The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - The Telegraph Magazine
Beauty and the beast
Jessamy Calkin’s enchanting encounter with the mountain gorillas of Virunga, the national park drawing nature lovers to Congo
In the Democratic Republic of the Congo there is more lightning than anywhere else in the world. It is an apt metaphor for a country that has been riven by civil war and exploitation, but one that is beautiful and spirited and exciting. And there is nothing more life-affirming than sitting on the magnificent wooden balcony of Mikeno Lodge, which overlooks the forest in Virunga National Park, and staring out at a really violent tropical storm.
Actually there are other things that bring home that thrill of mortality – such as spending time with mountain gorillas and camping on the edge of an active volcano. You can do those at Virunga, too.
Congo is one of the biggest and most beautiful countries in Africa, and Virunga is its jewel, t he oldest nat ional park on t he continent. Established in 1925 by King Albert I of Belgium, it has the greatest biological diversity of any national park in the world – its 3,000 square miles contain all manner of landscapes and wildlife, including savannah, lakes, mountains, rainforest, 703 recorded bird species and two seriously active volcanoes.
I have always been fascinated by Congo, but unt i l fa i rly recent ly it was not safe to visit. But in t he past t wo years, tourism has picked up fast. This is not a place to see the ‘big five’ in a Land Rover convoy with sundowner gin and tonics; it’s a bit more edgy than that.
Anything to do with Congo is edgy; it’s part of its allure. That isn’t to say it’s without royal approval – Virunga enjoys a healthy relationship with the Royal Foundation, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and Prince Harry’s charitable trust, and Virunga’s director, Emmanuel de Merode (himself a Belgian prince), was a keynote speaker at the Duke of Cambridge’s United for Wildlife launch, in 2014.
The most direct way to get to Virunga is to fly to Kigali in neighbouring Rwanda and make the two-hour drive to the chaotic DRC border, close to the city of Goma, near the northern shore of Lake Kivu. Our guide for this trip is Balemba Balagizi, a thoughtful man who is an assistant conservationist at Virunga. Bukima, in the east of the park, is the base camp for seeing the gorillas, set on a cleared ridge of the forest. It has six comfortable tents, and on a clea r night you can see t he f ier y cone of Nyiragongo, which last erupted – catastrophically for Goma – in 2002. Of a world population of about 1,000 mountain gorillas, roughly a third are in Virunga. At 5am, scouts go out to locate them, and after an early breakfast of fruit, French toast and local honey washed down with rich Ugandan tea, we have a briefing from the rangers: put on face masks when encountering the gorillas to spare them the risk of infection; keep seven metres away; don’t use a flash.
There a re nine gor illa fa milies a round Bukima, a nd si x of t hem a re habit uated (meaning exper t rangers have accustomed them to humans). We are divided into small groups according to fitness – so the show-off Americans are assigned gorillas living a threehour uphill trek away, while we make a more sedate journey to visit the Rugendo Humba family (all are named after rangers who have died defending the park), a troupe of nine, including two silverbacks and two babies.
Besieged by but terf lies, we a re led by a ranger with a machete to battle the thick vegetation. After about 90 minutes, he turns and puts his f ingers to his lips. We’re very close now. We put on our masks, and one older man is told to discard his stick – nothing that could be construed as a weapon may be brought into the gorillas’ sector, because although they are used to rangers, they must not become habituated to aggressors. And suddenly there they all are, lolling about, a giant silverback with his chin propped up on his fist like a sullen teenager, his wife sprawled on her back next to him in the dappled sunlight, then climbing over him for a spot of grooming. They look at us with little curiosity – a bunch of tourists in masks is not much cop as far as they’re concerned.
A little one tries to get his parents’ attention, just like a bored toddler – playing with a plastic bag he stole from the army outpost, putting it on his head like a hat. He seems keen to interact with us, but the ranger gently herds him back – this isn’t a petting zoo. When the younger silverback comes closer, in a faintly challenging way, I feel not one iota of fear, just a sense of community and empathy with them. It is a completely extraordinary experience.
An hour passes quickly. The rangers chat to the gorillas in what seems to be their own lang uage, warning them off if they get close. (Innocent Mburanumwe, the deputy director, teaches this to the rangers – his father was a gorilla habituator.) For this is one of conservation’s great success stories: 10 years ago there were only 75 of the primates in Virunga. Now there are 300.
