Pygmys, Jungle Cows, Water rats, Stunt Monkeys and a Partridge in a Peartree

Before your imagination starts running wild, no, I have not joined a guerilla army made up of Hutu pygmies in Burundi. I was, and still am in Ecuador - you know, that little country on....uhm........the equator! It has been great to spend time in Quito and Ecuador again, but in all honesty, I might as well have been spending my last two months on Uranus, as the jungle is nothing compared to the climes of Quito. The jungle is no place to raise a child (not that I am doing so, but in case anyone is contemplating it). And it also did not seem to be a place to film water possums. But more on that later.

Well, I finally left for Ecuador after some travelling around Central America and some hard-earned restful days on the beach..... On arriving in QUito I was met by a man who I would say is the epitomy of an Englishman. Steve has the demeanour of a Hugh Grant type (bumbling fool) and the looks of a Captain Bird's Eye/Rolf Harris bearded type. Incidentally, Steve has worked on 'Indiana JOnes and the Temple of Doom' and 'The Mummy', supplying all the insects and cats! (He also worked as a red double-decker bus driver in London!). The BBC crew at the end referred to him as the 'Prophet of Doom' seeing as he was always very pessimistic. Anyway, the next day we went out for dinner with Jim, the British cameraman I'd be working with. In true Brit fashion, we went to an English Pub called the 'The Turtle's Head'. Now for those that aren't English, you may think I am making this next thing up, but anyway......isn't turtle's head slang for when uhm...... how to put this mildly?......when you are literally shitting yourself, and a bit pokes out?! I thought so! The owner is Scottish, which would explain it. Five or so pints and some fish and chips later, Steve introduces me to a good-looking off duty waitress called Vanesa and tries to set me up - a funny man; lovely girl. I ended up partying till the wee hours of the morning (no, not with Jim and Steve...).

The next day I braved the now frequent landslides on the Andean slope of the Quito-Jungle road on a rickety old bus. A real mess (the road AND the bus). Six hours later, another two hours on an even ricketier bus, and 20 minutes canoe ride down the Arajuno River, and I arrive at 'Uranus'.

Actually, it's more like Animal Funny Farm. You see, we were filming near a reintroduction center/animal refuge, where it's normal to see squirrel monkeys riding on dogs or capuchin's backs, night monkeys acting like Davey Crocket hats on your head, wolf-whistling parrots, half tail coati that is more like a pet dog/cat seeking attention, and much, much more. It did make for interesting days work. In the weeks to come I varnished plywood planks with a chicken inspecting my every stroke (much like Mr. Miyagi and the Karate Kid), sawed wood with a woolly monkey on my lap, had beers with the coati curled up on me, slept in a hammock with Yanik, the squirrel monkey baby (that by the way, reeks of piss), and another night I found a baby owl monkey IN my pillow! It ended up sleeping curled up against my chest. SHe courteously did not piss or shit on me until I was fully dressed and about to sit down for breakfast! I have to say that that has been a recurring theme - animals pissing or shitting on me. This time around I have been pissed on by bats while having dinner, pissed on by squirrel monkeys, and had a mouse possum shit on my bed (leaving little pellets, that resembled the little chocolates you get left on your pillow in nice posh hotels!) Basically, I am a version of those porta-loos, or as you would say in the States, Port-a-JOhns, for wild animals.

Having said this, there isn't a whole lot of wildlife around the area, as it has all been eaten by the locals! This didn't stop me from wondering whether there were piranhas in the stretch of the river I swam regularly in. Or caimans? Or those funny little catfish that swim up your pee-hole and have to be surgically removed? Or blow-gun/spear toting Huaorani indians that may very well mistake me for their dinner?!

One thing that did mistake me for dinner was one of the captive tapirs (large cow-sized hooved mammals of the rainforest). I was in the large enclosure getting things ready for when Martyn COlbeck (No.1 wildlife cameraman) came. I was trying to ignore the tapir that had latched its tongue to my sweaty shin and shirt, and so was taking pictures of some bats in a hollow. I finally gave up and tugged my tshirt away from the tapir, only to set eyes on what was the edge of my t-shirt - he had munched right through it! Damn shirtmunching tapir. It must have been all the yummy-tasting funguses and moulds I was cultivating on my clothes, and myself I might add. I had all my clothes hanging around my cabaña to ward off additional humidity-loving moulds. Considered hanging myself too in order to not become mould ridden; desperate circumstances require desperate measures. Decided against it though.

WHat I should have done was take advantage of the array of colognes and perfumes available at Tena, the nearest town: Jungle Queen, Stormy for Ladies, Arsenal, Al Capone, Cuba, etc. I can just see the advertising slogans now:

- "When dining with your collared peccary neigbours, fit right in with Jungle Queen, the essence of dung."

