The Rescue

It's four in the morning and I'm still half asleep. The phone call from Armando the previous night was a little vague and I'm not entirely sure why I'm now standing outside my hostel in the freezing cold and in the dark while a perfectly nice, warm bed is waiting for me inside. All I know is that Armando is on his way to pick me up for some new mission he's planned.

The streets of Quito are not the safest place to be in the quiet, dark hours of early morning. Some shifty looking characters across the street are sizing up my pack with hungry eyes. I huddle down in the shadows of the doorway, trying to make myself blend into the wall. Armando's only a little late however, and I jump into his car before he's come to a stop. We head off down the street and he fills me in on the mission plan.

We're heading north. The night before Armando had said we'd be going south, and my guess was we'd be exploring the site where the bears have been attacking cows. Plans on this project change as fast as the Ecuadorian weather however. It turns out now we're heading to the Columbian border to find our old bear traps, and more interestingly to check in on an adolescent bear that is apparently being kept illegally on a farm in the area. We won’t have the resources today to move the bear but we'll check on her health and work out plans for her relocation to the rehab centre.

Our drive takes us through the entire length of the Northern Andes. The grey road twists like a snake through an army of stone-faced, silent volcanoes, each one capped with a hard, heavy helmet of ice and snow. It's late morning by the time we arrive and the sun is already well into in his daily pilgrimage to the western horizon.

We pull into a small farmhouse. In the early days of this project the work was carried out at this site. It proved a little difficult however, to attract volunteers here. Something about working right on the notorious Columbian border, infested with bandits, paramilitary and drug-runners seemed to put people off. The project was relocated to where it is now but three of the traps belonging to the project were never moved due to the cost of transporting them down.

With our plan to move to new areas these cages are once more needed. When we have enough funds and willing volunteers, we'll hire a truck and cart the heavy cages down from the forests and relocate them into our new site. Our task today is to find out whether the traps are still in their old spot and work out how easy it will be to access them.

We chat to the owner of the house, who once helped Armando organise things in this area. The Spanish here is more Columbian than Ecuadorian and the young farmer has a strong accent with a lyrical melody to it. I catch only patches of the rapid Spanish but it turns out our cages have been moved from their original locations. The new spot they are in should be easy enough to get to and moving them should be little trouble once we have the manpower.

There's little need to check on the cages directly. We have all the information we need now for this so we turn to our second task of looking in on the young bear. At the local town we pick up two members of the Ecuadorian Environmental Protection Agency to accompany us on our "raid". In other situations the police are often used for raids on professional animal smugglers, and some raids have involved more than a hundred, heavily armed troops. This bear however is being kept by a local farmer, who actually contacted the police to turn it in. Hopefully we won't need backup for today's mission.

We almost pull into the wrong farm, following the directions of one of the Environmental officers. Luckily they realise before we walk in and we jump back in the car and drive a little further up the road. As we stroll down the road towards the house it occurs to me that we're hardly an authorative looking group. Neither of the guys are in any kind of uniform and Armando and myself are in jeans and T-shirts.

The farmer and his wife greet us a little warily but luckily they've seen Armando on the news from Rosita's release. We're practically celebrities as far as these people are concerned and they're more than happy to welcome us in.


They take us to where the bear is being kept and it's a disturbing sight. She's a lot smaller than we expected. We'd been told she was nearly a year old and were expecting an adolescent female as large as an average-sized dog. This little girl is, at most, five months old and is not much bigger than a puppy.

She's being kept in a tiny cage, about two meters long, two meters wide and no more than half a meter high. The cage is normally used for guinea pigs (a popular Ecuadorian delicacy) and this little cub has almost no room to move. The cage has not been cleaned for a long time and the cub is living in her own shit and filth.

