David Nobbs - Obstacles to Young Love

‘I’d lose my will to live if I was in Kilmarnock Zoo,’ says Simon.

‘I hate zoos,’ says Maggie. Credit. ‘And if you think that puts me in a difficult position over taxidermy, it doesn’t. Timothy’s the most ethical person I know. He would never have anything healthy and happy killed to further his business.’ Easy to mock, but, actually, rather reluctantly, credit.

After lunch, they have a walk in the jungle. Their guide, Basilio, is young, even boyish, and quite small. He takes his terrier with him, which gives it the feel of a Sunday walk in the park rather than an intrepid voyage of discovery. He shows them an achiote tree, picks a fruit from it and opens it up to demonstrate how the Indians paint their faces red. He thinks he hears rain.

‘We are not having the jungle walk cancelled,’ hisses the German. ‘I will not accept short measure.’

The rain holds off. They see many kinds of trees, and some ants, but no animals. Basilio apologises for the lack of animal life. There are too many people here. Clearly, to see the animals of the jungle you have to go where you aren’t.

The skies darken. The trees murmur their indignation at the increasing wind, and begin to shake anxiously. The walk ends forty minutes early.

‘Short measure,’ whispers the travel agent.

The next item on the agenda is a nocturnal canoe trip. It gets dark early here.

‘They will try to cancel it because of the rain,’ says their new friend. ‘We must insist. I will not accept short measure.’

But the rain stops. They go to the creek and climb into a canoe. Their guide for the trip is Basilio. They drift down the creek beneath the mudbanks, in the dark. They hear the noises of the jungle – crickets, more crickets, and then…Can it be? It is. More crickets. They also see the tail of a young anaconda. Well, they’re told that it’s the tail of a young anaconda, and choose to believe it. They hear a bullfrog. And more crickets. Suddenly the moon shines brightly. Basilio explains that it is now too light for alligators. Presumably, you can only see them when it’s too dark to see them. They are beginning to get the hang of this jungle travel.

The trip is abandoned.

‘Short measure,’ whispers the travel agent.

They invite him to join their table for the candlelit dinner. He is delighted.

They sit right in the middle of the huge, empty, candlelit room. Dinner is served by Basilio. It begins with a beetroot salad.

Their German friend asks Naomi and Simon where they have been since he last met them.

‘We went to Chiclayo,’ says Naomi.

‘Ah! What did you think of the Bruning Museum?’

‘The what?’

‘The Bruning Museum at Lambayeque.’

‘We didn’t go there.’

‘But it’s a marvellous museum, and the wacas between there and Chiclayo are also very interesting.’

‘We missed the wacas.’

‘But there is nothing else to see around Chiclayo.’

‘We went with Simon’s uncle, who is a parish priest, for him to say farewell to some Canadian nuns. We liked Chiclayo, its stubby cathedral covered in vultures, its friendliness, names like the Bang Bang Amusement Arcade. We spent a lovely evening in the nuns’ Parish House. They didn’t know how to mix gin and tonics, though. Either that, or there’s a great shortage of tonic in Peru.’

Naomi is trying to get a reaction from Timothy and Maggie. Even a slight sniff of disapproval would do. But they are impervious. So very disappointing.

The beetroot salad is followed by soup with a fried egg in it, tasty highly spiced chicken with poor fried rice, and a fruit salad. With so few people there the meal is finished in under an hour. Never mind. That will give them all the more time to enjoy the promised traditional local cabaret in the bar.

The cabaret is an embarrassed Basilio with a guitar. He plays quite nicely. Timothy holds Maggie’s hand. Not to be outdone, Naomi holds Simon’s hand as if they are walking down the Ramblas in Barcelona and it’s her wallet. The poor travel agent tries to look as if he is delighted to have no hand to hold.

Basilio doesn’t play all that long, to be honest, and the four English visitors can’t blame him, but the German whispers, ‘Short measure. Always short measure.’

Basilio now has a few words to say to them.

‘Tomorrow we will visit an Indian village. They do not use money. They have nice things to buy, and you will need to barter. The best thing to use is cigarettes. They like cigarettes. If you want to buy things tomorrow, get some cigarettes at the bar tonight.’

Simon fetches more drinks – beer for him and the German, red wine for Naomi, bottled water for Timothy and Maggie. He also buys cigarettes.

‘I will not spread this noxious weed,’ says the German. ‘I have fish hooks with me. Many fish hooks. I will barter with fish hooks.’

Timothy and Maggie also refuse to buy cigarettes. The travel agent offers to sell them some of his fish hooks.

‘I don’t think so, thank you very much,’ says Timothy loftily. ‘I don’t honestly anticipate that there’ll be anything we want to buy.’

By the time they have finished their drinks, the barman is asleep. It’s almost ten o’clock.

Naomi has been wondering about Timothy’s sex life. Maggie doesn’t look sexy. Not that they will be likely to be having sex tonight. The chalets have single beds underneath mosquito nets. It’s not conducive.

‘I love your breasts,’ whispers Simon from his single bed. ‘I wish I was fondling and kissing them now. Imagine kissing hers. He’s got a job on. They’re enormous.’

‘I must say they did remind me of some old English burial mounds I saw once in Dorset,’ says Naomi.

‘You’re a terrible woman,’ says Simon affectionately.

In the morning they’re scheduled to walk to a village of the Yagua Indians. Basilio meets them outside the lodge. He bangs a big drum five times with a gong, explaining that this is an Indian method of communicating.

Their walk takes them about an hour. Animals seen amount to a slightly disappointing total of one iguana.

The German astounds them by saying, ‘I know a German joke about the British.’

‘Oh, do tell us,’ says Naomi.

‘There were two Englishmen who met at work.’

They wait to enjoy the rest of his joke, then realise, to their horror, that he has finished. They don’t get it.

‘They work at the same place, but they have never met, because one or the other of them was always on strike,’ he explains. ‘German jokes are subtle.’

After about three-quarters of an hour the little party cross a creek on a high bridge. They find themselves in a small village of thatched houses on stilts. There are two houses filled with people hiding. They can dimly see that they are wearing jeans and T-shirts. Basilio hurries them past these houses.

Waiting for them on a bench are four Yagua Indians, three men in grass skirts and a woman in a large green kerchief that doesn’t quite hide her breasts, which look two decades past their suck-by date. It’s difficult to say which group seems the more embarrassed by this travesty of tourism.

In front of them, on a wire, are rows of beads, necklaces adorned with alligator heads, and other delights.

The German decides to buy something, and the bartering begins, translated by Basilio.

‘I give you two fish hooks.’

‘Packet of cigarettes.’

‘Four fish hooks.’

‘Packet of cigarettes.’

It’s the only currency they want, and they only want whole packets so they can sell them in town. Of course they use money. The German buys a packet off Simon, says, ‘I can’t think why they want this noxious weed,’ and with the packet settles on a bracelet of alligator teeth. Who is it for? wonders Naomi.