It was not always a happy story. In 2007, nine gorillas were massacred by bandits wanting to exploit the park for logging and charcoal; their thinking was that if there were no gorillas, then there would be no need to protect it. It backfired badly: the incident received worldwide press and there was an unprecedented outpouring of grief among the local people and park employees; the corpses of the slain gorillas were borne through the forest like royalty. Seven of the 12-strong Rugendo family of gorillas, beloved by rangers, including their patriarch, Senkwekwe, were killed.
The gorillas are buried at Virunga’s headquarters, in a special burial ground. Wooden signs mark their graves.
Rumangabo is the HQ of Emmanuel de Merode (he doesn’t use his honorific), who took on the running of the park in 2008, entrusted with protecting the natural resources, bringing stability to the region and prosperity to the local population. Virunga had a golden age in the 25 years preceding the first Congolese civil war – President Mobutu even maintained a camp there – but in the 1990s it was deemed unsafe, and it wasn’t until
Suddenly there they all are, lolling about, a giant silverback with his chin propped up on his fist like a sullen teenager
Chimp stalking entails a hectic early-morning run through the jungle in the company of a super-fit ranger
2014 t hat Vir unga reopened for tour ism.
De Merode, who is an anthropologist and conservationist, is really up against it. DRC has a population of more than 75 million and growing – the average family has 10 children – yet there is no basic infrastructure; the country has been called ‘ungovernable’. But it also has huge resources – copper, coltan (for mobile phones), diamonds – and magnificent landscape. It’s impossible to reduce Congo’s complicated history into heroes and villains, but since Pat rice Lumumba, its first democratically elected leader, was executed in 1961, there has been sporadic chaos and a succession of corrupt presidents.
The current incumbent is Joseph Kabila, who came to power in 2001 aged 29, 10 days after his father, Laurent, was assassinated by one of his bodyguards. Kabila jr snatched a second term in 2011 (after an election tainted by fraud), and was due to step down when his political mandate expired in December, but is still there. Like many African leaders, he has no exit plan, and now there is predictable unrest as things hang in the balance. His personal fortune has been estimated by Forbes to be $10 billion; the country’s national budget is $6 billion.
After decades of war in which millions have died, Congo’ s citizens are weary. Recently, de Merode has made great inroads, enhancing the lives of local people by providing hydroelectricity, with funding from the Howard G Buffett Foundation.
Emmanuel de Merode is a modest man who rejects the status of hero that he deserves. With his stalwart team of rangers, he has defended the park against rebels and poachers, and against attempts by the Londonbased oil company Soco International to drill there. All this was captured in the film Virunga (made by Orlando von Einsiedel and Joanna Natasegara), a documentary about the park, which was nominated for an Oscar in 2015.
In 2014 de Merode was shot twice, having just delivered a report on Soco’s activities in Virunga to the government. He recovered, but no one has been charged with this crime. Soco has now withdrawn from the park. There are still some rebels hiding out, but only in certain areas where tourists are not allowed, and in general Virunga National Park is thriving, with animal populations proliferating.
The park is well protected by its 600 rangers, but the cost has been high: it’s a dangerous job. They defend the park against not only poachers but also illegal fishermen and charcoal burners, who operate kilns deep in the forest. To date, more than 150 rangers have been killed by poachers and rebel militias. But it is a good life compared with most in Congo: the rangers are well trained, and they are properly fed and housed. Last year there were 6,500 applicants for 120 places. There are 27 female rangers, who endure the same rigorous tests as the men – one of them, Xaverine, finished second overall in her cohort; she is now one of de Merode’s body guards. All are devoted to Virunga and its causes.
The rangers are based in Rumangabo, where Mikeno Lodge is. The drive from Bukima to Mikeno is a bumpy one. In Virunga, offroading is compulsory because there is hardly any onroading. There are very few permanent roads and that’s how they like it – a deterrent for loggers and poachers.