The farmer's wife tells us that she feeds the bear scraps from the kitchen but that the cub especially likes chocolate and the occasional slice of cake. Though she means well, this diet could easily kill a young cub like this one, who should still be suckling milk from her mother. She's not well - foul smelling and slightly green diarrhea coats the bottom of the cage and she's clearly stressed by the presence of humans, hissing and screaming anytime we come close.

It's hard not to be angry at the way these people have treated this little cub but it is from a lack of understanding rather than any malicious intentions. At least they've done the right thing and contacted the police. Other farmers would have just put a bullet through the cub: one less bear to worry about in the cornfields.

This cub, along with her brother, were found wandering, alone in nearby fields some three months earlier (it took the farmers a month to tell anyone and the inefficient police another two months to tell us). The mother was apparently nowhere to be seen, which means she is dead, most probably shot by a local farmer. Female bears would never abandon their cubs like that and since the cubs were found in the fields it takes little detective work to see that the mother was most probably in the same fields when she met her end.

The brother of this cub died within the first few days of being found. The stress of the situation, the poor food and the dirty, cramped living conditions would all have contributed to his rapid demise. This little girl however, who Armando decides to call Marcia, has survived it all, though she's clearly suffered and still suffering.

Armando has doubts about how much longer Marcia will be able to live in these conditions. She needs medical attention that only Leonardo can provide at the vet clinic. We're not equipped to move this bear however. Expecting a larger bear and better conditions, we'd planned only to carry out reconnaissance today - but this bear needs help or she'll die.

We improvise. We piece together equipment like the A-Team; picking through the scrap that always seems to litter the back of a farmhouse. We find a small cage normally used for transporting guinea pigs. It’s big enough to hold Marcia for the six-hour drive back to the vet clinic but it’s definitely not strong enough.

We dig deeper through the scrap and find a few pieces of wood and some chicken wire. Borrowing a harmer and some rusty nails from the farmer we set to reinforcing the cage. It’s a dodgy job but it will do until we get to Quito. The cage won’t fit in the car though so we have to strap it to the roof. We lay the cage flat and point the base towards the front of the car, hoping the wood slats will block out the wind.

Only one problem remains. This is an endangered animal, transporting her through half the length of Ecuador requires paperwork. There are at least six police checkpoints between the vet clinic and us, and if anyone of them stops us and finds a bear in the car we’ll have our arse slapped in the slammer for illegally trading animals.

Ecuadorian corruption has its benefits however. Armando is on the phone to a contact he has in the government. Normally getting permission for this would take a fair amount of time and effort but Armando’s friend will have the paperwork ready and waiting for us in Ibarra (about halfway back to Quito) by the time we get there.
We still have about three checkpoints before Ibarra however, but we’re just going to have to risk it. If we get busted Armando’s going to try and get them to take us to the slammer in Ibarra. Hopefully we can then get Armando’s mate from the government to come down with the paperwork and get us out.

We set off quickly. Marcia went nuts when we tried to move her, growling and hissing like a Tasmanian devil. Strangely enough, once she was in the small cage and on top of the car she settled down. It’s the presence of humans that distresses her, without humans around she’s calm and as happy as can be.

Luck is with us on the drive back. We pass each of the three checkpoints without anyone looking closely at our cage. Transporting guinea pigs is common in this area and the fact that our bear is in such a cage plays to our advantage.

One checkpoint stops us and checks Armando’s licence. Both of us hold our breaths and do our best to look innocent (a sure fire way to look guilty), praying that Marcia stays quiet. The side of the cage is covered in wooden slats but the gaps are big enough that anything more than a casual glance would give away the fact that no ordinary guinea pig is inside. She keeps her silence however and the bored looking copper waves us on.

Eventually we make it to Ibarra and our paperwork is waiting for us as promised. From there it’s an easy run back to Quito. In our rush to get Marcia back to the clinic we’ve missed lunch. It’s around dinnertime when we pass through Otavalo and we pull into town to grab a quick snack. I stay near the car while Armando goes off to buy something. Every time someone walks past Marcia gives a little growl and I get some strange looks from those passing by.

