The call of the wild: Part five

At Sinchicuy Lodge there was also an enormous python. Completely harmless with the most beautiful iridescent skin. It liked to curl around me and would flicker its tongue (very long and slender and black) across my neck and cheek.

Once I rather thoughtlessly took it into the dining room with me at breakfast time and scared the life out of a group of elderly American tourists (unlike a character in Four Weddings and a Funeral I don’t make a habit of tormenting Americans). I was with a British friend from Lima and after the trip we had the following conversation:

(The friend) I’m not going to a place like that again.
(Me) Why ever not?
It’s full of nature.
Isn’t that rather the point of going there?
Well, if I do go to a place like that again, it won’t be with you.
Why not?

Because every meal-time you came into the dining-room with some bloody animal sitting on your shoulder or draped around your neck. The last straw was that snake. I mean—those poor Americans!

I still have more wild animals I wish to introduce you to, but am now moving away from the Amazon to South Africa, then to England, then to Lesotho.

Many years ago I took a holiday in the Eastern Cape with a South African friend. A highlight for me was a place called Stormsriviermond, where the Storms River meets the Indian Ocean. At the mouth of the river, in the ocean, are a string of big rocks over which the waters rage in different directions.

I sat for a couple of hours sketching this and taking notes; my idea was to make a short story using the complexity of the water action as a metaphor for human relationships. Not surprisingly – because the idea was bonkers – nothing has ever come of that (note to budding authors, this is NOT the way to plan a short story).

One morning I walked the otter trail; I didn’t spot any otters, but the scenery and the plants were lovely. Then Jenny and I visited the nearby monkey sanctuary. This is a place where monkeys and apes are cared for, including those that have been rescued from cages in markets in the DRC, where they are sold as food.

The guides were from South Africa and the DRC. We saw a small monkey being kept in an enclosure awaiting medical treatment; the poor animal was so traumatized by its market ordeal it couldn’t bear to make eye contact with a human being.

Though the poem references a bird, not a monkey, I was reminded of William Blake’s lines: “A robin redbreast in a cage / Puts all of heaven in a rage.” At a point we crossed a rope bridge over a ravine. This is the kind of thing I used to enjoy, but I couldn’t see very much.

The guide had advised me to take my glasses off and secure them in my top pocket, as there was a mischievous chimpanzee nearby who liked to collect glasses. Jenny and I had lunch outdoors, in a park café where giant tortoises were roaming around.

One of them had a small monkey riding on its back, rather like the hamster I mentioned some weeks ago, who liked to hitch rides on my cat. After a while I felt something tugging at my trouser-leg, in a friendly sort of way.

I looked down and saw it was a baby sloth (it seems we’re not going to get away from the Amazon entirely). Inch by inch it crawled up my leg. Of course, sloths are incredibly slow; one of the reasons they’re good to keep as pets is that if they decide to run away from home you’ve got five hours before they reach the front door.

Then there it was, with its big, round goggle eyes and its cute little smile (not really a smile; it’s just the way the mouth is formed, as with dolphins). The following conversation then took place between Jenny and myself.

(Jenny) What the dickens is that?
(Me) it’s a sloth. (After a quick inspection) Five-toed. There are also three-toed ones.
What’s it doing?
Making friends with me.

Well, don’t let it poop on you. We’ve got a long drive after this and I don’t want you in the passenger seat smelling of sloth poop.
I don’t think there’s a risk. Sloths have a very, very slow metabolism and I’ve read somewhere they poop on average only once a week.
(Jenny looks at her watch) Thursday. One o’clock. Watch out.
To be concluded

Chris Dunton