Amazonian Basin (Bolivia)
30 OCT - 17 NOV
Ah, the lush greenery of the jungle, the overwhelming density of the flora that surrounds me, the sunlight illuminating the trees in an intruiging matted fashion giving my surroundings an agleam and fulgid look in a most rarefied atmosphere. I'm walking along one of the many trails that meander through this particular version of the 'Garden of Eden'. I then notice something extremely odd. Approximately two metres away from me there is a fully grown female puma walking the same trail. Actually, she appears to be quietly going about her own business. In fact, it's now that I notice that there is a long rope tied around my waist, and hey, wait a minute, it's somehow tied to the puma that's walking in front of me! Thinking back a few moments, I believe, in fact, I know for certain, that I had deliberately clipped the caribiner on the end of the rope that now dangles around my waist to the freakin' COLLAR of this wild animal? Thinking a little more clearly now in a kind of Avatar inspired type of fashion I question the sanity of this symbiotic relationship between me, man, and WILD ANIMAL! Is it an absolute neccesity, dear Henry, to take this wild, unpredictable, moody and temperamental creature out for a walk in its natural environment? In fact, what the fuck were you thinking when you convinced yourself that any place for this beast other than the inside of its cage was going to be a winning scenario for you?
'Welcome to the jungle' - Parque Ambue Ari - Amazonian Basin, Bolivia
Popular - not the cat that attacked me, but you can see the look in its eye - I'm looking mighty tasty
Day 1 in camp - all smiles after my attack...but internally I was more than a little freaked!
My trainer in all things puma related and inspired, Sebastian, a 23 year old German from the great city of Berlin, stalls for a moment on the trail and then casually announces in a cool, Euro-rasta style cross accent that you're sure was brought to you by the boys from 'Ganja 'R Us'...
'Yeah, this is where she went a bit funny on the trail yesterday'
'Oh shit, really?' I think to myself - actually, I may have said it out aloud because Sebastians' slow resonating and considered response was 'Yeeahh' as he nodded thoughtfully. Also, it was delivered in such a casual way that in actual fact he may have only been reaffiriming his own initial statement. Truthfully however,
at this point in time, I wasn't all that fussed to find out whether I prompted it or not. My mind was totally focused on other things.
Yuma, the cat that I'm now apparently walking, stops and gazes out through the thick undergrowth. My 45min orientation course of 'Yumas' trails' informs me that she's now being jungle mindfucked by a residual scent coming from somewhere in the vicinty of the river. Yuma,(aka, this freakin' wild cat) hisses into the dark depths of the Amazonian jungle, and then turns, turns and faces me squarely.
'Ummm, ok Sebastian, red alert on the psycho cat front! What did the guidebook say about dealing with pumas that have flipped their schizo dial to inbetween 11 and Watchu talkin' about Willis!?'
Sebastian, having already anticipated the possibility of this confrontation, tells me to shorten the lead on the rope, quickly! My mind, processing the situation at alarming speed, (I recently upgraded my internal processor to a Pentium 5), questions the validity of pulling a raving lunatic of an animal towards myself. The issue however, which I quickly deduced, was that the current slack on the rope meant that this mental bitch now had free access to any part of my body. I can see the cat staring at me, its ears folded back, its teeth exposed, preparing to pounce and use me as its very own churrasco.
Popular - the cat that I finally settled with - just chillin' out for the afternoon
Then IT happens. From a low rolling type of growl to an unmistakable wild cat snarl and then yowl, this thing makes its move with blinding speed. In an instant its claws are wrapped around my ankle and calf, its jaws around my knee. It starts ripping into my leg, the ferocity of which catches me completely off guard...'Hey cat, I'm on holiday man, why are you being so uncool?'...my mind now races in order to find a solution to the problem. 'OK, what did Sebastian say, try and be calm and try to assure the cat that everything is ok'...
So, out comes the following, 'Tranquila, tranquila chica'.