It’s late, it’s dark and we’re exhausted and hungry by the time we arrive at the vet clinic. Leonardo is waiting for us and using a rope noose we move Marcia into one of the cages normally used to kennel dogs. She goes nuts, growling, hissing and spitting. She clings to the cage with her teeth and her claws and we are forced to use our hand to untangle her while she scratches and snaps at us.

Eventually we get her in and then head outside to catch our breath and relax for the first time in hours. While we’re sitting on the steps of the clinic we hear a mighty crash and the clang of a metal table being upturned. We rush back inside and find that Marcia has torn a hole in the thick mesh wiring of her cage and is now running loose in the room of the clinic.

We corner her, using towels and furniture to protect ourselves. She’s an angry ball of fur, claws and teeth and ready to tear apart anything that comes near. Finally we have her pinned and manage to secure her in another dog cage.

This cage is no stronger than the last however and while someone keeps watch the rest of us go out back to find an old, steel transportation cage from Santa Martha. This is a lot stronger but we still need to reinforce it and we spend the next hour or so twisting wire around all the potential break points.

Eventually the job is done and with great difficulty we manage to transfer Marcia into the stronger cage. In her struggles she’s broken a tooth and is bleeding a little from her mouth. Luckily she’s young enough that this damage won’t cause any permanent harm.

It’s nearly midnight by the time we finally call it a night. Marcia will spend a few days in the clinic on antibiotics until she has recovered from her diarrhea. We had thought to then take her to Santa Martha but Both Armando and Leonardo are amazed and shocked by this little cub’s behaviour. No other cub has ever been this stressed or aggressive. When Leo and Gabriel, the two brothers now at Santa Martha, had been rescued they walked calmly around the clinic, playing happily with stuffed toys like little puppies. Marcia has clearly got some emotional issues she needs to work through.

After she’s recovered physically, Marcia will be taken to a specialised rehabilitation centre. A place called Segunda Opportunidad (or “Second Chance” in English). This is another, smaller part of the Espiritu del Bosque Foundation where an Ecuadorian woman called Marjory provides special care to young animals in her own home, which she has customised for the purpose. Marcia will be bottled fed there for the next few months and her only human contact will be with Marjory. Hopefully the months of gentle treatment will have her calm enough to be moved to Santa Martha by the time she grows too large to be kept with Marjory.

Exploration

After the new Andean Bear website goes live I commit the unforgivable sin of spam-mailing everyone I've ever met with a heartfelt, cheesy plea for support (worthy of any politician campaign speech). Friends, family and the occasional stranger rally to the cause. Some donate a little, some a lot, and still more pass on the message to their friends and family, continuing the chain.

The web site doubles in the number of hits it's getting and within a couple of weeks we've raised over US$500 through donations. We're even contacted by a new, UN-sponsored TV series, called Last Chance, wanting to feature us in one of their episodes. Add to this the recent publicity from Rosita's release and the support Armando had won at the International Bear Conference and it was clear that this project was finally taking its first, tentative steps into the International lime light.

It was time to look to the future. If things continued to improve then we would have both the funds and the support to finally move into new areas, extending both the depth and the usefulness of the bear research. We begin planning for exactly this and there are two things we need to do. Firstly we need to explore new, potential sites for signs of bears and to gain support from the local communities. Secondly we need to move cages down from their current locations to whatever new site we choose.

I volunteer to join the exploration team tasked with scoping out a new site. There are two types of locations that would prove useful. Since our current study is in a rural farming community, the bears' habitat is made up mostly of fragmented forest regions. The movement of the bears in this area is clearly influenced by the presence of farms, villages and roads. Ideally we need to compare these movements to bears in untouched, primary forest regions.

Bears have also been found living in highly cultivated areas with little forest to speak of. It's here in these areas that the bears have most frequently been attacking livestock. With little natural foods around, the bears have resorted to cattle rustling. There's an area south of Quito where attacks have been a little too frequent and it would be useful beyond measure to have an understanding of how these bears are living and moving. This information would be the first, vital part in finding a solution to the increasing conflict between farmers and bears.

