Five Bestselling Travel Memoirs Box Set

by Twead, Victoria

  And he was a girl.

  Rescue

  There was an aura of evil around the circus. I could feel it, or maybe smell it, as we approached the sagging canvas of the big top. Johnny and Brenda, Toby and myself, accompanied by a crack squad of Quito’s finest Animal Police. No, seriously! Presumably international pressure on the country’s ecological policy was responsible for their creation. I could see them as a sort of lip service sacrifice, the minimum effort and expense needed to make it look like the government was taking the issue seriously. There was only one group of them and I doubted if they knew any more about animals than any other coppers. But interestingly enough we were also being followed by a film crew from one of the local TV stations – they’d sent their star reporter to cover the inaugural rescue of the Animal Police. It meant Toby and me got to ride in a military style covered wagon with the cops, which they seemed to find very amusing.

  Close up, the enormous main tent was dilapidated, dishevelled, and the painted wooden signs were battered and flaking. The place felt like a ghost-circus, some relic of a bygone era inhabited by the tortured souls of those who once cavorted for entertainment.

  Inside was worse. A couple of squat, ugly guys were debating with the police in subdued tones. Their anger was apparent, as was their lack of hygiene, but there was little they could do about either with a squad of armed officers surrounding them. One biggish guy with enough bling over his stained shirt and jeans to suggest comparative affluence, was shaking a finger at our short-sleeved cops. There was grass underfoot. Gigantic logs that made our fence posts look like twigs supported the roof. The underside of the canvas was dark blue and painted with gaudy yellow stars.

  Along one wall ranged an assortment of cages on pedestals. Each one contained a creature, all looking subdued and sorrowful. A couple of pitiful capuchin monkeys, a few small green parrots – and right at the end was the prize pet of the freak show. A huge Scarlet Macaw, his beak so grossly overgrown that it must have been almost impossible for him to eat. The bottom jaw, thick and massive, curved up in front of his face and ended above his head. The top jaw grew round and down, crossing the bottom one scissor-like, with its tip digging into the feathers of his neck.

  He looked like a monster yet behaved like a mouse. Brenda eased her hands carefully around it and drew it slowly from the cage. As she held it gingerly, both hands cupped around breast and wings, we clustered round in disbelief. The same sense of fascination with the macabre that kept the circus selling tickets was present in all of us. It made me feel unclean.

  Johnny held open the gate of one of the cat carriers we’d brought with us. Between them the husband and wife team sealed the freak show parrot away and carried him off to safety. Toby and I stood silently in disgust and glanced sadly from cage to tiny cage.

  Off to one side, under the eaves of the tent, there was a wheeled wooden carriage. The cops had clustered around it and were staring intently at something. Our height advantage gave us a glimpse inside to where a fully grown lioness lay on a pile of filthy straw. Lions? I caught the same look on Toby’s face. What the hell were we going to do with lions?

  Unfortunately that problem solved itself in a most unsatisfactory manner. All Ecuadorian animals are illegal to own. We could confiscate them on sight as long as Johnny reported the rescue to the appropriate authorities. But lions don’t come from Ecuador. Wherever this stinking flash bastard had gotten his hands on a lioness, it was none of our business. The crack squad of Animal Police didn’t look likely to start any kind of investigation into the matter. They seemed happy with their haul, and happier still not to have to risk life and limb to rescue a lion. We confiscated all the other parrots and monkeys one by one, and left. I tried to send an apology to the lioness with my eyes and heart. She didn’t even move a muscle. Her cage was less than three metres long anyway – what was she going to do, turn back flips? We rejoined the cops in their wagon, but none of us shared their triumphant mood. They laughed and joked with each other, and poked fun at us, pointed and jeered and laughed some more. Toby and I sat in silence.