Mikeno overlooks thick green forest that smells delicious and is filled with birds. Its huge open verandah serves as bar, rest a ur ant,WiFi lounge, library, games room and gossip centre. It is partially covered with a thatched roof, and in the evening there is a fire. The only music is the chattering of the stylish blackandwhite colobus monkeys that hurtle through the surrounding trees.
There are 12 stone cabins with fireplaces and big wooden balconies (I awake one morning to find a baboon staring at me through the window). And there is plenty to do. Chimp stalking, which en tails a hectic early morning run through the jungle trying to view these mihabituated chimps in the company of a superfit ranger, is a great way to begin the day. Or you can visit the boisterous Congohounds – a team of bloodhounds trained to sniff out poachers – for a demonstration.
Balemba takes us to the Senkwekwe gorilla orphanage. Occasionally, he says, the orphans escape from their enclosure and climb on to the verandah then wait for the cleaning lady to open the door .‘ You hear as cream ,’ says Balemba delightedly, ‘and then the gorillas charge in and cause havoc under the duvets.’
The gorilla orphanage has the only captive higher mountain gorillas in the world. There are currently four here – all rescued, two were orphaned by the 2007 massacre – playing outside with their keeper. They eat cucumber, carrots, porridge and leaves, and the rangers hide fruit for them. They sleep in hammocks in separate cages inside.
Today’s keeper is Mathieu Shamavu, 25, and he is a patient man – the gorillas are endlessly possessive, clambering all over him and wanting to be cuddled, slapping him about playfully and painfully, trying to pinch his phone.
The orphanage is presided over by André Bauma, who has worked for Vir unga for 18 years. Since the documentary, Bauma has become something of a celebrity. His gentle articulacy and total devotion to his gorillas moved thousands of viewers; he refused to leave his charges in the orphan age when guerillas were encroaching. He went to the Academy Awards in Los Angeles, having never before left Congo. He fell asleep during the ceremony.
An unusual thing about Virunga is its great variety of landscape. The terrain at Lulimbi, on the east side of the park’s Central Sector, close to Lake Edward, is entirely different, with vast plains and acacia trees. It is a fourhour drive from Rumangabo, on a road that runs outside the park (you can also fly there, but driving is more fun), and we leave early, at around the time that people are going to work, hundreds of them stuffed into lorries. There are boys balancing unfeasibly large loads on chukudus – wooden bicycles unique to DRC – and there is a pile of seven mattresses roped to the back of a motorbike. We even see a goat strapped to the back of a bike, on its side, bleating piteously.
It is grey and drizzly–English weather, which makes the primitive roads even worse. We pass a wooden kiosk label led Stock Exchange, another optimistically called Salon
Place Parisienne. The houses are all mud with corrugated-tin roofs. A small child pulls an even smaller one on a makeshift sledge fashioned from a broken jerrycan. Another is wearing a saucepan on his head.
‘Muzungu!’ shout the children (White!), and ‘How Are You?’ ‘Mweusi!’ we shout back (Black). They dissolve into giggles.
The land here is very fertile: coffee, beans, sorghum, cassava, sweet potatoes, bananas and tea. But there is evidence of a more disturbing crop – lorries loaded with bundles of illegal charcoal, often ferried out of the forest by women on chukudus, an incongruous form of transport for a multi-million dollar industry. The charcoal made from ancient forest trees burns better than the charcoal legally manufactured from specially grown eucalyptus.
The army and police don’t crack down on it; the army is already collecting taxes at makeshift road blocks for‘ road maintenance ’. Although there is no evidence of maintenance or even roads, you can’t really blame them: they haven’t been paid for months.
Lu limbiw as originally are search station, then after the war it became a home for refugees. It opened for tourists last year – we are the second guests they’ve had, and things are still a little rudimentary. The fridge hasn’t arrived, and the staff, Solomon and Fausty n, have to be end le s sly inventive: one night we have half a banana upturned on a plate for pudding; another night Faustyn says, ‘Sorry for the dessert.’ Pause. ‘There is no dessert.’
By June, when it reopens for the season, there will be fridges, and dessert. More animals have materialised as they have become accustomed to tourists – elephants, buffalo, warthog, topi, eagles and storks. Lions, leopards and genet cats have been spotted lately, and hippos scrap and potter about in the river.