The plan is to check out both areas (hey, we may even get big enough to study both!) but we decide to explore a site of primary forest first. I meet up with Dave out at the now familiar volunteer house. Strangely enough we have only male volunteers this month, discrediting my theory that volunteer work is a female dominated past time. Two of the four lads sign up for the mission as well, both from the UK. Paul is a tall, lanky guy with a heavy, northern accent, a wicked, crude humour and some of the funkiest glasses seen since the Beatles last played live. Andy, on the other hand, is a soft-spoken, little guy, with a subtle, understated sense of humour. It's a good team for an adventure into the wilderness.

Armando drives us for two hours along a dirt road through the middle of nowhere, past the back of beyond and then slightly further on. The condition of the "road" is finally so bad that Armando's four-wheel drive can go no further. He drops us off before turning around and heading back down towards the volunteer house, which compared to this isolated wilderness, now looks like the bastion of civilization. We pull on our packs and, weighed down with camping gear and food for several days, trudge through the mud up the winding path.

Eventually we come to a house nestled amongst the trees. We are not yet in the primary forest we are here to explore but the area is already wild and largely unfarmed. Dave is good friends with Fernando, the owner of this house, and Fernando has offered to be our guide into the forest above. Fernando and his brother German (pronounced Herman) own a large chunk of primary forest over the next ridgeline. This land borders with several other properties of unspoilt forest, which in turn border the massive expanse of the protected Cotocachi national park. The land these farmers own has never felt the steely bite of the hoe or plough: it's both too far away and too wild to be worth the hassle of farming of it.

We spend the night comfortably in Fernando's house, once again overwhelmed by the generosity of these poor, rural folk. The next morning we awake at first light and head off. Grey clouds hang from the mountains like drapes of dirty, wet wool just as they've done since the onslaught of the rainy season a month or so earlier. The path is wet and slippery. Thick, clay-like mud sucks at our boots and splatters over our legs. Every so often one of us loses a shoe beneath the brown sludge and we help each other dig through the mud for the missing footwear.

Despite the gloomy weather and the sucking embrace of the mud, we're in a fine mood. The area is unbelievably beautiful and rugged; the air has a fresh coolness to it and a sense of excitement and adventure follows us up the path. We're all relatively fit and well acclimatised and we keep a steady, comfortable pace. Both Fernando and German have joined us, proudly showing off their beautiful land, and we have a mule and a horse with us to help carry our load.

As we climb higher the clouds lift a little, flirtatiously revealing glimpses of the unspoilt green valleys surrounding us. Huge, white-wood palm trees tower above the dark green underbrush, spread through the forest like silent sentinels surveying our arrival. All around us small, frothing waterfalls tumble down the looming cliffs to form icy, clear rivers in the valleys below.

A day's hike has us at a small cottage at the edge of Fernando's land: his holiday cabin. It's similar in style to the other huts I've used in these isolated parts of Ecuador, though a little more care has been put into this construction, giving it a welcoming feel. The floor is bare mud however, a few stones in the corner serve as a hearth and a gap between the wood slats of the wall and the tin roof allows smoke from the fire to escape and join the clouds outside.

It's early afternoon when we arrive but the gloomy clouds have brought dusk earlier than normal. As we light the fire inside the little hut the rain begins to fall heavily on the ground outside. We settle down to warm soup and quiet conversation, drying our wet, mud-caked socks by the fire. Eventually we turn in for the night falling asleep to the heavy patter of rain on the roof and the gentle crackle of the dying fire.

The clouds still linger when dawn wakes us the next morning. We head out anyway, it's a mere drizzle and a little rain won't hurt us. Fernando has to get back to his farm and he heads off early with the mule. German leads us in the other direction, down a small track through the trees and into some of the lushest and beautiful forest I have ever seen.