- "What better fragrance to brave a tornado with than Stormy for Ladies" (not for me per se)

- How about Arsenal (in a grenade size and shaped bottle!) "Hey there guerilla members. Don't leave your hideouts to fight the government without 'Arsenal': it will knock them dead!"

- "Al Capone - Prohibited"; bring out the gangsta in you!"

- "Cuba (in a cigar shaped bottle): AH, be Fidel Castro´s breath!"

A grenade!! Can you believe it?! Hhhmmmm......is it anyone’s birthday soon?

My b-day came and went, but definitely an improvement from my previous 25th birthday (when the girl I was sort of seeing in DC told me she was 'seeing' someone else!). NOt hard to beat really. I went rafting, with some of the volunteers that worked at the refuge, on the Jatun Yacu river - a stroll in the park really. Highlight? THe beer at the end! No, it was fun. Then truck, bus, and canoe took us to AHuano, a small missionary town closer to the lodge in the jungle. Godforsaken little jungle town with a jungle 'disco' - consisted of a thatched hut with one large amplifier, a cheesy disco ball and some red lights, and drunken local Kichwa men. A sort of place where the women would wear 'Jungle Queen', that is, if there were any other women apart from the German, Swiss, Danish volunteer females! SO in light of that, I got drunk on $1.60 rum - per bottle, not glass! The volunteers gave me my only two presents - a stuffed squirrel monkey named Antiuco (teddy bear kind.....yes, at the age of 26!) and instructions on 'HOw to Catch a Water Possum' - basically instructions on how to make yourself look like a water possum and try and infiltrate their 'community' and catch one. Or, if all else fails, be filmed yourself!

You see, that was one of the main reasons for me to spend so much time in the jungle. To supervise the trapping and handling of the water possum and help with the subsequent filming. I sawed, macheted, shovelled, screwed (screws with a screwdriver.....), painted, sanded, caught insects, nailed (nails with a hammer.....), carried, cemented, sealed, planed, excavated, wired, built steps, ALL in the name of the BBC Natural HIstory Unit. Yes, not BBC's Do-it-Yourself Show. If you need something built/fixed/renovated, do not fret - call Handyman Dave any time, anywhere! I made a glass-sided and bottomed water tank for the water possum using just my swiss army knife - MacGyver, eat your heart out! I didn't even need a gum wrapper unlike him!

And the irony of it all is we couldn't capture the Yapok (water possum). After almost 8 weeks of trapping! But they exist. Two tourists went on a night walk. ANd in the morning they were asked how it went. Reply: 'Oh well, not great at all - all we saw was a rat in the water'. That..........was the Yapok! I laughed my head off. It was either that, or uncontrollable sobbing. Then a local lady tells me how she was once out in the forest and harpooned one - yes, I quote - harpooned one while it entered its den!! I asked her if it was alive. "No, but we clobbered it over the head to be sure." Close to clobbering her!!

In fact, she happened to be the owner of a pygmy marmoset we filmed closer to the end of our time there. We wanted to use her marmoset to get close shots of feeding and scampering along branches. But the little shit did not want to climb branches. Imagine a monkey scared of trees! Painful to watch. More painful was the instance I was viciously attacked by some wild pygmy marmosets we were filming. Two flanked me, and a third engaged in a full frontal attack, lunging at me from a vine, onto my shoulder and.........bouncing off harmlessly onto the ground and away! About as vicious as a Siberian hamster! Anyway, the lady kept telling me about her relatives and their 'love' for wild animals. Her niece had another pygmy marmoset, her nephew had two macaws, another son had an ocelot, and a brother had a tapir and iguanas! I wanted to put her (and her whole family) in a fucking cage by the end of it!

Talking about pygmy marmosets.......there was an occasion when a marmoset scampered, not along the branches as we would hope, but actually up my shorts, nestling nicely between my butt cheeks! Luckily it was the tame one. And even luckier it wasn't a tapir! Imagine...(But my life did rush passed my eyes when I saw the old lady move towards me to get the monkey out of my shorts!!)

Oh, but I did have another run-in with a tapir over the David Attenborough part of the shoot. Sir David had forgotten his Wellington boots, so I graciously lent him mine. Which meant I had to wade in calf-high mud and shit barefoot helping him out. Anyway, while keeping the tapirs away from D.A. one of them steps on my barefoot!! A 400 kilo animal with hoofed feet! (Oh that reminds me. Does anyone know where to get good prosthetic limbs?). I am sure I got a classic award-winning picture of him presiding over it in the midst of dumping a huge steamy turd in the water; the clenched butt cheeks, squat posture, eyes shut in concentration. And you should have seen the tapir too...! Hee hee.