Nothing happens, the attack continues ...Ofcourse the attack is fucking continuing, this is a wild animal, what part of the Spanish version of 'chill out girlfiend' did I actually believe would resonate with this beast and prevent it from doing what it apparently needs to do? It's only at this point however that my mind turns to the potentially aweful outcome that is so common to such shows as 'When animals attack', 'When animals go wild' and the infamous Darwin awards. Could this animal be so ticked off that it actually wants to kill me? I've seen these ridiculous situations on TV before. A nutter getting into a cage with a grizzly, a circus elephant with a violent toothache rampaging through the streets of Dehli! Now could I, Henry Elisher, have put myself into the position where I was going to become another idiot statistic? Mauled to death by a puma that's more than likely trying to take out its sexual frustrations on me! I'm a God damn volunteer for Christ's sake, and I'm on holiday! Haven't you read the script today Yuma!? This is not the way it's suppose to go! Imagine what my parents are going to think? What sort of shame am I going bring on the family with such self inflicted idiocy. What sort of explanation could there possibly be to interested parties when asking of my demise? There's really no credible way of explaining a death by starting off with the words, 'Well yes, Henry had tied himself to a puma and...'.
Sweet Howler monkeys - they looked like they'd be much more pleasant to handle
Lorenzo 'showing off' for Dina - I swear, there was something ON between those two!!
'You're in the jungle baby!'
Yuma, after her first mawling frenzy backs off for a second. It's a slight breather but it's nothing more than that. In she comes again, her jaws land higher on my thigh and her claws are tearing at me just around the knee with animalistic ferver. Endorphins are flooding my system whilst at the same time I'm still convincing myself that the Parque Ambue Ari playbook response of trying to reassure the cat the everything is ok is the safest bet, I come out with the following firm response, 'No Yuma, no!' - because obviously the switch from Spanish to English was going to be the smartest thing to do! Pushing her mouth away from my upper thigh with my hand, a stray claw makes a sweet gash on my palm and my own sweet red claret starts dotting the jungle floor. Looking up at Sebastian for something, anything, he responds by saying 'Yooomaa',in the same way that a father might berate their child for being ever so 'silly'. 'Why thankyou Sebastian, thumbs up for instinct and protecting your fellow man'.
Suddenly it stops. Yuma backs off and lies down on the path panting, like her afternoon attack class has taken it out of her or something. My brain simultaneously realises that the immediate threat is over. Sebastian stands in front me and points to my right hand, telling me that I'm bleeding.
'Should I take the rope' he asks.
'Oh yes, this cat is all yours bro'.
After several more hisses and one nerve wracking stand-off Yuma turns around and walks back down the path from which we had just come. She basically guides us, meaning Sebastian, back to her cage. This is her territory. She knows the trail, she knows the way home and she knows the routine. Walking a cat, in Inti Warra Yassi theory, should be this easy. The potential to get 'jumped', the colloquial Inti Wara Yassi term for a cat pouncing you, or either being bitten or mawled is not actually highlighted in red on their site.In fact it's not mentioned at all. In that sense the organisation (but not your average volunteers), tend to cover up that well known fact. Whilst I don't really want to discuss that 'perculiar' aspect in this write up, I will address this extremely fraudulent and negligent aspect in the next.
Parque Ambue Ari - Bolivia - 'A road runs through it'
So, how was my first ever day as a volunteer? Alarming! At the end of the day I did come to realise with absolute clarity that these cats do not really understand Spanish, or even English for that matter. Also I realised that if a wild animal is going to attack you then the best form of defence is probably not to be there in the first place.
The next day I was given the pleasure of reading some of the impressions that previous volunteers had written of Yuma during the time they had worked with her. The general pattern or rather flavour of what they said went something like this, can be aggressive, is moody, is temperamental, is definately a princess, either likes you or hates you. Reading those impressions and pausing for a moment to allow them to sink in, my brain regressed. I remembered girlfriends of years past that could have been described in a very similar fashion and I knew then, as I knew now, that the only wat out was to run...to run and never ever look back!
