The book Congo is about a group of people who go to theAfrican Congo to return a gorilla to her homeland and to findtype IIb blue diamonds. On their journey they discover thelost city of Zinj and a new species of killer gorillas, whichthey must overcome to survive. The story takes place inJune of 1979.
The three main characters are: Dr. KarenRoss, supervisor of Earth Resources Technology Services(ERTS), Dr. Peter Elliot, a primatologist who trained agorilla named Amy to speak by the use of sign language, andCharles Munro, the guide who leads the expedition throughthe Congo. ERTS has already sent an expedition of eightinto the Congo to retrieve type IIb blue diamonds. They arecontacting them back at the base in Houston. The camera inthe expedition’s camp turns on revealing a destroyed campsite: torn tents, supplies and clothing scattered everywhere,and dead bodies. As the camera moves around scanning thearea a big gray object runs by the camera and destroys it.
Every at ERTS is in shock. They replay the footage andfreeze it on the big gray object. It looks like a gray gorilla,but gorillas don’t kill people. Karen Ross decides to takeanother expedition into the Congo to get the blue diamonds.
Because of the bewilderment over this incident she contactsDr. Elliot to find out what this gorilla is. She tells him thattheir going to the Congo and he wants to come and bringAmy, his gorilla. Amy has been experiencing bad dreamsbecause of her past which is unknown to Dr. Ross. Shebegins finger painting which helps her sleep at ease becausetries to banish the dreams onto paper. Elliot realizes shewants to go to the jungle because all the her paintings are ofit. The expedition leaves quickly because there is acompeting company that is also making its way to the Congoto get the blue diamonds, which are an amazing source ofenergy. The expedition is set to meet Charles Munro, thebest guide there is, to guide them through the Congo. Theydiscussed business matters and quickly headed to Nairobi.
From Nairobi they took their final plane to go to the Congo.
At that time a civil war had started in Africa and both sideswere shooting everything, including the expedition’s plane.
Every one had to take a parachute and jump out of theplane. This was a major delay in the time the expedition hadto beat the competition to the diamond site. The expedition:Ross, Elliot, Munro, Amy, and some African men; have towalk the rest of the way to the diamond site. On their waythey encounter many dangers like: cannibalistic tribes, angryhippos, crocodiles, and a volcano ready to burst. As theyare walking through the jungle Ross is informed on hercomputer that the competition has already reached the siteand there is no point to continue. Later on they find thecompetitions camp site destroyed and all the people aredead. During their journey they have an encounter withmountain gorillas. Amy runs of with them because she thinksthe group is mad at her. After all the troubles and dangerthey finally arrive at a place to make camp, which turns outto be the lost city of Zinj which contains the blue diamonds.
They are very excited to have made such a greatarcheological discovery and go exploring the city for the restof the day. At night they set up and electric fence, sensorguns, and sensor lasers. This is their first encounter with thegray killer gorillas. The gorillas showed signs of intelligenceby attacking different parts of the electric fence to get in,they also wheezed to one another and used hand signals,which served as a language. The next day while studyingpaintings in one of the houses of the city they discovered thestory behind the city. The city has diamond mines under itand they trained gorillas to be like watch dogs to guard themines. These “watch dogs” turned on their masters and thesekiller apes rule the city. The team dug a moat around thecamp because it is known that no gorilla will cross even thesmallest body of water. That night the gorillas came and thesame wheezing noises where heard used a tree trunk as abridge over the moat and some of them made a distractionwhile others used a stick to lift open the fence and kill someof the African people. Later the team studied the body ofone of the dead animals. It was a little smaller than a gorillaand weighed less and it’s fur color was gray. The next nightthe same thing happened: more gorillas slipped in unnoticed,killed some of the African people, and made a clean exit.
The next day Amy returned to the camp site and told Elliotthat these gray gorillas are bad creatures and that she couldunderstand them a little. Elliot thought of a plan, he and Amywent to the lair of these gorillas and focused on one. Amywould explain to Elliot what each noise meant. By the end ofthe day they had down the meaning of a few words. Elliotmade a tape with the words: GO AWAY, NO COME, andBAD HERE. As the gorillas attacked that night he playedthe message and they all left. The plan had worked. The nextday the volcano was ready to blow which meant they had toleave quickly. On their way a cannibal tribe attacked them.
They managed to escape in a hot air balloon and Amy wasset free and lived with a gorilla troop. Ross got her bluediamonds and went home happy. I liked the book becauseof all the adventure. All the danger they had to go throughwas very exciting and suspenseful. I was always waiting tosee what would happen next. It was also fun reading abouthow surprisingly intelligent the gray gorillas are. In eachattack they do something smarter and waiting to find outhow the team would overcome them was very exciting. Irecommend this book to adventure loving people who alsowant to learn a lot while reading. The book has a lot of “onthe edge of your seat” adventure and suspense and a lot ofeducational material about primates, the history of traininganimals to talk, and computers among many other things. Inconclusion Congo is a great book that doesn’t let youbecome bored and teaches you a lot of interesting facts.