More classic was the nickname Sir David gave to Angelica, the Swiss-German manager of the lodge (who was, and no doubt still is, a bitch) - Diabolica! Or when we were filming Sir David standing by a tree that wild pygmy marmosets use to eat the sap. The tree was near the river where canoes with outboard engines pass by every once in a while. Anyhoo, here is take No.4 of D.A. and pygmy marmosets: "This tree may seem to have growths on its bark, but actually they are wounds inflicted by pygmy marmosets....(cue: canoe with loud engine noise passing by)....that come by canoe to feed on the sap!" I laughed my mouldy shorts off. Needless to say, there was a fifth take ( I mean, you didn't honestly think the little 20 cm short pygmy marmosets come by mini motorized canoe to the tree now did you?!).

I was also laughing (inwardly this time) when after dinner one night, this small Frenchman with a silver dagger on his belt comes up to me and asks me if I can "introdooz heem to Seer David Attenboro s'il vous plait". He wanted to propose an idea for a documentary: something to do with the debate over whether the earth was round or flat (I put him out of his misery and told him it was round). No, of course, the debate occurred in the 18th century between French scientists and Englishman Isaac Newton. A joint Anglo-French mission was sent out to South America to measure......whatever it is you measure to prove the earth is round!! And indeed, worked out that the Earth was (and still is) round, and where they were was the equator, hence Ecuador's name! Now you know. Sir David politely told him it was a great idea but by the expression on his face he wanted to tell him to piss off and go to bed!

Can you believe I spent almost two months at Liana Lodge?! I knew I had been there too long when one of the workers that had not seen me for a couple of days asked me if I had been on holiday! Oh dear. To top it off, the shoot was extended twice, due to shit weather and the fact that the stunt (or as we coined it, c*nt) monkey never got her tree legs back! And the water possum? I still to this day have not seen one, and do not believe it exists. And if I saw one now, after 54 days of looking and waiting, I probably would harpoon it myself! Along with the monkey lady and Diabolica.....

ANd even in the last three days there we had still to film tapirs by night with infra red, get some tapir footage by day, film the c*nt monkey scampering along branches and eating insects, get some more wild pygmy marmoset footage on the gum tree......and try and get that partridge out of the pear tree! Instead, most of the three days was spent watching the stunt monkey sitting on a branch with supposed constipation (according to the lady), as he had gorged on insects for the last few days as opposed to sweets and coke as he was used to)! I had to massage its hindquarters to ease the pooh out, while Martyn engaged in some pygmy marmoset stress management, which consisted of stroking it under the armpit until it calmed down!!! Either that or looking up into the heavens hoping the sun would break through (which never did of course).

Hey, did I mention that by working for the BBC I am worth $1 million dollars?! This is according to some Northern English nut case I met at the Turtles Heed, who was an ex SAS man (the secret armed services, not the Scandinavian airline!). He tried to convince me to call a Defense Specialist to be a bodyguard for the crew and Sir David while in the jungle, to protect us from the kidnapping guerrilla and other freaks. He was supposedly worth $15 million... hhhhmmmmm. And he had a 9mm Beretta handgun in each boot. Must have had large shoes! Well, in case you need a bodyguard while in Ecuador, do not hesitate to contact Ewan Ross at Defense Systems on 09730285.

SO, my time in Ecuador is coming to a close. ANd as you can see by the verbal diarrhea, I have been somewhat sheltered and incommunicado in the jungle. By the end of it, I was fed up, and just wanted out. Martyn, Steve and I celebrated the last night with a bottle of champagne and two bottles of wine. In the morning I was the happiest man on earth as I was sitting in the dugout canoe going upriver to the Land Rover. Equally as happy I'm sure was the fucking water possum that was probably standing along the riverbank with his own little glass of champagne bidding me farewell and good riddance. Never mind - I am out now!! Spending a couple of days in Cuenca in the south of Ecuador before flying out to Cancun and Tulum again (for the last time probably) on the 26th. So I may see some of you sooner than you think, as my flight to London is on the 5th of Sept. All this means that this may be the last in the long series of David's Trials and Tribulations of Life. Yep, you can breath a big sigh of relief and crack into your own champagne stash to celebrate not having to slog through another of my long epic missives, such as this corker of an emaiL! Sad moment this. But I, and you, will get over it. SO this is Dave signing out from Ecuador for the last time. Hasta pronto amigos y amigas.

Over and out,

Dave

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