  Until, going around a tight corner, the steel bench holding half the cops collapsed sending them flying all in all directions! Watching them all trying to get back up when every pothole the truck hit sent them sprawling across the metal deck again was at last something for me and Toby to laugh about. Even half the cops joined in, cracking up at how ridiculous their mates looked falling all over the place. By the time we reached our next house call we were both in much better spirits. And I was determined to do everything I could to help in the rescue. Brenda and Johnny displayed such passion for helping these animals and I really wanted to be part of it.

  Two small monkeys were chained to equally small trees in the middle of a paved back yard. Knocking on the offender’s door hadn’t produced any results, so it was lucky that there was access round the side. Surprisingly the police weren’t allowed to enter anyone’s home. All four sides of the yard were bordered by buildings; bricks and concrete completely surrounded the tiny patch of open ground where the twin trees sprouted. Each monkey had a chain about two metres long fastened around its waist with a leather band – cat collars as it turned out, designed to go around the neck with an ID disc on. The monkeys must have long since outgrown them, and become so wild due to the constant pain of constriction that their owner had never dared get close enough to take them off. By now, after God knows how long in that cramped courtyard, they were deformed and dangerously unhinged.

  “I’ll do it,” I said. It was my motto now.

  The look Johnny gave me was at once measuring and concerned. Could I do it? I could see him weighing the odds. Then he shrugged and nodded. “Okay,” he told me. “Cuidado.”

  Careful. Really? I was wearing long black welding gloves and a t-shirt, which was the sum total of our protective equipment. The nearest monkey was already screaming its pain and defiance at me. Quite how I could incorporate ‘careful’ into my capture tactics was beyond me. Should I have been approaching on tiptoes?

  I spread my arms like a vampire swooping in for the kill. The chains were just short enough that neither of the monkeys could reach the other. It seemed a cruel jest on the part of the owner, but it did at least mean I could deal with them one at a time. My first target raced around his tree in a manic blur. Every time I got close to him he’d slip away – largely because I was too scared to grab him. He moved so fast and I was terrified of grabbing him badly and hurting him. In the end though I just went for it. Nothing else I could do, and before long Johnny would have stopped me anyway. So I lunged and the animal fled but his chain, already wrapped twice around the trunk, wouldn’t allow him enough height to get away. I closed a gloved hand around his body. Instantly he writhed around in my grip and sank his teeth into my fingers. Again and again he bit. Shit, I was glad of those gloves! I felt every bite like catching my finger in a door, but hopefully nothing was breaking the skin. I adjusted my grip to hold the back of the monkey’s head – something I’d had plenty of practice at recently – and suddenly the ordeal was over.

  Well, half over – I still had to get the other bugger! It was an action replay moment and soon both monkeys were howling at us from the safety of their cat baskets.

  Johnny actually looked proud when I handed him back the gloves. “Monkey Man!” He pronounced me. I’ve never been as proud of a nickname in my life.

  From that moment on I had no fear. I faced down a bunch of dogs at the home of some wealthy government official; the specially trained squad of animal cops wouldn’t go near them. I just walked through the gate, right up to the snarling animals and eventually they gave in. The cops came strolling casually in afterwards, congratulating me as though I’d just diffused a bomb.

  The film crew followed us through a couple more raids, then all the way back to the vet’s surgery. There Leonardo anaesthetised the monkeys and carefully cut away the cat collars, revealing angry pink scar tissue beneath their malformed ribcages. The c
amera lens was mere inches away from the action as he carved away at the monster parrot’s beak with an angle grinder. But their star reporter wasn’t even watching; she was quite busy chatting up Toby! Since our first arrival on scene she’d been stuck to him like shit to a blanket. Apparently she was some kind of local celebrity. I had to admit that she wasn’t bad looking and Toby of course didn’t have the same fear of speaking Spanish that characterised my few fraught exchanges with the opposite sex. It’d be a fair coup for him if he started dating Ecuador’s answer to Victoria Beckham! Though I couldn’t really see her wanting to spend the night in the volunteer house…

  She did however get him to star in his own little drama. The film crew asked the cops to reverse back up the road and drive their vehicles into shot with full lights and sirens blazing! It was (in my view) a rather feeble attempt to add excitement to the piece, but if it made better TV of our efforts then it was all for the greater good. So the cops screeched to a halt and out jumped Toby, determined expression on his face and empty cat basket in hand. What a star! I had a jealous moment when I wished they’d filmed me taking on those monkeys, but what the hell. So long as Johnny had seen me I was happy.

