Sitting in La Paz in a very nice hostel called Cruz de Los Andes we are making the most of the laundry service and hot showers after spending the last 2 weeks getting covered in different animal faeces while volunteering at La Senda Verde animal refuge in the Bolivian jungle. This refuge was started in 2003 by a Bolivian couple called Vicky and Marcello. It's aim is to provide the best care possible to animals rescued from illegal trafficking, in a natural environment. It is also an ecotourism retreat where people can spend the night in cabins or tree houses and enjoy the natural beauty and diversity of the area, whilst meeting some pretty cool animals.
To get from La Paz to the refuge we took a very small minibus along a very bumpy and winding road. In fact it was the new road that has now replaced the Death Road we had cycled down a few days before. It took 3 hours and cost us 2 pounds! Bargain. On arrival we were greeted with a very nice lunch and a more extensive tour of the place than we had received after the bike ride. To get to our dorm room which would be our home for the next 14 nights we had to walk about 15 minutes down the road to the quarantine area where most of the volunteers are housed. By this I do not mean that the volunteers have to go through a period of quarantine, it is merely in the same area as the animal quarantine section! We were shown into a very 'cosy' 8 man dorm and made our home in the back corner of the room. After a hearty dinner an early night was had as we were to be thrown straight into the action the following morning. After nearly 8 months of not working it was a strange sensation to wake up to an alarm at 0730 and get dressed for a days hard graft! There are 4 different sections that you can work on at LSV: Monkeys, Quarantine, Miscellaneous and Birds. It all works on a rota so you get to spend 3 days on each section but you are only allowed to go on monkeys when you have been there at least 1 week. The days were fairly structured allowing for some free time in the afternoon to go and hang out in the monkey area so that they could get used to you being around. Between 0800 and 0930 we would be cleaning, preparing and feeding the animals their breakfast, then we would stop for breakfast ourselves. Between 1000 and 1330 we would continue cleaning, preparing and feeding the animals lunch before our own lunch break. Duties in the afternoon would depend on what area you were working on, if you were on miscellaneous you would have to take the tour groups round and walk the tortoises (yes that's right, walk the tortoises!). If you were on birds you had most of the afternoon free until you had to feed the birds at 1700, if you were on quarantine it would depend on what animals you have at the time but you would usually get some time off before their dinner, and if you were on monkeys you had to give the monkeys a mid afternoon snack at 1430 before their dinner time. By about 1800 everyone was usually finished for the day and you were able to have a shower before dinner at 1930. The rest of the evening was usually spent playing pool, watching films, and drinking beer in the Aruma room, before trekking back to the volunteer house where Gen would perform a 'thorough check' for tarantulas and giant moths in the dorm room, before it all started again the next day.
I started on Misc, and Gen started on Quarantine. In Misc, the animals you have to care for are tortoises, turtles, dogs, one sick monkey called Piña, and the 2 andean spectacled bears. I started on the first day that the vet, Adreana, decided to change the tortoise diet, which unfortunately meant chopping up 10kg of vegatables. What made it even worse was that nobody mentioned that the tortoises don't eat carrot or beetroot so the left over food the next day was quite ridiculous! However, my first task was to feed the bears! I went with Vicky and Ben (another volunteer) to see Aruma, the 5 year old, 2 metre tall, male bear. While Ben coaxed Aruma about 10m up the path with some monkey nuts, Vicky and I had the unenviable task of going into the electric fenced off area, cleaning up and putting his breakfast of granola, cheese, grapes and various fruits into his bowl, all while Aruma sat a mere 10m away from us. The idea was that if Aruma got bored with the nuts then Ben would shout to us and we may or may not have time to get out the gate before he was upon us. Suffice to say, I was pretty nervous. Fortunately for us, he was more than happy with his nuts and stayed until we had got out the gate. I only had one scary experience doing this and this came on my second morning. Rosie (another volunteer) was feeding Aruma the nuts while Vicky and I were inside and all of a sudden something spooked Aruma and he just started running. Rosie yelled out to us and we pegged it out the gate. As it transpired, Aruma had smelt another animal coming into his 3000 square metre compound and had run off to see what it was, but at the time we just thought he was coming down to us. My heart rate didnt slow down until lunchtime! There was another tricky moment when we realised that the electric fence surrounding Aruma's enclosure wasn't working, and hadn't been for 2 days! Luckily Aruma didnt appear to notice and it was soon fixed. Working with Aruma everyday, it was hard not to notice his incredible strength and power, especially when we came to his enclosure one morning to find he had destroyed part of his interior fence and when we came to clear the debris it took three of us to move it. We also had to go and feed Tipni, a 13 month old female bear. She had only arrived in the refuge in the latter part of 2011 and was still in a fairly small cage, although more than big enough for her to run and climb around in. This was even scarier as Tipni was just coaxed to one corner of the cage while we went in and cleaned the rest of the cage out. At one point, with tipni on a low branch, I was underneath her cleaning up! Again, we would have only a short time to leave the cage if Tipni decided to come down.
After feeding the bears, we had to feed the 5 dogs; Linda, Peki, Limon, Semilla and Carbon as well as feeding the sick monkey Piña. When all these jobs were completed it was time to prepare the tortoise lunch which would be served to them at around midday. On the tortoise diet sheet not only did they require around 10kgs of vegetables, but they also required the same amount of lettuce or other green leaves. As this was not particularly commercially viable, instead of giving them green leaves at lunch time, we would take each tortoise out for 15 minutes and let them roam around and eat some grass. Bearing in mind there are about 50 tortoises, all of varying sizes, spread about the refuge and there were only 2 of us doing this, it ended up taking a sizeable chunk of the afternoon. At most we could take out about 7 at a time as they were actually surprisingly quick and if we took out too many we would end up losing them in the grass! Every now and then we were able to recruit a few more to help us meaning we could do about 15 at a time but it was still pretty weird having to take tortoises for a walk every day!
