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