Then to much relief, Monty dropped the machete and walked on all fours over to the fruit.
He picked it up and grunted at me as if in thanks and then sat quietly peeling the banana.
I went over to pick up the machete and, also Tom, who had sunk down onto his knees.
‘Thank you, Lori. I honestly thought he was going to chop me up into pieces with my own machete. I put it down for just a moment and then he just appeared and grabbed it and started swinging it about. It was the scariest thing. You saved me Lori. You saved me!’
‘Well, now that we have saved each other, we should both be a bit more careful in future.’
I looked at Monty, who bared his teeth in a smile and showed me his half-chewed mango.
We ate our own breakfast of cereal bars and cake washed down with tea for me and coffee for Tom. Then we packed up our camp and set off to tackle our next challenge that morning, which was to cross a log bridge over a narrow rushing stream and scarily deep rocky crevice.
‘You go first.’ Tom instructed. ‘Why me?’ I wailed from the muddy embankment.
The logs that had been lashed together to form a bridge were covered in moss and lichen and looked so wet and slimy and so slippery underfoot. To fall would have been a catastrophe.
With Monty in my sarong sling and clinging to my front, on Tom’s instruction and with his constant reassurance, I inched my way across each log. I held onto the straps of my backpack as if it were a safety parachute. Tom had attached a rope around my waist and he was holding onto the other end of it. Once I’d safely reached the other side with Monty, it was Tom’s turn.
I threw the rope back to him and attached the other end in a double knot to the trunk of a tree. I knew there was no way I’d have been able to support his weight if he slipped and fell into this ravine. Tom made the crossing easily, putting my terrified efforts to shame.
He leapt confidently onto the bridge, tip-toed gently across it, then leapt off it again to land beside me with all the grace and flourish of a prima ballerina. He was a sight to behold.
When I told him this, he looked even more pleased with himself.
We carried on trekking through the sweltering forest. The going was steep and slick and the air all around us was heavy and dripping and steamy. It was so uncomfortable and exhausting to be so hot and sweaty and to be carrying all this equipment. We kept our eyes open for the flowering foliage of the butterfly pea. Occasionally, we saw butterflies along the route, but they were not the Green Morpho. So far, they’ve all been the tiny yellow ‘sulphurous’ ones.
Tom pointed out various shrubs and plants that some of the other caterpillars liked to eat.
I tried to be objective and calm as he turned leaves to reveal hairy wriggling specimens.
The forest here was so overgrown that in some parts we literally had to hack our way through using Tom’s machete. Occasionally we separated to broaden our search area but then we had to be extra careful not to get lost. After about an hour, we decided to move onward and upward to our next challenge, as we were closing in on the last leg of the trail and we were getting close to the waterfall. Enthusiasm fuelled us once we heard the rumble of fast flowing water.
Thankfully, the falls didn’t look too imposing. It was a narrow stream of water falling from the higher level of the rainforest in one twisting opaque streak, like a white horse’s tail, into the sparkling pool far below. Although, in the rainy season, this would certainly have been a considerably larger and much faster flowing volume of water. In December, it was the dry season, and we could see how the previous season’s fierce flow had carved out deep smooth dry rivulets at each side of the falls. Tom pointed out that these dry flumes could be used as guided pathways to assist our climb to the top of the falls.
But, before we made the climb, the pool of cool fresh water was far too tempting to overlook.
I had my swimsuit on underneath my outer clothes in anticipation of being able to take a dip at some point today – and my first wash in almost two days – and I couldn’t get my combat gear off fast enough. Tom also quickly stripped down to his boxer shorts. In the swirling pool beneath the falls, there were lots of the same type of translucent fish that I’d seen on Waterfall Cay. I took this as a very good sign. I was sure, if we were to find our butterfly anywhere, then it would be close to this beautiful cascading waterfall.
For a few moments, I lay back in the cool silky water with my arms and legs splayed, and I stared up into the rainforest high above me where the trees were drenched in mist. I tried to imagine seeing the Green Morpho here in flight, as if to manifest it in reality.
