A Stray in Peru

Rescuing a Kitten in Oxapampa

They say that a cat finds you, not the other way around.

I had just visited the indigenous Tsachopen community of the Yanesha tribe just outside Oxapampa, a small town located on the eastern slopes of the Andes in central Peru, and was walking back along the main road.

Communidad Nativa Yanesha Tsachopen

Trying to dodge the heavy trucks rumbling by on the narrow country lane, I suddenly heard a pitiful meow. From across the road, hidden in the shrubs, a small gray fur ball hurled itself towards me. A scrawny little tomcat, out of nowhere, was determined to get my attention. I picked it up. Looked into that tiny face, I was in trouble. How cruel was it to leave the creature at the mercy of the busy road with no settlements nearby? I took it back to my hotel room and watched as it voraciously devoured the canned food that I had hurriedly bought from one of the many shops selling supplies for livestock in a town where the main industry besides tourism is agriculture, ever since it was founded by German and Austrian diehard settlers in the 19^th century.

First feeding

What was I going to do with a cat? I was in the middle of a trip taking local buses that were taking me across northern Peru, all the way to Quito, Ecuador? But maybe I could take the little guy with me. The internet was full of stories of people who traveled with their pets. How difficult could it be to take an animal that was small enough to fit into my handbag? But how wrong I was. I located a nearby vet who gave him a clean bill of health, and confirmed that he was about two months old. Issuing him his very own vaccination passport, the vet asked: “What is his name?” On a whim I said;”Kafka!” After all my last kitty, also grey had been calle Trotzki . I paid about US $20 for the service, remembering that in the US such a visit would have been at least US $200. I bought him a carrier, a travel-sized litter box, and a collar with a leash. The cat was so small that I had to take a needle and thread to turn the s-sized collar into an xxs

It’s playtime!

The next day, whiling away the hours in the hotel room until it was time to leave for the night bus, we bonded. Kafka was eating all the offered food as though his life depended on it, and I made him a makeshift toy out of string. The first part of the trip in a small combi bus to La Merced was uneventful, even though he was very vocal about how he felt about being stuck in the carrier. But when I tried to buy a long-distance ticket to Lima, none of the companies wanted to sell me one. When I finally scored one, it was a misunderstanding. The attendant had not understood that the second seat was for a cat carrier. When the driver saw the cat, he insisted that it should go into the hold with the suitcases. I refused, pointing out that in the small soft carrier bag, he would be squashed to death under the cargo of suitcases and potato sacks. I demanded for my luggage to be unloaded, and my two tickets refunded. In exasperation and not to delay his departure, the driver suggested that both the cat and I travel in the bus’s cockpit with him. That way, he was not breaking the law of no animals in the passenger area. The days of chicken buses in South American buses seemed over. Today’s long-distance luxury coaches are air-conditioned and have a selection of movies.

The night of sitting next to the driver with the lights of a convoy of buses and trucks heading to and from Lima on a narrow, busy highway was distressing. It did give me an appreciation of just how tough the driving is. The driver cranked up the music to stay awake, and Kafka objected with meek meows. Occasionally, I could sneak the little guy onto my chest to rub his tummy.

Kafka in Lima

After having chosen a pet-friendly hotel in Lima of the Casa Andina chain, I debated our options in desperation. The kitten was certainly a good sport about traveling, but he was like a small child and needed regular meals and naps. Maybe being dragged all around searching for obscure pre-Inca ruins was not his idea of an ideal cat childhood. I could change my ticket and return straight home with him. Or I could abandon him at Kennedy Park, where the municipality of Lima feeds stray cats, much to the delight of tourists and locals alike. I could put a sign: ‘Take Care of this Cat’ on him as though he was Paddington Bear. But the local cats were old street-hardened strays who might not be nice to him.

Kennedy Park, Lima

A third option occurred to me. Once again, I packed him and his carrier and headed straight to my old Spanish language school, El Sol where I met up with my former fellow student Lulu and her teenage son Lucas. Lulu, a reporter writing for a Chinese newspaper, had mentioned in class how she had promised her son a cat, once they moved from Beijing to Lima, since he kept begging her.

Out of the carrier, the kitty was his cute self. It did not take long before Lucas had that pleading look in Lucas’s eyes, asking his mother:

“Can we keep him?” He turned towards me and asked:

“What is his name?” Hesitating for a moment, I suggested: “You name him, Lucas.”

When I returned to the hotel, the room without the spirited little being looked as empty as my heart felt. I took a nap to make up for the previous night. When I woke up, Lulu had texted me:

“Lucas has named him Zaku after his favorite Japanese animation character.” She attached a photograph of Zaku sleeping, one paw comfortably draped across Lucas’s arm.

Zaku sleeping next to his new best friend

The next morning, I sent a text message asking if they wanted to keep Zaku. Lulu responded with a yes, adding: “He is a good cat!” I was happy for Zaku, but missing my little travel buddy already, I packed up, headed to the bus terminal, and took the eighteen-hour overnight bus to the historic city of Cajamarca in Northern Peru where Atahualpa, the last Inca had met his demise.

Cajamarca