This time I thought I'd give you a break from Soso's adventures (his eye is healing nicely) and tell you a little about my weekend. Part of my work as a Postdoctoral Fellow for the San Diego Zoo's CRES is to survey forests in Cameroon for drills and other endangered species. Sometimes I visit villages and talk with hunters to get a feel for the species and densities of animals remaining; more often I'll also spend days or even weeks trekking through the forest with local guides to evaluate the situation on the ground.

On Friday I started trekking through the forest to the north of the site of our research station with a very basic objective: to follow an ancient, totally overgrown German colonial path through the forest to the nearest village northwards, a distance of over 25 miles (40 kilometers) as the crow flies, to record all signs of mammals and hunting as I went.

I started the trek with my good friend Simon Ngwese, whom I have known for four years, and two local guides: Christian (one of the most prolific hunters in the region) and Etienne (who was an elephant hunter in the 1960s). We set off from Iboti village at 7 a.m., loaded with three tents, sleeping mats, and enough food to last four days. Although I was told that it takes local men two days to complete the trip I know from experience that this usually translates to four days for mortal beings like me!

After two hours of heavy trekking across one mountain range we arrived at the remote village of Ndokmolong consisting of one house, three brothers, one wife, and two happy children, surely the smallest village in Cameroon! I visited Ndokmolong two years ago and little has changed: the men still spend their mornings hunting and checking traps and sleep in the afternoon or listen to the radio when they can afford batteries. There is no electricity, water, motorable road, or neighbors, and I still find myself amazed by the capacity of human beings to adapt to this isolation.

After another two hours of trekking steadily downhill, we arrived at a large river where we had lunch and watched kingfishers darting from rock to rock. Another two hours later it started to rain. We had raincoats, but were soon soaked to the skin because the vegetation covered the path and brushed our legs as we moved. At 4 p.m., after crossing another river seven times, we reached "Tom Tom,' the largest mountain in the area. An hour and half way up (mostly clinging to the trees) we came to a gorgeous waterfall and an hour later we reached the summit. But there was no time to admire the view through the rain, we had to reach the camp before nightfall as walking in the forest at night is dangerous, sometime because of the risk of stumbling into an elephant, but in this forest the danger is that we slip and hurt ourselves on the wet rocks. It was cold here due to the high altitude, and we were soaked to the skin.

We reached a hunter's shelter (see photo above) at exactly nightfall after 11 ½ hours of trekking and set up our tents under the palm fronds to keep out as much of the rain as we could. Dinner consisted of sardines and (now soggy) bread for the men; I ate bread and peanuts. It was too cold to bathe in the stream, and it was still raining, so I fell asleep dirty and tired.

We got up at 5:30, as soon as it was light - and hooray - it's not raining! After taking a quick photo of the shelter in the morning mist, we packed up camp and forced our bodies into wet boots to start trekking again, this time through flatter forest, with a marked change in soil type and also vegetation type. This is subtle to the uninitiated - but botanical knowledge of the forest does help in predicting the densities of mammals that might be expected to thrive there. However, I am disappointed; throughout the whole of yesterday we only heard two very small groups of mona monkeys, one of the species most robust to hunting. I recorded lots of traps, empty shotgun cartridges and used batteries (for night hunting), meaning only one thing: this forest is being emptied by hunting for the commercial bushmeat trade.

After seven hours of trekking we came across an abandoned logging road, and I knew our trek was nearly over. A few hours later the road widened, and we saw the first wood houses, remnants of the logging company that was active here six years ago. At around 3 p.m. we reached the village of Ndokbassaben, and since it was Sunday afternoon, everyone was refreshing themselves with palm wine, a mainstay of life in Cameroon, and quite delicious (although not advisable after two days of trekking). The chief was quite wonderful, and arranged motorbikes to take us to the nearest town where we will spent the night. Then we were seen off by the whole village, amazed that we made it from Iboti in two days.

And so back to writing up my notes on this forest and planning the next survey"¦

Dr. Bethan Morgan is a Conservation Research Fellow for the San Diego Zoo's CRES.

Here's more information about Bethan's project in Cameroon.

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