Semliki National Park part II

I woke up at 7am with first light, no alarm needed. Today Tadeo and I would be looking for the De brazza monkey and walking to the Semliki river, where we would see primary forest along the way. I eat my cereal and banana for breakfast and at 7.45 we are on our way. We start in the dry swamp forest, the preferred home of the De brazza monkey. There is a lot of mud on the trail and the forest here is very lush and green. We glimpse a De brazza monkey fleeing from us and follow in hot pursuit off the trail. It's sometimes rough going off the trail but at other times we are following old elephant tracks and it's more open. We see many other monkeys - black and white colobus, red tailed and grey cheeked mangabeys but the De brazza remain hidden. Tadeo says they are a shy monkey. After 1.5 hour searching, I suggest we give up for now because we still have a 12km walk to the Semliki river. As we leave the swamp forest, the forest gets very dry. Everything is wilting and the forest appears lifeless. There are no more monkeys, only a few birds. The forest is eerily silent, not even an insect makes a sound. We pass a few large holes in the ground, home of the aardvark, Tadeo explains. The aardvark is one nocturnal animal, along with the pangolin, that I am dying to see. They are both found here but they don't offer nocturnal walks, so there's no chance of encountering them.
We walk for hours without stopping till we reach the Semliki river. The trail is very flat so the walking isn't strenous and its shaded from the fierce sun. We rest at the Semliki river where I purify some water and eat passionfruits and bananas. Across the wide, light brown and swift flowing river is the DRC. It has been the scene of fighting in less peaceful time and Tadeo has heard gunshots before. Tadeo carries binoculars and an AK-47, the usual companions of a national park ranger. Further down river on the DRC side is a wide sandbank. After a few minutes, 2 men appear. Tadeo and both think they are fisherman but then through the binoculars we can see one of them is carrying an AK-47! I don't think they do much fishing with that! If they were soldiers or park rangers of the Ituri forest, they would have uniforms on but they only have civilian clothes on. They are poachers. They spot us and the guy with the gun waves to us. Tadeo waves back while I zoom in for a picture. Tadeo can't do anything since they are in the Congo but he does report them back to his boss. It's kind of exciting seeing poachers, at a safe distance. The area on the other side of the river is wild and there are no close villages but I hope the poachers are caught. They disappear back into the forest and we start walking back.
The walk back is uneventful for hours, that is until we see a small green mamba snake. Mamba's are some of the most poisonous snakes in Africa. I see it clearly but it retreats too fast for a photo and I'm not going to scramble through the bush to go after it. Later on as we near the lush swamp forest, we are crossing one of numerous log bridges. We passed tons of small streams during our long hike but they were all dried up. I can see when the rains start in April that there must be a lot of water. This log bridge differs from the rest in that there is a snake on it. It's about 1m long and as wide as my thumb but tapers very gradually to it's tail. It's green but black on top and Tadeo isn't sure what it is. The snake moves off its perch further away from us but then decides he wants to investigate us and comes closer. Tadeo is getting scared and retreats to the safety of land. I stand my ground on the bridge with my camera. The snake is on a branch with his head and neck outstretched towards me. I resist the urge to move away. I'll play chicken with him! Tadeo thinks it wants to jump and attack me but this seems unlikely, he can't eat me and I'm not bothering him. The snake backs away ( I win!) and moves under the bridge. It moves quick and I take many photos until he is out of sight.
We passed 2 small patches of 'primary' forest on our hike but they aren't primary forest like I know. Villlagers used to live in the forest and told Tadeo these 2 patches they left untouched but it doesn't look much different than the rest of the secondary forest. I was disappointed because I choose to walk this long trail because I thought I would see primary forest. I didn't like the swamp forest so much because it was very dense with limited visibility but after seeing the rest of the forest here, I began to like the swamp forest because it was lush and everything seemed to live in it.
De brazza monkey associate freely with other monkeys and whenever we heard monkeys crashing we had to scan the troupe to make sure there wasn't a De brazza monkey with them. By this point we had been hiking for 8 hours and I was a little tired and hungry but Tadeo still had the motivation to look for De brazza and this inspired me not wimp out and go back but stay with him and keep searching. Then the moment of truth came....we disturbed a small troupe of De brazza monkey on the ground. They like to be on the ground more than most monkeys. I watched as one climbed up a phoenix palm, their favourite food, to hide in the canopy. There was no mistaking it, it was a De brazza monkey but I wanted a better sighting. We stayed still and I scanned around the treetops for others. In the distance I found a single De brazza monkey in the top of a palm. He must have seen us but was not moving. I was able to watch him for minutes through my binoculars. It was the best sighting of the day. My reason ( or partial obsession) with seeing the De brazza was because it was rare and it's appearance. It's body is mostly a grey/green with black legs and a white stripe down its back legs but it's the face that is most striking. It has a long white beard ( we are beard bothers!) and a orange band on the top of its head followed by a thin white band and then a black band. My description doesn't do it justice though and I urge everyone to take a minute and go to google images to get a better look at this fascinating primate. Go ahead, it's OK, I'll wait, I'll even make a break in the story so you know where you left off.


We arrived back in camp tired, hungry and dirty after our 9 hour hike but I was really happy I got to see the De brazza. Now that I knew De brazza are in the forest and possible to see, I decided to stay one more day just to look for them again. I showered and waited for Tadeo to cook our dinner of rice and beans. All my food for dinner is gone. Tadeo's wife is here now.
The locals burn the dry grass on the slopes of the mountain and at night it appears the whole side is on fire. There is a strong breeze and ash is falling on everything. The wind is blowing in our direction and we are even feeling the heat from the fire. It's still 30 C long after the sun has set. It's too hot for a shirt. I again go to sleep with the fly off my tent but wake up in the middle of the night by the sound of rain drops. I get out and quickly and put on the fly.
I wake up in the morning to see tons of tiny ants in my tent. They have chewed a hole in the screen to get inside. I had some food in there with me but they don't seem to be after that. I don't know what they want but I kill them as I see them. My tent becomes a mass grave of ants. Basically anthing that gets in my tent is sentenced to death unless it's something really cool like a moth, which I will catch and let out. Years ago, camping at Lake Volta in Ghana, some insect chewed about 30 small holes in my tent, but I don't know why. Was it eating it? Is my tent screen that tasty?