Five Bestselling Travel Memoirs Box Set

by Twead, Victoria

  “He thinks you’re an idiot,” Toby supplied helpfully.

  “Yeah? Well I think he looks like a sack with a smiley face drawn on it.” I stomped off towards the cages, grumbling to myself.

  The trip upriver was exhilarating. Going against the current now rather than with it as before, the canoe skipped over its own bow wave sending sheets of spray high into the air. We got soaked, which clearly didn’t agree with Layla, but for me it was all part of the experience. The motor growled, the propeller churned, and the boat sped upriver between banks thick with jungle. Trees leaned out at crazy angles over the water, testament to the ferocity of the river in spate. Vines hung down and draped over logs submerged in the shallows, seamlessly blending the green tinged water into the lush foliage.

  Twenty minutes of strenuous motoring brought us to a much more recognisable dock. A few old stumps of posts jutted out of the water, and further up the bank there were log-framed steps leading off into the undergrowth. The air was alive with insects as the sack man guided his canoe in to land. A ripple of excitement ran through me. Somewhere beyond those steps was our final destination, and a new home for my furred and feathered friends. It was known in the trade as a ‘soft release space’, though by all accounts it had better facilities than we did. And lots, and lots, of jungle. It was called Amazoonico.

  Ama“Zoo”nico

  Refuge, tourist attraction and education centre; Amazoonico was all of these things. It most closely resembled the Ewok village from Return of the Jedi. Everywhere was logs. Log buildings, log stairs and walkways and a truly impressive roofed bridge that carried the path from the beach over a narrow gorge and waterfall. It was through this structure that we came, staggering under the weight of our assorted burdens. Around us monkeys shrieked and birds warbled. Cicadas kept up their incessant drone, occasionally swelling in volume then dying down into the background again. Every now and then a more elaborate call would sound, echoing out of the jungle in a complex series of hoots and cries; it could have been the mating call of the Yeti for all I knew.

  The air was so humid it had substance. I couldn’t tell if I was sweating into the atmosphere, or it was sweating onto me. Climbing the timber framed steps, like taking a tunnel directly through the rainforest canopy, had taken my breath away in more ways than one. I instantly regretted my gallantry in selecting the two heaviest cages to carry. Who’d have thought we’d have to climb a quarter-mile of stairs with the bloody things?

  Amazoonico was alive. I’d been looking forward to seeing the place for weeks, and I wasn’t disappointed. Jungle plants grew between the structures as though the forest was determined to reclaim the place. Parrots sat here and there on branches and roofs. Monkeys hung and swung in all directions. Humans emerged from one of the log cabins to greet us. Then chaos erupted, drowning out the sounds of nature as all the Ecuadorians in both groups began to introduce themselves at volume. Cages were stacked, hands were shaken, and every few seconds the party grew larger as more people ventured out of the buildings to see what was going on. Our little group of volunteers were sort of swept off to one side by the commotion, where we stood in silence eyeing our animals protectively.

  Eventually Johnny, Leonardo and what must have been their opposite numbers from Amazoonico managed to wash up together in the midst of the human maelstrom. Once they understood each other they ducked inside to conduct their business. Toby got involved too, weighing parrots and struggling to determine the sex of our kinkajou. Another of the gorgeous creatures was gazing placidly at us from a big cage backing onto one of the huts and our little fella, if deemed compatible, could be introduced to his new room mate straight away.

  Meanwhile one of Amazoonico’s volunteers, possibly an Austrian, led the rest of us off between the wooden buildings. “So, we can go on ze tour now,” he told me in his very precise accent.

  “I’ve never seen so many monkeys!” I was hoping to stir some enthusiasm in him, as he didn’t seem thrilled to have been handed this duty.

  “We have released a lot of monkeys in zis area.” His explanation lacked passion. I was hoping to engage him in some friendly banter and compare notes on our various experiences, but he seemed less inclined.

  “You have a lot of capuchins,” I observed.

  “Yes,” he said, “watch your hat.”

