I trekked Earth’s second-largest rainforest to meet one of our closest ancestors

You’ve heard of the beard of bees — well, I’m wearing a full balaclava of them. 

They’re enveloping me so thickly I look like a sideshow apiarist. I swipe my palms across my face and they collect between my fingers in drifts, as if I were scraping baked beans from toast with my bare hands.

‘They’re sweat bees. They won’t sting,’ says our local tracker, Gabin, as he uses his blade to hack through the dense vegetation that utterly engulfs us.

‘They’re attracted to perspiration.’

They’re in luck. In the 100% humidity of the Congo rainforest, in the remotest part of one of the least populated countries in Africa, my companions and I are the only life for salt-greedy sweat bees to hone in on. 

The open forest canopy allows the morning sun to paint the jungle in hues of lime and emerald, and vivid-green marantaceae leaves sprout from between our arms and legs. There is no trail in sight. 

Leon, our German-born guide, pulls out his machete to assist Gabin as we wade deeper into the undergrowth.

‘We call this “salad surfing,”‘ he quips over his shoulder, as the grasping maw of the jungle takes the opportunity to ingurgitate him.

A place of mystique

The Congo holds a particular mystique in the collective consciousness, seeming to exist on the dark borders of imagination.

In reality, it can be found on West Africa’s equator, easily reached on a flight via Paris.

The Republic of the Congo is a precious land, home to the heart of the world’s second-largest rainforest, the Congo Basin — the biggest absorber of carbon dioxide on the planet.

Here you’ll find incredible biodiversity, 100 mammal species, including the nocturnal, striped bongo antelope, and a population of critically endangered western lowland gorillas.

Not to be confused with the neighbouring Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Republic of the Congo is a safe, stable country, and a thrilling, scarcely visited destination for wildlife lovers willing to get well off the beaten track.

‘Safaris in Congo are unique,’ says the region’s first Congolese guide, Glance Eloye, over breakfast at Ngaga Lodge.

‘Elsewhere, guides find the wildlife, they radio their colleagues, and they all drive their guests to them in vehicles.’

You certainly wouldn’t expect that here.

A different experience

The thatched roofs of Ngaga Lodge thrust into the canopy of Ndzehi Forest on the western boundary of the Unesco-listed Odzala-Kokoua National Park, which covers around 5,200 square miles (13,500 km2).

I can see no driving trails from Ngaga’s elevated viewing deck — I can only see trees and the putty-nosed monkeys that scale them. Although it’s one of the oldest parks in Africa, dating back to 1935, Odzala has only been accessible to tourism since 2012.

‘Here it’s a tracking experience,’ says Glance. ‘You hike into the forest, following prints, scents and signs. You learn from them and follow them. You involve yourself. You put in some effort to see what you want to see, and that’s the magic of it.’

Kamba African Rainforest Experiences owns and operates three lodges, and it’s the only company with permission to operate within Odzala-Kokoua National Park.

Along with hosting guests in its six treetop bungalows, Ngaga Lodge is the base of operations for Dr. Magdalena (Magda) Bermejo and her research team.

Magda is the world authority on western lowland gorillas. 

What Jane Goodall has done for chimpanzees, Magda has done for the western lowland gorilla. Since 1991, she’s lived alongside them in the Congo for extended periods and — along with her partner — she was the first person to ever habituate a group to human presence.

In the time she has been living and working at Ngaga, Magda has habituated three groups of gorillas, each of which took between 18 months to five years — she is currently working on a fourth group.

The purpose is to try to understand the complex social behaviour of the gorillas, and to learn about how changes to their environment and the climate is affecting them.

‘They help us take the pulse of the ecosystem,’ says Magda, who has spent years painstakingly observing and documenting their every action.

Problems in a changing ecosystem

Over the past couple of years though, Magda’s team has installed more than 50 cameras in the forest, capturing more than 60,000 hours of high-definition video footage.

With so much data to be processed, her team has initiated a groundbreaking method of using AI to identify and analyse the gorillas’ behaviour, identifying 250 different interactions, actions and expressions.

‘The database alerts us to changes and stressors in their environment very quickly,’ says Magda.

It’s data that can be applied to hundreds of other species to help identify problems at the base of the ecosystem.

Much of this research is supported by sustainable tourism.

Kamba was founded to support primatology research and conservation, and it is actively training local people to become the next generation of guides, like Glance.

Ngaga Lodge was designed to have the least possible impact on the environment, and limits guests to 12 people.

The gorilla groups aren’t so closely monitored that researchers know their exact whereabouts at all times, so guests willing to put in the effort are rewarded with intimate encounters shared by few others on Earth.

Each gorilla trek is capped at just four people, one guide and, essentially, a tracker.

A dying art

‘Tracking is a dying art,’ says Magda. ‘Most of our trackers come from Kellé, south of Odzala-Kokoua, because, culturally, they don’t believe in snaring animals.

Snared animals suffer and struggle, and they can taste that in the meat. Instead they track, which makes them fantastic wildlife guides.’

Gabin is clearly picking up on signals to which the rest of us are oblivious.

Sporadically, as we hike through undergrowth and wade through sweat bees, he stops, he listens, sniffs the air.

He examines superficially identical leaves, and then takes seemingly arbitrary turns on unseen trails that head straight into tangles of foliage.

After around an hour, Gabin stops and signals for us to ape his actions and put on our face masks. It’s the first time I’ve done so since the end of the Covid pandemic, and my companions and I shoot furtive looks at each other over our masks. This means they’re close.

My medical screenings have been rigorous ahead of meeting the Congo’s gorillas. I had to have my doctor check me for tuberculosis and, when my GP couldn’t find a record of my childhood measles vaccine, I had to have a fresh MMR jab as an adult.

‘Gorillas are very susceptible to the same viruses as us, including respiratory problems,’ says Magda, who was here to see Ebola decimate the gorilla population 15 years ago.

Eventually I hear it: the distant rumbling of waxy marantaceae leaves, on the peripheries of vision, they move like shadows between trees.

They’re encircling us: assembling to investigate the outsiders.

Shining eyes glimmer from between leaves. I hear a twig snap behind me and turn to see a procession of apes emerging from the forest, headed straight towards us. They stop and part to allow Jupiter, the oldest silverback to pass between them.

Gabin instructs us to edge backwards away from him to maintain a safe distance and, as we do so, Jupiter sits and scrutinises us with a look that transcends millions of years of evolution. Just as the scientists are studying them, they are examining us.

Seemingly satisfied, the atmosphere changes. The sentinel gorillas relax and start to examine their nails. Young gorillas tumble around, and mischievously bend saplings to the ground, allowing them to whip upright and rain fruit and foliage down on their friends’ heads.

Europa appears from the forest with her baby held to her breast, leans against a tree and watches the revelry while nursing her child. After a few minutes, she reaches up, grips a vine and, with her baby still feeding, effortlessly pulls them both into the treetops.

As we let out a collective sigh, Gabin turns to ensure each of our masks remains in place.

Sharing, as we do, a common ancestry, we must be careful not to share our germs with the gorillas… but I’m happy to be sharing a few sweat bees with them.

MORE: Amalfi Coast or Como? I put Italy’s swankiest destinations to the test

MORE: Overlooked but ‘remarkable’ Spanish gem has just got new UK flights

MORE: The ‘Rome of Portugal’ is a lesser-visited gem that’s 20°C in May