(4 of 9)
Fay is a small but durable 35-year-old New Jersey native nicknamed "Concrete" by the Pygmies for his willingness to endure the hardships of the jungle. Accustomed to spending unscheduled nights outdoors, Fay has become rather haphazard and fatalistic about planning. As a result, when darkness falls we are still several kilometers short of Bomassa. The boat runs aground time after time as we try to pick our way with a flashlight through constantly shifting sandbars. Fay is unperturbed, which is more than I can say, and he will be equally sanguine about many other mishaps in the coming days.
When we finally get to Bomassa, Fay sends word to the village that he wants to hire trackers and bearers. A ragged, somewhat inebriated group shows up the next morning. Fay chooses Ndokanda and Joachine, trackers he has worked with before, but rejects one Pygmy whose feet are swollen with elephantiasis. He fills out the team of bearers by lifting our packs and duffels and estimating how many men it will take to carry the load: "That's half a Pygmy, that's three-quarters and this one ((he grunts as he hefts a 132-lb. pack)) a whole Pygmy." Standing nearly 5 ft., the BaNgombe and BaNbengele peoples are taller than most other Pygmies but still seem impossibly small to haul the loads they agree to carry. Seraphin, an auspiciously named employee of Fay's who has come downriver from his home in the Central African Republic, offers to come along as cook.
The 25-km (15-mile) hike from Bomassa to the crossing point on the Ndoki River takes one or two days, depending on how much the bearers have had to drink. We make the mistake of traveling ahead of the Pygmies, and our hung- over crew drags its feet, forcing us to camp just before the Djeke River, 16 km outside Bomassa. Fay says he cannot push the porters too hard or they will simply abandon us in the middle of the forest as they did him on a prior trip into the Ndoki.
After a meal of soup, salami and cookies, I settle in to sleep, wondering whether the dire reports I had heard from the Japanese researchers had overstated the dangers of the area. A few minutes later, I awake feeling an insect on my finger. Flicking it off, I feel another take its place, and then suddenly thousands of bugs seem to bite me at once. Seconds later, I hear a strangled cry from Karen as she is attacked as well. Stumbling blindly over roots and a massive column of ants, we tear down a path and dive into the river. Crushing the ants seems to release some chemical distress signal: as we emerge from the river, the aggressive creatures drop on us from everywhere.
Stamping, slapping and at a loss, I rouse Fay, whose tent is out of the line of attack. Surveying the insects that still cover my legs, he says drowsily, "Driver ants can really be a problem; they can kill a tethered goat," and then goes back to sleep. Moving my hammock away from the column of ants, I wince with pain as I drive a spiky vine clear through my thumb and watch blood spurt out. Then it starts to rain. By 2:30 a.m. the ants have moved on, and I miserably return to my tent for what's left of the night.