  My hand went instinctively to my head, which was unexpectedly bare. “What? Where…?”

  I twisted around to look behind me. Nothing! Then I glanced up. My hat was dangling from a nearby monkey. I made a grab for it which the monkey casually evaded.

  “Don’t worry. He’ll drop it,” said the man.

  As if on cue the monkey threw the hat at me and scurried off into the canopy.

  “And watch your shoes. And valuables. These monkeys will steal anything.”

  The tour progressed through a bewildering variety of animal enclosures. They had everything we had at Santa Martha, and so much more. Their ‘caiman’, small crocodiles identical to the lucky guy we’d inherited and inadvertently executed in the same day, were flourishing in an artificial lake complete with its own island. There were five or six of them at least, looking closer in size to ‘real’ crocodiles than our poor specimen had. Another lake, dammed at one end by the wall supporting the path, contained the weirdest looking things I had ever set eyes upon. Even Snotty (our blind coatamundi) looked like a regular denizen of planet earth next to these fat grey monsters with bristling moustaches. They looked like the demon offspring of a rat and an elephant seal.

  “Capybara,” our guide answered my question. So. I’d heard of them, and consider it a matter of pride that I can even spell the word. But I’d never imagined them to look like that; huge, sleekly furred with flat stubby noses. When we wipe ourselves out in World War Three and the rodents rise to rule the planet, these guys get to be T-rex.

  There were plenty of ocelots. Too many apparently, which is why we couldn’t bring ours. The release program seemed unnecessarily drawn out to me, since they were effectively wild animals that had been captured and imprisoned for varying lengths of time. Months of quarantine and rehabilitation were followed by studies to determine the most favourable time and site for release. But as our guide explained to me there were many things to consider before sending a large number of animals back into the rainforest. “Stability of ze existing population iz most important,” he explained. “Some monkeys will fight to ze death to defend zer territory, so if we release zem in ze wrong place many will die. And ocelots, zey are predators. We have already released so many monkeys here. We don’t want to watch zem all get eaten!”

  The point was a good one. It begged another question, one which our guide certainly wouldn’t be able to answer. If we couldn’t release a group of ocelots here, then where could we release them? I knew our existing population had been with us for some time. Johnny had explained to Toby and me why they were so difficult to set free in my first few days at Santa Martha, pointing out that surprisingly few people wanted a whole pack of big hunting cats released near their property, but at the same time he’d told us that eventually the release centre would take them. Now here we were in the Amazon, sans ocelots, being told that the release centre didn’t want them either. The future looked a little bleaker for the beautiful felines.

  We moved on deeper into the jungle, following narrow tracks lined with half buried tree trunks in what must have been a mammoth project of trail blazing. Everything was so much bigger and more professional here, it really put our little farm into perspective. With our weird and wonderful array of creatures and awesome enclosures I thought of Santa Martha as a really big deal, and was proud to be associated with it. Amazoonico was clearly in a different league. They were open to tourists, they charged an entrance fee and everything. They clearly had access to more funding than we did (which meant they had access to any funding at all, which we didn’t) and that gave them both the ability and the necessity to appear more professional. Every enclosure was securely concret
ed into place, often with decorative stonework pressed into the cement. All the enclosures were roofed in sturdy wire mesh, which meant they had access to something else we didn’t have – a decent ladder. Still, though on the one hand it made me feel a little like a slack-jawed country bumpkin faced with the marvels of New York City, it did mean that our animals would get the best treatment here. I had to assume that the quality of the staff would at least match their facilities.

  “You’ve given me a lot to think about,” I told our guide.

  And it was true.

  Toby had finished helping with the weigh-in. All our new arrivals had been processed and transferred to temporary holding pens ready for admission. The kinkajou, its sex having been determined suitable, was already sitting quietly in the cage at the opposite end from its new cell mate. It looked a little confused, and my heart went out to it as always.

  “You’ll be okay,” I told the cuddly beast, as much to reassure myself. I’d put so much energy into caring for each animal that I felt I knew them all as individuals. With some I had formed a very strong bond. And some I loved. It was going to hurt, leaving so many of my friends behind.