It was a wrench to have to leave the pool and get dressed so soon, but we were conscious of the passing time, and we simply couldn’t afford to allow the morning to escape us.
I climbed the falls first, leaving Monty behind. He sat quietly watching us with a concerned expression on his face as I clamoured over the smooth slippery wet limestone flumes and rocks at the side of the waterfall. Until I got half way up a chute and wedged between two boulders and ended up getting stuck fast. Tom came up behind me and ended up giving me a push and a shove up to the next level by gripping both his hands onto my bottom.
It was hardly a dignified assent but at least I knew he wasn’t enjoying himself.
We continued step by careful step until we eventually reached the top. At this higher level, the rainforest was even more lush and looking up into the treetops and forest canopy, I could see colourful parrots in the trees and lazy lima snoozing on branches. To my surprise, I also spotted Monty. Somehow, the clever and agile monkey had managed to follow us and was now sitting high up in a coconut palm. ‘Monty. How did you get up there?’
He shrieked and kindly threw me down a coconut.
I had to jump out of the way as it hit the ground and split open with a splat. The coconut water was lost but I did have immediate access to the wonderfully moist and tasty coconut meat inside. ‘Well, thank you Monty!’
Tom and I searched the whole area meticulously. We found ourselves ambling along the side of a narrow gorge of the river. But there were still no butterfly peas and no butterflies.
Not one. Not even the small yellow ones.
Time was not our friend today and I was now feeling totally despondent. I tried to rally my mood by thinking about the tarot card reading again. I thought about Ethan and Waterfall Cay and about Damion and Gloria Goldman. And then I wondered what the heck I was doing here? Was I completely crazy? It was just a few days to Christmas and I really should be back in London. And, thinking of London, and how cold it was there, I wondered how I’d ever begin to adapt to being back in the freezing cold UK again after all the sunshine and incredible heat of here in the Caribbean. I took in a deep breath of forest air and considered how the air smelled sweet and damp and earthy and how strange that I could detect no sulphur in it.
Yet, it must still be here just the same as before?
How amazing it is that our senses can adapt so well?
And suddenly, I realised that I’d used and heard that word adapt so many times over the past twenty-four-hours. ‘Tom— remember yesterday, when I said the smell of rotten eggs had gone because I couldn’t smell it anymore?’
‘Yeah, that’s right. Our senses had adapted so we hardly noticed it anymore.’
‘Only, it got me thinking about how the Green Morpho might have adapted to being here on this island. We have been looking for the Butterfly Pea all this time but there is none to be found here. So, what – in your expert opinion – might be its next preferred source of food?’
I held my breath in anticipation and Tom looked up at me with a sparkle in his eye.
‘Lori, I think you’re onto something! I would guess that if the Green Morpho has adapted to whatever is the closest pea plant genus on this island. Then the new food source would be …’
‘Yes?’ I begged him in encouragement.
‘Entada Gigas. It’s more commonly known as Monkey Ladder.
It’s a strong vine that grows like a snake through the trees and the pea pods that hang from it are huge. Its ripened seeds are large and brown and shaped like a heart, so they’ll be easy to spot on the ground!’
‘A vine that looks like a snake?’ I repeated.
We separated to cover and comb through the area of dense rainforest at the top of the falls.
The trees and plants here were all very different from those we’d come across previously on the trail. Sunlight was diffused here, not just through the tree canopy, but through a cloak of hanging mist. At this elevated level, on the sloping sides of the island’s volcanic cone, the rainforest looked luminous and magical. I could see the sun climbing ominously high in the sky and knew that when it reached its highest point, we would need to leave here to head back along the trail, or we wouldn’t be able to reach the airstrip in time for our flight out tonight.
My heart and my optimism were soon down in the dumps again though, when I simply couldn’t identify or find anything that fitted with Tom’s descriptions. No large brown heart-shaped seeds on the ground and no snake-like vine with hanging pods in the trees. I retraced my steps feeling defeated and headed back to the falls using the sound of water as my guide.
