Word: fayed
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...foot and is impassable much of the year. We use a pirogue that Kuroda's team has built to resupply his tiny station. Parched by the precarious walk to this point, we cool ourselves with the absolutely pure waters of the Ndoki as we pole through the river grass. Fay thinks he knows why the Pygmies have historically kept to the west side of the river. With ample game in the more accessible forests, they have had no need to risk a crossing. At this point, though, I am not thinking of hardship but rather of the beauty...
...areas are open and cool, even though the equatorial sun beats down on the upper stories of the canopy. At one point we discover leopard droppings containing black hair and some bone bits. The Pygmies claim it is gorilla hair, though only dna analysis could tell for sure. Fay thinks it's possible, since he has documented leopard attacks on gorillas. Samory, one of the trackers, claims leopards kill the immensely strong apes with surprise attacks in which the cat quickly snaps its jaws around the gorilla's throat. The Ndoki may be innocent of humans...
...clearings open up the forest for other big animals such as buffalo, and the trails certainly make walking easy for us. As we head down one path, Joachine suddenly pauses. The brush erupts as a male gorilla charges, then abruptly stops and drops down in the vegetation to stare. Fay observes that gorillas favor the herbaceous plants growing in marshy lowlands and in places where elephants have created clearings. Farther from the water, the canopied forest suits chimpanzees. With both populations at very high levels, the Ndoki is one of the few places on earth where chimps and gorillas live...
...that we are far away from the nearest village and the temptations of < palm wine, the Pygmies begin to come into their own. Even with 14 years' experience, Fay can still lose a trail, but Ndokanda, a former elephant hunter, or any of the other Pygmies can read the very faintest imprint with a glance. In the forest they are utterly self-reliant, creating cord from vines, cups from leaves and bed mats from bark. Still, they are apprehensive about this forest, and when Fay tells them where we are going, Samory says, "Mokele Mbembe lives there." Fay is convinced...
That night termites reduce Fay's one T shirt to tatters. This gives him the excuse to try his "new system," which means stripping down to a bathing suit and sandals. "Come back in two years, and you will find me completely naked, living in the middle of the Ndoki with six Pygmy wives," he jokes. He thinks that the Pygmies have it right: the less you wear, the faster your skin dries after rainfall and the less likely you are to get parasitic fungi and footworms. Fay has already accumulated four nasty footworms, which burrow under the skin until...