We spend the day hiking up and down valleys, exploring sites and looking for evidence of bears. We find no direct signs, the rain has concealed any obvious evidence, but we do find the occasional half-torn bromeliad, possibly discarded by a feeding bear. Even without hard, direct evidence however, it's certain that this unspoilt area is home to more than a few wild bears. The habitat is ideal and undisturbed for miles; it's a perfect site for our bear research.

There are few paths for us to use in this uncultivated area, and we push through thick wet leaves and small shrubs. We hike for the better part of the day and after slipping through the mud and having the cold rain drip down on us through the overhead canopy of green we are soaked through and muddy all over.

Towards the end of the day, on our way back to camp, we find ourselves wading through an icy cold river as the trees and bamboo prevent our passage along the bank. Without warning Dave suddenly gives a Tarzan like yell and dives into the cold water still fully dressed. The rest of us exchange glances, shrug our shoulders and dive in after him. We're wet and cold anyway, at least this way we get the benefit of being clean for the night.

We make the last half hour of the hike back to the camp in freezing, wet clothes, shivering and hugging ourselves for warmth. We get the fire going straight away and spend the rest of the night huddled around it, wrapped in our sleeping bags and cradling warm cups of some native herbal tea that German claims wards off colds (and, according to him, can also get rid of headaches, stop you getting pregnant, and can probably cure cancer).

The next day we explore a little more in another direction but after lunch we break camp and head back down the hill. We've seen enough to know that this site would indeed be perfect for bear work if we can find some place to base the volunteers at. Getting supplies in and out may be a problem but nothing we can't work out.

On the walk back down German disappears behind a tree to take care of "business". The rest of us continue down the trail and Paul is left leading German's horse at the back of the group. At one point the trail cuts along the face of a steep, muddy slope and the path is both narrow and slippery.

Myself, Dave and Andy cross without problem, but the horse balks and Paul is unable to make her budge. After several minutes of pulling at the reigns he starts to lose his temper, swearing and cursing. He tries walking around the back and slapping it on its arse, but the horse just gets startled and tries to walk up the face of the slope shoving its arse in Paul's face as it goes.

The rest of us look on slightly sympathetic but mostly amused. We're unable to help on the narrow path anyway, but Paul's mood is improved little by us laughing and cracking a few jokes at his expense. Paul lets out a string of swear words and angrily kicks at a stone. The stone doesn't budge however and Paul is left so off balanced that he falls over backwards. He literally tumbles down the hill, turning head over heel several times until he finally lands face first in the pool of slime coated mud at the bottom.

Paul finishes the rest of the hike covered from head to toe in thick, brown slime. He decides to have a strop and says not one word for the whole hike down. The rest of us have the good sense to keep our mouths shut, though I can see both Andy and Dave struggling as much as me not to laugh.

We hike back down to the road, find a local farmer with a truck and pay him a few dollars to give us a lift down to the nearest "town", called Cullaje. From here we can get a bus back to the volunteer house but not until morning. Luckily Dave is well known in this town, some of the lads from his football team live here and he has spent many a night here drinking with them. We have no shortage of offers on places to stay and end up sleeping in a nice little wooden house in the centre of town.

Dave gives us a tour and since the town consists of three streets and one main square, the tour takes all of five minutes. Dave knows just about everyone here. Everyone we pass on the street greets him like a long lost son. The local lads all want to drink beer with him, the local mothers all want to feed him and fatten him up and the local, young girls all have something else in mind.

We get a meal in one of the houses that doubles up as the town's restaurant. After that the beers come out and the shots of the foul tasting Puro (the local moonshine) follow soon after. A couple of local guys have joined us and the family who own the house all sit and drink with us. The rotund, friendly mother thinks we are the funniest thing to ever happen. She makes us all stand up, wanting to see how tall Paul (who's now once again his happy self with some beers in him) and myself are.

