Every day, Virunga rangers bring up to eight visitors to see one of six semi-habituated gorilla families. Hikers stumble through dense jungle along a narrow path forged with machetes, warding off excruciating fire ant attacks and trying to avoid stinging nettle. My traveling companion Frances can attest to the horror of the fire ants. When we visited the gorillas after hiking the volcano, she stepped on an ant mound. It took three of us 20 minutes to pick off all the ants, some an inch long with pincers up to a third the length of their bodies. Some East African communities, including the Maasai in Kenya and Tanzania, use them as natural sutures.