I trekked Earth’s second-largest rainforest to meet one of our closest ancestors

The Republic of Congo, not to be confused with neighbouring Democratic Republic of the Congo, is home to some of the most diverse wildlife in the world (Picture: Scott Ramsay)You’ve heard of the beard of bees — well, I’m wearing a full balaclava of them. They’re enveloping me so thickly I look like a sideshow apiarist. I swipe my palms across my face and they collect between my fingers in drifts, as if I were scraping baked beans from toast with my bare hands.&