The call of the wild: Part three

Apart from a couple of spitting cobra incidents and one with a button spider, I’ve only ever had two unfortunate encounters with wild animals.

Once in northern Nigeria I took a trip with two friends to Zuru, where there is a crocodile grove, as the locals who practice an animist religion regard the croc as sacred. As we walked through a big, lightly-wooded area crossed by a stream — me some way behind, as I was the day’s photographer — a young crocodile appeared and hurtled in my direction.

It was only three feet long, but that was three feet too many and I started running, the croc giving chase. There were lots of people around: my friends, a couple of priests from the local Catholic mission, a dozen schoolboys and some local adults.

I thought, as I pounded away from the croc, they would give me some assistance, but they all started roaring with laughter. Finally one of the schoolboys hurled a stone at the croc (sacred or not) and it turned tail.

The other incident involved a gibbon — a small monkey with a very long tail. Readers may (or may not) remember that some weeks ago I was describing Iquitos, the main town in the Peruvian

Amazon region, where I would spend a night or two before heading for Sinchicuy Lodge. On one visit I toured the zoological park, where a gibbon took a liking to me, climbed on to my arm and hung there as I walked around.

I had some cashew nuts with which I fed it, and it seemed blissfully happy. At the end of the trip I made for a taxi and when I bent down so the gibbon could climb off me and on to a bench, it bit my arm.

Ungrateful churl. It had had a nice ride and had eaten my cashew nuts and then to repay me with an act of gratuitous violence. Luckily I was wearing a thick jungle jacket and my arm was only bruised, but the damned creature had eaten all my snack food, and the taxi driver advised me to go to the local clinic for a tetanus jab, which took up the rest of the morning.
Keep away from gibbons. Well, at least that one.

I’m going to round up this week with a shaggy dog story. A South African goes to live and work in the United States. When he’s settled in, he looks for a place that runs dog fights, hoping to earn some extra bucks from his pet.

He finds a low-life bar, which has a yard at the back where dog fights are organised, and turns up with his pet. The first fight he lays a bet on, his pet wins the bout in about ten seconds. Every other fight he wins, and the money is piling up in front of the owner.

The other gamblers ask him what breed his dog is and he replies “it’s a long nosed, long tailed, short legged terrier.” The owner of the bar then comes over and says “now yours must fight my dog, the champion, never been beaten.”

The South African agrees and the fight begins; within ten seconds the champion dog has lost. “Good grief,” moans the champion’s owner. “What kind of dog did you say that is?” The reply comes: “It’s a long nosed, long tailed, short-legged terrier.” The champion’s owner asks “and where does it come from?” The owner of the long nosed, long tailed short legged terrier replies: “he’s from South Africa. Some people call them crocodiles.”

I would have told that joke earlier on in this piece, but didn’t want my readers to predict the crocodile gag. The rest of this piece (over the next two weeks) will be mainly taken up with stories of wild animals I met at Sinchicuy Lodge in the Peruvian Amazonia.

There was one creature who took an immediate and unswerving dislike to me, namely a toucan, a kind of parrot with an enormous beak. Every time I approached it to offer it a piece of fruit, it spun round on its perch, eyes blazing, and swiped me with its beak.

This didn’t hurt, but the beak made an alarming “clunk” as it hit the side of my head. As the old song goes, “anything you can do, toucan do better.”
To be continued

Chris Dunton