  “You coming for a swim?” asked Toby.

  “Yeah man! Why not?”

  “You up for it?” He enquired of the girls. “Swim? In the river?”

  “Eew! It’s probably full of bacteria and parasites.” This was from Layla. “You shouldn’t go in there. You’ll get really sick.”

  Well that was hardly surprising. And to be honest if she had gone in there, I probably wouldn’t have wanted to. Ashley just shook her head and went back to staring at a truly massive boa constrictor coiled in his pond in an enclosure behind us.

  “Sweet!” Toby exclaimed. “Let’s do it!”

  We stripped off on the pebbly beach where the canoe had docked, put on our shorts and waded gingerly out into the river. The rocks underfoot were slippy, sharp and unstable. And then we were in – swimming in, if not the mighty Amazon itself, then surely one of its biggest tributaries – the Napo river!

  There were times when it struck me, just how different and amazing my life had become since I left home. This was the king of all those moments. Not adjusting my tie as I answered the phone in some stuffy back office, or queuing up to buy a CD in HMV, or sitting in my flat eating chips and watching crap on TV. No – here I was in the middle of the Amazon rainforest, floating downstream amidst leaves and clumps of algae, while the lungs of the world stretched endlessly in all directions.

  Butterflies flitted just above the surface and I didn’t want to think about what might be below it. But just for a moment I had a sense of my own potential; that if I could be here, doing this, then I could be anywhere, doing anything. The insight left me feeling indescribably powerful; confident, relaxed and free.

  Toby was also enjoying himself. “Wanna swim all the way across?” he suggested.

  “Hell yeah!” I said.

  So we did. It was a tough swim to the opposite bank, swimming more diagonally upstream than straight across in an effort to stay level with the beach. We spent a few minutes on a muddy bank on the far shore, playing Tarzan (well, that’s what I was doing. I’m sure Toby was too, but I didn’t force him to admit it). The swim back was immensely difficult, as we were both knackered from the first crossing. It seemed like forever, with the beach getting further away rather than closer as the fierce midstream current dragged us way off target. By the time we hauled ourselves up the bank, mindless of the sharp stones and coated with thick mud, everyone else in our party was stood there waiting for the boat.

  It was time to leave already.

  Home

  The return journey was considerably shorter.

  Monster

  Two days after the Amazoonico odyssey we’d recovered enough to return to work. Exactly what we were going to do was an interesting question. Before the trip we’d been working like mad to expand and upgrade the centre, building new enclosures and fixing the old ones. But most of them were empty now. The feed took us a fraction of the time it had previously and we were still accidentally making far too much food in the morning. Surely no more building needed to be done?

  “So, what’re we up to today?” I asked Toby. As usual our co-ordinator seemed to have his finger on the pulse and supplied the information without hesitation.

  “Dunno mate,” he said.

  But he was enthusiastically donning wellies and the girls had emerged too. It was clearly time to do something. We headed around the house and found Jimmy and Johnny standing by Snotty’s old enclosure. It had been empty since the release, with the blind coati relocated to somewhere more suitably sized. The cage was big and sturdy with a mesh roof and a well made door. I’d figured that we’d be filling it when we finally got to go on the elusive ‘animal rescue missions’. But the boss had other plans.

  He explained to Toby and Jimmy what was needed. I could follow a little of the conversation, and my intense focus was rewarded when I picked out the word ‘lobo’. Had I heard right? Were we really getting el lobo?

  Toby confirmed my suspicions. A wolf was on the way. Our mission, should we choose to accept it, was to suitably reinforce the cage to take the beast when he or she finally showed up. Awesome!

  Now, this did present a couple of problems. Wolves are, like domestic dogs, fond of digging holes. And if a lifetime of trashy horror movies is to be believed, they are vicious slavering monsters, likely to escape through said holes and devour chickens, parrots and pretty much anything that’s small, cute and doesn’t want to be eaten. Whether or not that would include small dogs I wasn’t sure, and I didn’t want to find out. So today Snotty’s old home would become wolf proof.

