Peter Allison - How to Walk a Puma

‘Which ones?’

‘All of them.’ I grinned maniacally.

Unlike the epic rafting trip with Abel and Captain Useless, this river journey would offer situations literally more hairy, as this was a wildlife-rich area. Many tour operators used the same point as an embarkation area, and almost one hundred people were milling around, waiting to be allocated a canoe and guide. The cluster the Minke and I had joined was a mixed bag of a pair of my fellow Australians, an English couple and two French travellers, who were either mute or had no interest in speaking to us, Eric, our guide, or each other. I’d only figured their nationality based on the names they’d given when I introduced myself.

Despite being landlocked, Bolivia maintains a navy, a relic from the days before they lost coastal access in a war with Chile. We watched and waited while a Bolivian official, spruce in his uniform, made sure that the flotilla of motorised canoes we’d be travelling in for the next stage of our journey were counted and ticked off. He did so with all the professionalism that fully loaded battleships would require, frowning as he double-counted every vessel. As the little group that would join the Minke and me waited to be told to board, our guide, Eric, stood watching with a broad smile that we were soon to realise was semi-permanent.

Eventually there were only a few canoes left. ‘All those ones,’ said Eric, waving towards the river as the last few canoes disappeared, ‘will go too fast, and make too much noise. We’ll go slowly and quietly, and see lots of animals!’

‘Oh, I like this,’ I thought. So with smiling Eric in the rear, our small group set off last, saluting the naval officer, who just glared back at us, maybe imagining a vast ocean he might one day command, or perhaps just lay his eyes on.

Unlike the jungle we’d got used to seeing on our raft trip, this time we were surrounded by sprawling pampas on either side. Pampas areas are tropical, but with far more expanses of open grassland than jungle. And while this habitat lacks the kaleidoscopic biodiversity of the rainforests, we were likely to see more animals because the open pampas allows viewers to see that much further, and animals that live there are more accustomed to being watched by humans and are thus less inclined to run away.

A few trees sprang up from the plains, and in places the river banks were overrun with scrambled shrubs and liana vines in which monkeys clambered. Often the monkeys would beg for fruit from people in the passing boats, behaviour resulting from bad tourism practices, and I was glad to see that grinning Eric didn’t encourage such activities.

As Eric steered us along the river’s wending course, smiling at his surrounds, giggling at the monkeys and occasionally pointing out the caimans sunning themselves on the bank, my hopes rose that this was the right sort of place to see a jaguar.

‘Oh my goodness!’ Eric exclaimed, the phrase sounding quaint in his accented English. ‘I’ve never seen that before!’

I swivelled around, trying to see what he was referring to. Nearby, a flicker of movement became a ripple, and I realised that what I was looking at was a caiman that had caught a snake. But not just any snake. It was an anaconda.

‘Wow! Take some photos, please. The other guides won’t believe me!’ said Eric, laughing, as if their doubt was the funniest thing imaginable. Quite thrilled, we carried on. I felt my luck curve take an upswing and wondered if maybe, just maybe, we might see something very special here. Something with spots.

Not long after our sighting of the anaconda-eating caiman, a certain smell began to tickle my nose which I recognised as the distinctive odour of marijuana. Puttering around a corner we caught sight of another canoe, moving even more slowly than ours, puffs of grey-white smoke emanating from it, and not from the motor.

The guide for the magic dragon group stood at the back, wearing a khaki camouflage shirt with torn-off sleeves, a knife of ridiculous proportions hanging from his belt. I’ve never been to a wilderness area that didn’t have guides like him, the sort that take the job not because they love animals or the outdoors, but because they think it makes them look tough and will impress girls. At the front of El Macho’s canoe stood one of the tourists, heavily muscled, with a military-looking close crop of hair.

In countries with tourism industries, the least-popular tourists will often be those who visit in the greatest numbers. Thus, in parts of Africa, Americans are unloved; in Mozambique, South Africans are often reviled; the Brits have a reputation in southern Spain. But in Bolivia the dominant and most disliked tourists are Israelis, and this canoe clearly held a group of Israelis doing their bit to further damage the reputation of their country.

I didn’t care where they were from, or that they were smoking weed, or even that they were making more noise than is appropriate in a wilderness area, but my hackles rose as I saw the muscle-bound tourist reach down into the canoe and come up with a stick which he threw at a caiman that was sunning itself on the bank. Even though the stick was little more than a twig, and it missed, and even if it had hit the caiman’s armoured skin could easily take such a blow, a cold fury began to course in my veins as it does whenever I witness any sort of cruelty to animals.

My icy rage grew as he reached back down and then threw another stick, missing again, but this time sending the caiman scuttling into the water. For a while we lost sight of him as his canoe rounded a bend but then saw him again throwing sticks at caimans. Mutters of ‘what a wanker’ rose from our canoe.

‘He’ll run out of sticks,’ I thought, steam all but whistling from my ears. Sure enough, he was soon out of ammo. But the guide then did one of the worst things I’ve ever seen a guide do, pulling over so Muscles could gather more sticks. Apoplectic with rage by now, I was ready to dive into the water and try to overtake their canoe with furious paddling, haul the muscly guy out of the boat, and then … well, I had no plan, but something that would hurt him before he drowned me. But the Minke made soothing noises at me and maybe even physically restrained me.

Now Muscles started throwing sticks at anything in sight, including a heron that had its back to him yet somehow detected the missile in the last fraction of a second and flared its wings, sidestepping the stick he’d thrown. Birds not only lack the caiman’s armour, but have bones light and hollow for flight, and even a small blow can break their limbs. The bird would have died had it been hit, possibly not immediately but over some days as it weakened.

By now I hated not just the stick thrower, but the guide. ‘Why doesn’t he stop him?’ I asked Eric, just to say something and unclench my jaw.

For once Eric was not smiling; he simply said, ‘That guide is not a good one.’

I was also furious with Muscles’ group. Surely there was someone aboard who could see that what he was doing was wrong? Maybe he was such an alpha male that the men were cowed, but one of the women could have humbled him. Yet no one did anything; they just puffed away at their joints and laughed at every missile he threw.

Finally they slowed, and nudged into a bank near a campsite festooned with the word ‘ Flecha ’, Spanish for arrow. It wasn’t planned, but as we puttered within range I stood up abruptly, causing a slight sway in the canoe that Eric was forced to correct, taking us a little closer to the alighting group.

‘Hey! Digestive exit!’ I shouted, or words that described such a thing in cruder terms.

Not surprisingly, they all turned to look at me.

‘No, you! Genital skull!’ I shouted (or words to that effect), waggling an outstretched finger at the muscled man as I called him after many unmentionable forms of waste, as well as accusing him of taking great pleasure in activities with his family that were not only distasteful but, frankly, impossible without surgery.