When Andy stands up she laughs and comments on how "small" he is. When Dave makes a joke saying that "small" in English is used more in reference to how well hung someone is, rather than how tall they are, she bursts with laughter. She then spends the rest of the night calling Andy chiquito (i.e. the little one) and making references to little hotdogs. Andy, not able to retort as he speaks little Spanish, spends the night grumbling to himself instead and staring into his beer mug.

It's well passed midnight when Paul and Andy decide to call it a night. They wander back to the house but Dave and I stay up to finish off the last few beers. Dave likes a beer, and like the local Ecuadorians he can handle a weekend long fiesta of serious drinking. In Quito his drinking antics have earned him the nickname of "Dangerous Dave" at the hostel where we meet volunteers.

This is my last night as well out in the real bear work and that's worth a little celebration. With Rosita released I've decided to go home to spend Christmas with my family and friends. I've lined up some work for five months but then plan to be on the road again by next June. Armando has offered me a permanent place on the bear project but I have lots of other things to see and do as well, the world is full of deserving volunteer projects. I'll decide where I'm going next around next May - no need to rush these decisions.

The night carries on well into the early hours of morning. Eventually we are out of beer, and thankfully out of Puro. It's time to call it a night. Dave and I take our leave from the family and head out into the night to stagger home. Halfway back to our house however, we find a group of about ten lads sitting on the corner of the square drinking beer. Dave, in slow and careful speech (trying to prove just how sober he is) explains that these are his best mates and we have to share a few drinks with them. At that stage of the night I think anyone we'd have met would be Dave's "best mate" but we hung around for a few beers none the less.

When the singing starts I decide it's game over for me. "One more!" is the call from Dave but I am well and truly done and I leave Dave behind for his "one more". I staggered up the street and, guided by my beer compass, manage to find the house we are staying in. I crawl into my sleeping bag, stepping on Andy's head in the process, then pass out.

Dawn arrives and pounds me on my forehead, stabbing me in the eyes with bright, steel rays of sun light. I groan and roll over to find the other guys looking as bad as I feel and crawling out of bed. All except Dave that is, his bedroll is lying untouched in the corner. I check the time; it's just gone eight, leaving us an hour to make the bus. We pack up and then head out into the cursed sunlight to find Dangerous Dave.

It's an easy trail to find Dave. As we wander into the main square a couple of guys tell us that they'd seen him earlier that morning drinking beer on the next corner. We wander in that direction to find a friendly, fat shop keeper who has a crate of beer that a drunken Dave apparently bought at around five that morning and then forgot to take with him. She points us in the direction he headed and here we find a couple of kids playing football. When we ask about Dave they say he'd been asleep under a tree there that morning but he'd woken without any shoes and had gone off looking for them.

We follow the path of bare-footed Dave, and the local residents direct us from house to house. Evidence of Dave's handiwork is visible everywhere. After passing a street corner littered with empty bottles and cigarette butts, we finally enter a house to find a very drunk and bleary eyed Dave sitting at a table with a family eating soup. "These are my best mates", he says when he sees us.

Dave's having too much fun to want to go home so we decide to leave him there with the family. I say my final farewells and Dave shakes my hand and tells me I'm one of his "best mates". Paul, Andy and I head up to the bus stop. As we're waiting for the bus to turn up we see Dave staggering up towards us. He gets halfway but then is distracted by some locals with a horse. Next we know he's chatting to them and has somehow convinced them to let him have a ride.

The three of us look on as Dave, totally pickled, tries to mount up. He throws himself chest first over the horse and then slowly slides down the other side, landing face first on the ground. The locals rush to pick him up, but Dave jumps to his feet, brushes himself off, staggers a little and then jumps onto the back of the horse. With a little luck he manages to stay on this time and the horse sets off at a pace. The bus pulls up and we hop on. The last view I have of Dangerous Dave is him galloping around the main square of Cullaje, pissed off his head and whooping like a cowboy.