  And thus, Santa Martha was restocked. Chains were removed, wounds salved and we repackaged several of the critters to take back home with us. The parrot with the huge beak, still enormous but now passably functional, would be coming along with two gigantic blue and yellow Macaws that we’d discovered in an illegal private zoo. They’d been so distressed by the sight of the transport cages that they’d ridden all the way home on our shoulders!

  We pulled up at the centre completely exhausted. A chorus of shrieks and squawks from the back of the truck announced our arrival. I was bleeding here and there from odd bites that had missed the gloves and heavily bruised from all the ones that hadn’t, and everyone present stank like the floor of a monkey’s cage. But it was a good smell and it was a good tired. Today we had done good. And that was all that really mattered.

  Exorcism

  The girls had their turn on rescue missions the next day. I stayed behind with Toby helping to redistribute all the new animals and help them settle in. It was immensely satisfying. What with all the major events recently I really felt like I was helping to make a difference. I’d even made a small collection in the galpón of all the chains, leashes and other barbaric restraints I’d taken off various creatures. I was minded to suggest we made a display of it for the visiting school groups to see, so that they could appreciate just how cruel people could be to wild animals. Without exception our new arrivals took to their enclosures with enthusiasm. After months or even years in tiny cages, restrained with ropes or steel shackles, starved, deformed and miserable, the chance to swing free, or fly a little, or even hop around an area bigger than a plastic crate, was gratefully exploited by all. I was already well on my way to making some new friends.

  When the girls returned they looked glum. I hardly dared to ask them if they’d had fun. I didn’t need to anyway. Layla had only been back a few minutes when she started complaining about it.

  “We just sat in the truck while they drove and sat in the truck when we got there. It was a total waste of time. Then they dropped us in a field and we stood around for ages while they chased after this deer. Like they could ever catch a deer! All we did all day was drive, sit around… so boring.”

  “Did they catch the deer?” I dared venture.

  “Ha!” She scoffed. “Of course not! Why did they even bother?”

  I itched to ask her the very same question.

  Ashley was strangely quiet on the subject until later that evening. She might have had fun, she all but growled at me, had it not been for Layla whinging and whining, refusing to take part at all and hanging around Ashley like a fart in a space suit. Result: she couldn’t take part either, as everyone else had lumped the pair of them together as useless observers. Poor Ashley was every bit as eager to be involved as I was, and twice as hard a worker. And now she was thoroughly pissed off.

  The next few days were really tough, with no chance of escaping the tension in the volunteer house. Layla had been excused from working with the rest of us and someone, probably Brenda, had arranged for her to spend her time painting murals on the outside walls of the house. She painted a butterfly, and a picture of Machita, in a rather childish cartoony style. It made the place brighter of course, but it started to look a bit like a crèche. Evenings were spent trying to ignore the awkward silences that grew between us and I often hid in Toby’s room until the others were asleep. On the upside, I was getting a whole lot better at chess!

  Later that week, Layla was ‘transferred for personal reasons’. Her gap-year co-ordinator, after negotiations with Johnny, had decided that Layla was homesick and would benefit from a change of scenery. Personally I couldn’t have cared less; whether she’d benefited from winning ten million dollars on the lottery, or been repeatedly run over by a steamroller. I was just happy to have her gone from the centre, and I don’t think I was alone.