It is not a luxury camp. The luxury is the view – we sit under the albizia tree and watch pied kingfishers darting around. The camp consists of eight tents on the river banks, which means we are serenaded by birdsong in the morning and by hippos at night (a kind of creaky, groaning, bleating sound). The main mess tent is also by the river, and we congregate there in the evenings to witness the sunset and watch the elephants bathing farther up. On the other side of the river is Uganda’ s Queen Elizabeth National Park. The elephants come and go as they please between countries.
The day takes on a pleasing rhythm, beginning with an early walk (escorted by a crack squad of rangers) to Lake Edward – followed by breakfast. Sometimes delicious fresh bread is dropped off by Anthony the pilot, on his daily survey of the park, monitoring wildlife and watching out for bandits. He also acts as backup when the anti-poaching squad is on a mission, stands in as an air ambulance when needed, and does the annual wildlife count.
In the afternoons we walk to the curve where the hippos hang out, their peculiar heads and perky little ears bobbing about in formation in the water. Hippo stocks were decimated during the wars – 10 years ago only about 300 were left; now there are about 2,000. Fish eat their dung, so they are very beneficial for the biology of Lake Edward.
We take ‘walks in the car’ to observe waterbuck, topi, a one-horned Ugandan cob deer and a scurrying saddle-billed stork, t hen a g roup of elderly buffalo having a bath. When we spot elephants in the distance we drive as near as we can and then get out and walk, which is a much more intense way to see wildlife.
One afternoon I sit by the river, idly watching the hippos fight and discussing relationships with Balemba, Solomon and Faustyn. The conversation moves on to marriage, and how many cows they paid for their wives. Balemba’s wife cost five cows. She went to university (the more educated you are, the more cows you are worth). An uneducated woman costs one cow. But surely, I say, it’s about love? ‘Yes, love!’ says Faustyn, looking a bit shifty. ‘But cows too…’
That evening we are joined by James and Barrett, Americans who are installing solar power at the ranger stations, courtesy of the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation. Today James has put a top-of-the-range new battery into the rangers’ kitchen (the old one has long burnt out) which is currently blackened by their habit of cooking on open fires. The new battery will enable them to cook without fire. James is a mused t hat ‘t he most sophist icated a nd advanced battery technology in the world will be installed in a hut with a thatched roof…’
We would be happy to stay on in Lulimbi, but there is more to see. Not the volcano, Nyiragongo – we’re saving that for next time. (It involves a six-hour climb, followed by a night in a hut perched on the outer rim of the crater, heated by the lava in the ground, which by all accounts is spectacular.) Instead we travel back to Goma and take a boat to Tchegera, a tiny crescentshaped island in Lake Kivu, with a boatman called Binoit wearing a very stylish hat.
There are 10 tents on the island, and a silky black-sand beach for swimming. It is a birdwatcher’s paradise – eagles, cormorants, green sandpipers, yellow-throated greenbul, willow warblers and some enormous black wadery fellows with curved beaks. When it’s clear, you can see three volcanoes on the mainland: Mikeno, Nyiragongo and Nyamuragira
The island is managed by the lovely Clemence (100 cows, I am told) and Augustin, and they are the sole inhabitants apart from some gardeners who commute from Goma. There is little to do except swim, birdwatch and kayak around the island, but it is a fantastic way to end our trip. On our early-morning walk we see an explosion of flowers everywhere and hundreds of giant black-and-yellow spiders; lizards going about their business; ants doing ant things. Then, as we round a corner, the most extraordinary sight: five huge eagles all sitting sedately in a Cussonia tree. ‘Oh Congo, what a wreck,’ wrote the New
Yorker journalist Philip Gourevitch. ‘It hurts to look and listen. It hurts to turn away.’ I would never turn away; it is one of the most fascinating places I have ever been. Visceral, rich and endlessly engaging. Tourism will help enormously, and everyone should go. All life is there. Steppes Travel (0843-778 9926; steppestravel. co.uk) offers an 11-day itinerary to the DRC with three nights at Lulimbi from £3,795 per person including all flights, full board , transfers, guides and one gorilla-trekking permit. Lulimbi Tented Camp reopens on June 1
‘You hear a scream,’ says Balemba delightedly, ‘and then the gorillas charge in and cause havoc under the duvets’