I shouted out for Tom at the place we had parted as he was nowhere to be seen.
But then I suddenly heard him shouting back to me. His voice sounded like a distant echo through the rumble of water. I peered down from the top of the falls and saw that he was far below and standing with Monty on the dry flat rocks at the side of the falls with our gear.
‘How did you get back down there so fast?’ I yelled to him.
‘I jumped!’ he replied.
‘You’ve got to be joking!’ I breathed. ‘In your boots and your clothes?’
‘No. I took them off and threw them down onto the dry rocks over here!’
I looked hesitantly at the distance between me and the rock and then the pool below.
‘Come down here Lori. I’ve got something to show you?’
‘What is it? What did you find?’
‘Monkey Ladder! He yelled back. And I saw he was wearing the biggest of grins.
‘Really? You found it?’ My hesitation over jumping the falls was immediately forgotten and I was soon scrabbling out of my boots and throwing them over the edge and looking for the best route down. ‘Use the water like a flume. It’s easy. It’s just like being at a waterpark!’
And I remembered the waterpark at Atlantis in the Bahamas and seeing people using the tall flumes there. At the time, I’d thought they must be stark raving mad to do for fun what I was considering doing right now. I’d seen them suspended at the top of the waterslide, leaning back with their ankles crossed and their arms hugging themselves, before—whoosh!
A moment or two later, I was balanced precariously on the very edge of the terrifying drop that led directly into the steep twisting natural flume. Cool rushing water swept around my bottom and my legs and with one brave forward flick of my hips, I found myself being swept away and carried down into the cascading fall and deep swirling water far below.
When I came up in the pool I was whooping and laughing. I’d done it!
I dressed quickly and followed Tom and an enthusiastic Monty into an area of the rainforest that we’d certainly explored before. But at that time, we hadn’t been focussed on anything growing higher than ten feet off the ground. We’d been looking for a shrub and now we were looking for a hanging vine. We tipped back our heads and craned our necks into the high canopy above us as we stumbled through the overgrown forest floor. The trees here were tall and varied with straight trunks that seemed like beanstalks into the heavens. There were some tall thin swaying coconut palms, tropical pines with sharp ridged bark and high branches with what looked like razor-edged needles. There were also some huge ceiba trees and it was these that looked to be draped with a vast woven net of green leafy vines and from that netting hung long black pods from ribbon like vines. The Monkey Ladder.
I stood and marvelled at it with so much adrenalin coursing through my veins that I felt euphoric. Then suddenly, I saw movement in those high misty heavens, and I scrunched up my eyes to try and focus. Birds? Bats? Or—dare I suggest giant butterflies?
‘There! Up there! Do you see?’ I yelled, pointing upward in excitement.
Tom has spotted them too. I wasn’t just imagining them after all!
‘I see them! But I can’t tell what colour they are from here. Are they blue—or green?’
Tom quickly produced a small pair of binoculars from his pack and peered through them urgently. I saw that his hands were trembling slightly as he looked through the lenses.
‘Green! I’m sure of it! They’re green!’ He was practically screaming now.
He turned to me and his expression was ecstatic. ‘We found them! They are here!’
He threw out his arms to scooped me up in a tight embrace and at the same time he was leaping about with joy. Monty started screeching and I began weeping. I couldn’t help it. Great gulping sobs of utmost relief. But also anxiety. How on earth were we to reach them when they looked to be hundreds of meters in the air? It seemed the Green Morpho caterpillars had adapted so well to life here on this island that they’d become airborne acrobats.
‘But how are we to reach them when we don’t have enough rope?’ I questioned.
Somehow, Tom didn’t seem to be as fazed by this dilemma. He picked up a long length of tough dried root that lay on the forest floor. ‘We can make a sling and a ladder out of these roots.’ He pulled on it, trying to snap it and failing, to show me how suitable it was for the task.