  We discovered several huge rolls of thick wire mesh in the ‘huge rolls of thick wire mesh’ pile opposite the galpón. We blokes dragged them over to the cage, while the girls started digging trenches. As I took my turn at digging I asked Jimmy how deep the trenches had to be. He told me they had to be at least a metre deep and pointed out where they had to run – down the whole length of three out of the four sides of the cage. That sounded like a lot of digging. Was I surprised? I think not.

  The others took it in turns on pickaxe and shovel, working on two trenches between the three of them and taking regular breaks, but for some reason I was in the mood for graft. The release trip had given me renewed commitment to the cause, reaffirmed my belief in what we were doing. I wanted to achieve, to impress, to associate myself with good strong work and to be remembered for it. I dug hard and fast, moving from the front by the door back towards the wall of Johnny’s house, which formed the fourth side of the cage. The first half went quickly. Not so the second. I’d cleverly picked the most difficult place to work, crouched right under a low log perch which ran all the way across the back side of the cage. Every time I shifted position I’d get poked in the back by a sharp branch, causing me to shout, recoil and bang my head on the log. Then I would swear and start digging again, scraping with the tip of the pick as there was no room to swing it.

  Slowly the trench took shape. It was well over half a metre deep and looking very impressive when the others decided they’d finished. I investigated their efforts, and casually informed them that they had a long way to dig yet.

  Jimmy, however, disagreed. In his opinion they had all simultaneously achieved the perfect depth for anti-burrowing wire mesh implantation. His idea of a metre differed radically from mine. All we had to do now was fill in my hole back up to the correct depth and we’d be ready to start putting the wire in.

  Three people took only minutes to solve the problem I’d spent the last two hours carefully creating.

  Layla turned to tell me they were done, and got poked in the back by the sharp branch. “Argh!” she cried, and smacked her head on the log. It almost made it all worth while.

  The wire was an absolute bitch to get in. It was bent, and the trenches were bent, but not in the same way. Pushing one end of the mesh into place inevi
tably liberated the other end of the piece, which had until recently seemed securely buried. With one person digging out the trouble spots and two forcing both ends into position it was just possible for the fourth person to fill in the trench and bury the wire. I dug, Toby pushed, Ashley pushed and Layla buried. Success! One down.

  But adding the next section meant it had to be tied to the end of the first with wire, leaving no gaps for a cunning lobo to exploit. Arse biscuits. As we dug up the end of the first piece we decided that next time we would attach the sections together before we buried one of them.

  By late, late afternoon we were done. I was positive we’d made all the trenches plenty deep enough – or more accurately, I was damn sure they weren’t about to get any deeper! The last section of the wire had been buried and fastened to the mesh of the cage all the way around. It was all double thick, except for the first section which we’d just finished reburying when Johnny explained he wanted all sections to be double thick. As far as he was concerned we knew what he was thinking even before he decided to share it with us.

  Telepathy was a useful trick during my time at the centre.

  Though sadly about as psychic as a cheese, I was becoming a master of bullshit. A case of when in Rome… And I was learning from the masters.

  The heavily fortified cage didn’t get filled that day. I almost didn’t think it had been filled the next day either – but then I looked harder. What had caught my eye? In the shadows something moved. Could it be…? I crouched down for a better look, my face pressed dangerously close. There it was! In the corner furthest from the light, trembling with barely contained rage – or… shivering? In fear? The longer I looked, the more I could make out. Huddled beneath a low feeding platform was a very small, very bedraggled, somewhat pathetic looking fox. His fur was matted, his long tail wrapped protectively around his quivering body. I think the poor creature was cold. In the ferociousness stakes he must have ranked somewhere between Don Juan and Machita. Maybe even that was too dramatic. In a cage built to contain the Hounds of Hell we had imprisoned a creature that looked like he would lose a fight with a stuffed toy.