  Toby walked with less caution, lost that ‘hunted’ look and began to strut once more. Ashley smiled continuously in the way that she had previously reserved for watching Machita play. I felt like one of those battered dogs, rescued from a life of misery by the RSPCA and restored to a kind and loving home with children who fed me biscuits and ice cream.

  Occasionally Toby and me would catch ourselves grinning at each other for no immediately apparent reason, and at least one of us would spontaneously burst into a few lines of “Ding, Dong, the Witch is Dead!”

  Poor spoiled little Layla. Obviously raised with a silver spoon between her butt cheeks, and hovering around ‘that difficult age’, she just wasn’t ready for the wide world. And the wide world wasn’t ready for her. Perhaps in a few years she’d learn some tact, earn a little wisdom and humility, maybe even develop a less abrasive personality. Then ideally join a gym, stop eating all the pies and get some plastic surgery. But she’d still be a pain in the arse.

  Unfortunately we’d no sooner gotten rid of Layla then it was Ashley’s turn to leave. In her case the departure was long arranged, and she’d probably been looking forward to it in the recent atmosphere. It did seem a shame though. She’d suffered less during Layla’s reign of terror of course, being more of an ally than a target however unwilling, but it still didn’t seem fair that she should have to leave just when we were getting used to having fun again. I told her to keep my Tarot cards (I’d brought them to enhance my mystique; Ashley had adopted them after giving Toby a reading so scarily accurate he’d banned the cards from his presence) and embraced her warmly. I felt rather silly for ever worrying that she was joining in some imaginary campaign against me. She said a last tearful farewell to Machita before climbing into the taxi to be whisked out of our lives for good. Toby and I both took a few calming deep breaths but neither of us could afford to cry in front of the other. After all, this had happened before and would surely happen again. But for now it was the end of an era.

  And once again we were two.

  Bear Faced Cheek

  After a fairly lonely weekend, Toby and I were eager to start work again when Monday swung around.

  It started like any other day. As it happened, it finished like any other day too, but that’s not important. The fact is, between those rather ordinary times, it was not at all like any other day. Well, the morning was different.

  It was a day with a different morning.

  We were halfway through the 7 am feed when the alarm was raised (which happened fairly frequently at Santa Martha, and usually took the form of someone shouting “SHIT SHIT SHIT!” at top volume).

  Toby and I legged it down the road to see what was up, leaving a cage full of hungry monkeys beating each other with our wooden spoons. The problem wasn’t hard to spot. Around the corner that led down to Osita’s enclosure there was a tall tree growing halfway down the hill – with a large bear cub at the top of it. Now, even in Ecuador bears d
on’t grow on trees, and anyway those native to our area had long since been endangered into endangerment. Sitting cooly up that tree with a triumphant grin on her face was our bear cub.

  Oh bugger. My first panicked thought: What the hell was she doing out of her enclosure? Answer: Simple. Climbing a tree. Idiot. Next thought: How? How had she gotten out? Had I locked it properly yesterday? Of course! Even I’m not that dumb. Well, not twice. Had she been let out in the night by someone else? Or jumped somehow, despite the electric fence? Not that any of this mattered. There was only one pressing problem which definitely merited a Triple Shit Warning; how, in the name of all that smells fruity, were we going to get her back?

  We joined Johnny, Jimmy and Danielo in a meeting of the minds (which I appreciate is a bit of a contradiction in terms). I was thinking containment. Whilst Osita looked quite at home in the tree, more worrying was the prospect of her getting bored with it and climbing down. She could romp over the whole valley, and there wasn’t a thing we could do to stop her. If she ended up on some other farmer’s land she’d be shot without question, and there were no boundary walls or fences – at least nothing that would give her more than ten seconds pause. Osita was a master climber, which was another difficulty in itself. She could hide in the trees in the most impenetrable areas of forest, and be gone again by the time we cut our way through to her. All in all it didn’t bear thinking about. To my mind we simply HAD to keep her in that tree.