Monkeo and Monkiette

In Nyungwe National Park there is a Romeo and Juliette story, except they have an infertile monkey love child before dying. A "Ruwenzori Angolan Black and White Colubus Monkey" and a "Central African Red Colubus Monkey" met at a dance (I assume) and their one offspring, who can never have children, became king of fifty members of the Black and White type. Because his dad came from a species of meat-eaters, he's tougher and can scare chimpanzees away, which is good because chimpanzees eat monkeys. When danger is around, all of the monkeys congregate around him for protection. But in a tragic, tragic twist, he lives forever alone, with no one's tail to pull or backside to groom. You see him and his lone red tail climb up a tree, craving meat, while all his black and white frienemies act like lame rabbits and munch on leaves and berries, ignoring him unless they need him.

Nyungwe is a mix between Lost, Shreck and the Shire. The rolling hills of tea leaves, which are grown in part of the park, give the mountains a sheen that Disney-Pixar capture well. The houses' metal roofs are very short and have a stylistic curve that make them look like the small houses of Hobbits. When you go monkey or chimpanzee tracking, the trackers clear a pathway through the very thick vines and you only occasionally reach a tiny clearing, the sun shining a dramatic spotlight. Our trackers eventually got as impatient from our slow pace as I was from watching Lost (I gave up after a season) and told us to wait on the road while they ran around the forest, looking for the chimpanzees who, by the way, do not, under any circumstances, want to be found. Our closest furry relatives eventually ran across the road for half a second. So from seeing chimps in the wild I learned that chimps like to cross man-made roads really, really quickly. We compared our photographs of black swooshes ("this small blob is the baby, I think") and went back to the car. On the way to the car all the butterflies thought I was Snow White and started landing on me, eagerly and frustratingly sniffing me and digging their thread-like dainty front legs into my skin, creating a tingly massage. I don't know why they chose me. Something about how I smell. Like berries and fresh flowers? Perhaps.

On the canopy walk a really impressive tour guide sang to birds who sang back.

We also passed the Toilet Paper and Abortion Tree on the canopy walk, officially known as Hagenia Abyssiniga or Umugeti. Which doesn't mean Toilet Paper and Abortion tree in Kinyarwanda. The leaves are softer than a baby's bum and the thick, soft toilet paper of nice hotel rooms. The bark, we were told, helps indigestion, but should not be eaten by pregnant women, as it can cause abortions, according to traditional medicine. So if you believe in both traditional medicine and abortions, this is your tree.

I have to say: Nyungwe National park has very impressive guides and trackers. No one seemed to know how the Colubus love child's parents met, but they worked incredibly hard and worked up lots of sweat running around absurdly steep, thick, forests in a consolidated, focused effort to find the monkeys and chimpanzees, so we could brag to friends about how we saw chimpanzees in the wild.