[Note: nationalgeographic.com does not research or copyedit dispatches.]

We crossed the divide into the Motaba basin and went straight north about 20 kilometers (6.4 miles) through the Mindinge Bai. It’s an amazing water hole in the middle of the park. We saw a nice big elephant there.

We then crossed the park limit at the Mongomba River and went on down the lower Motaba. The first thing that we picked up was a rubber tree that had been tapped for rubber in colonial times. It was a big commodity during the wars, especially the second World War. The rubber and ivory trade sent people much deeper into the forest than normal. So you find these trees in places that people normally would not go.

We hit various little camps—one where Pygmies had slept, going from Makao to a place called Vionga, on the Sangha River. We learned later, when we were in Makao, that this was because of village sorcery that had killed many Pygmies. About ten families fled across to Vionga.

I was very sad to leave the elephant forest that we encountered all the way up the Goualougo. We were walking on elephant highways for several days, not even touching vegetation on the arms. It was an incredible experience: We saw many more elephants, and had several gorilla encounters and more chimp encounters and saw that nice big elephant in Mindinge Bai. We have really been living in a kind of wonder world out here—five days in an animal world that just doesn’t exist anymore.

Then we started transitioning into the people zone. I don’t like that because elephant trails start to disappear and the forest becomes much more dense in the understory. It becomes a very disorganized kind of ecosystem.