The dogs and Piña were fed once more a day and other than having to make time to take people on tours around the refuge, that was pretty much how the misc team ran. It was the busiest out of any of the teams, largely due to the walking of the tortoises and the tours, but also, every other day on turtle feeding day we would have to empty, clean and refill all the pools in all the enclosures, getting ourselves a nice covering of turtle poo!
After doing one day on misc, no one really wanted to do any more as you don't get too much free time to hang with the monkeys. I ended up doing 14 days on misc! This isn't as bad as it initially sounds though. After my first few days of feeding the bears I really started to enjoy myself and loved watching how the bears behaved at different times. They were by far my favourite animals and, due to this, Vicky asked me if I would like to start the 'Bear Program'! This involved me not only being in charge of the bears at feeding time but working on enrichment activities for them and training them twice a day. It did mean that when I was not working with the bears I would have to help out on misc, but it was a sacrifice I was willing to make. Twice a day, at 1100 and 1530 I would take a small device that made a clicking sound, a bright yellow plastic ball that I would put on the end of my right hand and, armed a load of monkey nuts, I would go and train the bears! The idea of these sessions were to get the bears to the point where we would be able to administer medicine orally and intravenously. My starting point was to just get them to stand up on command. To do this I would crouch down with the yellow ball displayed and once I had their attention I would stand up saying 'arriba!', holding the ball at head height. If they then stood up I would click the clicker and give them a nut. They took to this surprisingly quickly and after about a week I was able to to start trying to squirt fruit juice into their mouths. Aruma loved doing this and I managed to get him to open his mouth by saying 'abrir tu boca' and opening my mouth as wide as possible. As soon as he opened wide I would squirt in the fruit juice, which he loved, click the clicker and hand him a nut. Unfortunately, Tipni was a tad slower on the uptake and refused to open her mouth until she had smelt what was in the syringe, at which point she would bite down on it and not let it go! Hopefully, whoever is taking over the mantel of being 'bear (wo)man' will have more luck! I had great fun training these two bears and only got bitten once when Tipni got a little too excited when I was handing her a nut and decided to try and take my finger with her! Doing this program did mean that I missed out on my 3 days with the monkeys, but I managed to find time to go and hang out in the monkey area plenty of times so I wasn't too bothered. On the plus side I didn't have to pick up much monkey poo (that's not to say that I didn't get my fair share of it when they decided to jump on my shoulder and relieve themselves).
Gen's first day was pretty hectic. When you work in quarantine you have to come all the way over to the prep room in the animal refuge to prepare all the food, and then go all the way back to the quarantine area to feed and clean. Depending on what animals are there at the time, could mean that you have to go back and forward quite a few times. It also meant that the quarantine team were always late for breakfast, which took Gen a little getting used to! While Gen was working on the team, they had birds, monkeys, tortoises and a tayra to look after. Before the animals are allowed into the main enclosure they have to spend around 2 to 3 months in quarantine to get all their injections and to make sure they are healthy enough and ready to be allowed to mix with other animals. Sadly, but unsurprisingly, coming from such a bad background, some don't make it, regardless of how well they get treated once they are here. Unfortunately during Gen's time working in quarantine 2 birds died and the 2 squirrel monkeys escaped! The monkeys were recovered.
After Quarantine, Gen spent 3 days working on birds which meant cleaning and feeding them 3 times a day and making mountains of bird cake. There were a lot of birds at the refuge, 2 types of macaws, talking Amazonian parrots (they could say 'hola', 'whatever', make a noise like a cat, laugh, wolf whistle and 2 of them could make the background noises of a restaurant!), and a very rare but very beautiful breed of toucan.
Gen rotated throughout all the teams until finally, at the end of our stay, she got her time on monkeys. Unfortunately, they were some of the wettest days we had. I am assured by Gen that having a damp monkey jump all over you is not a very pleasant experience! Gen was very pleased though that she managed to complete her time working in the monkey area without falling over on the steep, slippery banks whilst carrying buckets of porridge (monkey breakfast) and water.
There are 6 different types of monkeys in the refuge. The Owl and the Titileon monkey were caged and we had very few dealings with them as they were fed by Vicky or Marcello. The small and cute squirrel monkeys hung out around the restaurant and scavenged for all their food either by stealing others food or jumping on your shoulder and refusing to move until you found them something. The big, gangly, black spider monkeys swung around like they owned the place and terrorised the tortoises during walking time, but Gen assures me they give excellent hugs (all I got was one humping my leg!). The smaller, light brown capuchin monkeys, (like the one on Friends) mainly stayed in the capuchin territory but were incredibly curious if they came across you so you had to make sure your pockets were empty at all times! And lastly, my favourite of all, the very cool, relaxed red howler monkeys, the oldest of which loved to fall asleep in your lap.
Alot of the monkeys, especially the spider monkeys were allowed to roam free but quite a few, especially the capuchin monkeys, had to be tethered. This was either to ensure they don't run away and get themselves run over or end up back in captivity, to encourage them to be less dependent on human interaction or to stop some monkeys bullying others. It was amazing to watch the monkeys as they are all so intelligent and were able to solve any problems that they would come across, to the point where they could even undo their tethers if they weren't done up tight enough!
On our last few days we were introduced to the alpha male capuchin, