Once upon a time in the Amazon, in fact, not so long ago ...
First week of March 2007. I had just begun a new life, for two months already i was working at a jewelry store in a jungle lodge, living in the heart of the Amazonian rainforest , 60 km away from Manaus.
It was morning, I believe it should be around 10:00 AM because, for being a time when most of the guests are out on tours , i had the store closed and was sitting in the bar area, admiring the beautiful scenery and enjoying Luka´s company , one of the lodge´s parrots .
The place is all built on stilts, for this reason it has many bridges and walkways passing through the forest.
At first I wasn´t sure what I was seeing ... If it was a monkey, it certainly was a kind that I had never seen before , not even in books.
A creature as red as the fertile soil of the Paraná State, came walking on the railing of the catwalk , it seemed frightened or without sense of direction , but continued moving slowly toward the reception building.
From where I was , I could watch people rushing to photograph the animal which at first seemed to be shy and suspicious. I saw the manager telling the staff to bring bananas, in order to feed the creature, that had managed to cause quite an uproar among those present . For my part , I thought, I will definitely see this critter more times , and stayed where I was.
Later, I discovered that it was a primate , a red howler monkey with cub and , according to comments , the mother was very ill and had no chance to survive.
After lunch, rather than close up the juwellry store and go to my room to rest , I stayed in the vicinity of the bar and bet on the well-known fact that , if you feed an animal it will come back . It took a while , and almost in the late afternoon my patience was rewarded. Slowly , walking again on the railing of the catwalk it was approaching the hotel. Again she caused quite an uproar among those present. I watched a bit from where I was, and then, curiously i approached her slowly ... It was indeed a beautiful animal .
It happened very fast, before I could absorb all of the details, she looked deep into my eyes and for a split second, everything stopped in time and space. I felt a very sharp pain in my right ear, terrified i wanted to scream, but the sound died in my throat when shocked I realized that the pain was not mine , but the creature´s , whose aqueous gaze seemed to be frozen on mine ... On the next instant all was again in motion and then , i realized that from her right ear yellow pus was coming out .
At that moment the hotel manager was passing by , I ran after him and asked if I could catch her to take care, but Mr. Roberto was adamant.
__ You are mad !
__ IBAMA does not allow it, this is illegal!
__ It is not allowed to hold wild animals in captivity , even if it is to take care of , and then release them , if someone denounces it , apart from a heavy fine such an act is punished with prision .
Feeling helpless, I decided at that moment that i would make the impossible to save the life of that animal.
I called IBAMA, to know of the possibility of a possible rescue, where I was informed that: If an animal is in the nature, nature takes care of , after all, if one dies, two are born.
In the days that followed, she came back to the hotel twice a day , in the early morning and almost late in the afternoon , and she was always fed ... each time i would take the opportunity to put half a tablet of anti-inflammatory in a small piece of banana , after eating she would return to the forest.
A few days had passed and the animal ´s condition seemed to have improved a lot , but , then she stopped coming to the hotel. People commented that most likely she would be dead , I was sure she wasn´t . Every day in the mid morning and mid afternoon , when the store was closed , instead of resting in my room , i would be on duty near the bar and reception.
I even went searching for her on the hotel catwalks ... and nothing , not even a trace that she ever existed.
On the morning of the fifth day, when I was almost giving up on waiting , i saw when she , slowly walking on the railing of the catwalk, again approached the hotel.
I ran to arrange fruit and waited near the front desk ... It was horrible to see the precarious health state she was in , the infection had become worse. Thick greenish yellow pus bubbled from her ear and fell on her shoulder making the hair fall off , it appeared to be acid. Her milk had dried out and hungry , the baby seemed not to have the strength to hold on to the mother , with one of her hands, she held it , tightening him to her chest , trying to make him hold on to her as usual , but , each time she let go , the baby would almost fall off her .
Desperate with the situation, i ran after the Hotel Manager saying:
__ Mr. Roberto! Someone has to take action because her baby is starving to dead and she'll die too and very slowly , she is suffering .
To this day , I'm not sure if it was the universe that softened the heart of Mr. Roberto, or if , it was the big tears that were threatening to fall from my eyes , most probably, it was both things and , finally he let me try to catch and take care of her.
That same morning, the hotel carpenter began building a cage where the animal would be placed after captured. The manager´s last comment on the subject was:
__ If she cries , and some guest realizes it and calls IBAMA , I'll say that you caught and keeped her hidden, that I knew nothing. To keep a wild animal in captivity is a non-bailable crime, you know you can be arrested.
Worried that i would not be able to catch it on my own , i offered fifty dollars for each hotel security, if they would capture it and its cub without hurting them ...
Only then I realized how difficult this would be.
Both security guards that were on duty , said that I was much crazier than they could imagine.
They asked if I had any idea of what it means to catch a wild animal?
__ That she would bite them with all her strength , and that ;
__ They could be infected with some terrible disease , and that ;
__ The Hotel Manager must have been crazy when he agreed with me.
In the end, I realized that I would have to act alone, just yet didn´t know how ... then I started to call the spirit of the forest, asking for intuition.
After lunch, I went to talk to the hotel´s nurse to find out if she had something that could perhaps calm the animal and facilitate its capture, still I had no idea how it would be . I left the ambulatory with a 0.25 mg valium pill .
During the afternoon of that day she was not seen ... I kept asking the help of the Spirit of the Forest .
The next morning she also didn´t appeared and, sad i thought that i took too long to convince the manager.
I think Luka felt my pain and trying to comfort me , stucked himself on me all morning , however, the more love Luka demonstrated to me , the more I felt that I had failed...
Devastated , after lunch I closed the store ... with Luka sitting on my shoulder, I was going to my room.
Luka saw it first, jealous he screamed and flew away , I almost tripped on it ... never before she had passed the reception building , and nobody saw how she got there, however, there it was. Sitting in front of the door from the bar´s toilet , on the way on which I would have to pass ....
TO BE CONTINUED
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