A Forest in the Clouds by John Fowler

Author:John Fowler [Fowler, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pegasus Books
Published: 2017-02-15T05:00:00+00:00

SEVENTEEN

A NEAR-DEATH EXPERIENCE

On the morning of March 1, the birds began their usual chorus as the predawn sky lightened. My baby gorilla remained fast asleep, huddled in our nest next to me, out of character at this hour. I took advantage of her stillness and languished in the accumulated warmth of my sleeping bag. We were in the clouds again, and the dew lay thick and cold on the crumpled weeds around our campsite. It wasn’t until 7:30 and full daylight that the little ball of fur roused her head. After looking around briefly, she crawled to the base of a hypericum and climbed four meters up to begin her breakfast of gallium that she pulled toward her strand after strand.

I watched the little gorilla feeding, lingering in my sleeping bag for a precious fifteen minutes longer before crawling out into the damp cold mountain air. I struggled to keep my socks off the wet ground while maneuvering my feet into cold boots. Toni soon crawled from his tent to help me pack up camp and fold the plastic tarp that had been my feckless shelter.

Nani continued to feed for nearly half an hour before climbing down from her tree and trying to cling to me. When Toni finally emerged, we began disassembling his tent, struggling to fold the bulky canvas into any sensible form, while Nani grabbed at my legs whenever I passed near her. I dodged her clingy fingers at every turn.

At 8:30, Kanyaragana arrived with Mukera the woodman, and the two joined Toni in gathering the bundles and utensils that had been our camp. I still wanted Nani to do some walking on her own, but finally just relented to her grasping and let her climb onto my backpack as we began the hike back into Rwanda. We passed by the site of Stuart’s midway camp, now cleared and vacant. The long, boggy meadow leading to Karisoke was draped in curtains of mist when we reached it, the far end invisible in the cloud cover. The volcanoes above us were obscured by the very clouds through which we hiked. To avoid getting the smell of smoke on the baby, Dian had requested I walk around camp instead of through it, so I stayed to the right of the meadow until it narrowed into a thin clearing to the south of camp and just behind my cabin that on this day seemed like my cozy home.

When we passed the research center, we crossed the camp creek on the lichen-covered stones that Nani had perched on many times before to stare at her reflection in the water, and touch that enigmatic mirror of its surface that had intrigued her so. I wanted to let her linger there with me one last time, but Dian was waiting for me down the Porter Trail.

As I carried Nani along the path, I thought about the amount of time we had been together, and what we had become. My mom had once taken

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