The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - Travel
The holiday that changed me ‘I wasn’t looking for a fling!’
For actor and presenter Donna Air, releasing gorillas into the wild in Gabon led to one very close encounter
Iwas on my first visit to Gabon, on the west coast of Africa, when a frisky gorilla tried to mate with me. It was one of the younger males, and while I was only 23, I wasn’t looking for a holiday fling! This was in 2002, and I’d made the trip with my partner at the time, Damian Aspinall, to reintroduce orphan gorillas into the wild.
We’d flown into Libreville, then it was a long, difficult drive through the savannah, with lots of small rivers to cross, before we reached base camp. It wasn’t for the faint-hearted, but it was part of Damian’s work with the Aspinall Foundation, breeding animals in Kent wildlife parks before acclimatising them to their natural habitats.
I didn’t know much before going out there, and as Damian’s a terrible tease he’d scared me with stories about crocodiles. This turned out to be a running theme of the trip. We stayed in a wooden hut, and every morning I’d walk to the river to wash. There wasn’t anyone around, so I’d take a dip in my birthday suit and, without fail, Damian would throw leaves and logs in my direction to try to frighten me. At night it would be pitch black, so answering the call of nature meant venturing out to find a spot where there weren’t any wild animals – a definite incentive to hold it in until the morning.
I’d had vaccinations, but the spiders made me nervous, and big tsetse flies tried to get at us the whole time. We wore long-sleeved shirts and taped the cuffs to our wrists so nothing could jump up there. We did the same with our trousers and boots to stop anything getting in. I didn’t bother with mosquito spray because I don’t like the chemicals, and luckily I didn’t get bitten.
It was nothing like I’m a Celebrity…Get Me Out of Here! For one thing, the locals are much more interesting people. We visited a school and local families, and they were so welcoming. My French isn’t good, but I made an effort and we managed to communicate. There was traditional music and dancing, and they cooked fish they had caught in the river, over campfires. Generally, we were very well fed. Pasta travels well because it is dried and stores well in a hot climate, so one night we had a delicious spaghetti bolognese. No matter where I am, I always take snacks. I hate going hungry, so I made sure I had a stash of dried fruit and energy bars to keep my energy levels up.
We were only there for five days. I would have loved to have stayed longer, because it was an incredibly joyful experience. The air was so clean and what I noticed the most was how happy I felt. I was laughing a lot. It was a pure, natural high, and I believe it was due to the high oxygen levels from being surrounded by such epic greenery. I’d never been exposed to that level of nature before, and the scenery was mind-blowing. It made me appreciate how important the
forest is. When you see greenery like that, you can’t understand why anybody would want to destroy it.
When I had Freya, my daughter with Damian, there were stories that we had put her in the care of gorillas. She has grown up with animals her whole life, but as much as it would have been easier for me, she wasn’t raised by gorillas! I’d be happy to let them take the credit, were it not for the fact that they weren’t the ones changing nappies or helping her with her homework.
Freya has just been on her first trip with her father to the Congo, to do a similar reintroduction, and I found it incredibly moving to watch footage of her with the gorillas, seeing how happy and at home she was.
Growing up, I was never animal-mad. Now, lots of animals are special to me and the work I have done with gorillas and elephants has been the most meaningful. That trip to Gabon opened my eyes and made me aware that projects are needed all around the world.
Now, I am focused on India and the
Asian elephants. It’s been a natural progression for me to get involved with the Elephant Family charity and the CoExistence project, an art installation of life-size elephant sculptures that moves around London. The sculptures were first displayed on The Mall, then in Chelsea, and they are currently in Green Park, St James’s Park and Berkeley Square. Each sculpture was crafted by indigenous communities deep in the jungles of Tamil Nadu, India, to draw attention to that part of the world and what needs to be done there.
As the focus is on helping humans and animals coexist, I know that if I hadn’t been on that trip to Gabon, I wouldn’t be able to understand the work of the Elephant Family so deeply.
Donna Air is a patron of Elephant Family, a charity that works to support human-wildlife coexistence. To buy a CoExistence elephant sculpture, go to coexistence.org /elephant-shop