‘But Tom, how will you reach the tree canopy? I just don’t see how this can work!’
‘I can easily make the climb.’ He told me stoically.
I knew Tom was adept with ladders. I remembered seeing how agile he was on the day we met, but how he could possibly fashion a sling and a ladder right now with no tools?
‘You can’t do this alone. Not with only an hour before we have to leave here!’
But Tom wouldn’t listen and he set to work. Using long lengths of the root, he showed me how to cobble together a makeshift length of rope and something that resembled a long flexible ladder. He explained. ‘On an island in Thailand once, I watched a local man climb a tall palm tree to reach the coconuts at the top and he kindly gave me a lesson in how it was done using the ridges in the trunk as an anchor points for a sling. I think I can shimmy up the trunk with my equipment bag and the ladder slung across my body to reach the vines.’
He straddled the nearest coconut palm and demonstrated the technique to me.
It looked impressive, but it also looked difficult and incredibly risky and dangerous.
Unheeded, Tom began his brave climb. I held my breath and watched as he made slow progress up the tall narrow trunk. He was trying to be careful and measure each move he made but he’d already slipped once and ripped his trousers and I could see a bloody gash in his knee.
When he was around ten feet off the ground, I suddenly had another idea.
‘Wait! Stop! I know someone here who could easily do the climb!’
Tom peered down at me looking quite exhausted and perhaps now willing to listen.
Perspiration poured from his brow and ran down his face. His breath was fast from exertion and from his efforts. I threw a glance at Monty, who was sitting watching us with great interest.
‘You mean Monty?’ Tom asked me from his vantage point.
The monkey was getting accustomed to his name and grinned at us.
‘Yes. I saw him climb straight up a palm tree earlier. It was no problem to him.’
Thankfully, realising this was a far better plan, Tom came down and we set to making a harness for Monty from a synthetic rope in our backpack. Then we attached a length of vine rope to his harness and in turn attached this to the ladder he would take with him up the tree.
When he was ready, we pointed up the tree to the co
conuts at the top and he immediately scampered up it. I feared the makeshift ladder would be too heavy for him to drag behind him but, just like he’d managed to wield the heavy machete, he seemed to manage it quite easily.
I cajoled Monty with lots of praise and encouragement while Tom kept hold of the end of the rope. When Monty reached the top, leaping around in excitement and in the process secured his end of the rope to the strong palm fronds at the top of the tree. I yelled to watch out for falling coconuts. Tom grabbed his pack containing the caterpillar boxes and the ladder and began to climb. Tom’s upper body strength is impressive and soon he was up at the top of the tree with Monty and releasing the helpful monkey from his harness.
‘Come on, Lori! Get up here quickly. We have work to do!’
I too began to climb the swaying creaking rope ladder. This was no time for fear. I clambered up slowly and purposefully and kept my eyes on Tom and Monty as I ascended. I felt like Jack climbing the beanstalk into the high heavens. Tom waited anxiously until I’d reached him in the canopy. Then we used our combined body weights to bend the top of the tree slightly and sway towards the strong leafy vines of the Monkey Ladder.
I reached across to a thick branch of the adjacent tree and tied our safety ropes onto it.
I worked quickly and was silently thankful for all the hours that I’d spent aboard ship with Ethan, as he’d patiently demonstrated to me repeatedly, how to tie strong knots.
‘The caterpillars are reddish-brown with small patches of lime-green on their backs. The eggs are small and pale green.’ Tom told me, but I didn’t need reminding. They also had stinging hairs and secreted a rancid smell if they felt threatened. I didn’t look down.
We’d come all this way and this was my quest. I wasn’t quitting now.
I reached across to the Monkey Ladder leaves closest to me and visually checked them.
Some did have holes in them indicating caterpillars had been munching and others had the tiny eggs stuck on their undersides that looked like tiny shimmering drops of dew.
Oh, mum and Josh and Zoey and Lucas and Ethan, if you could only see me now.
The Next Adventure Page 19
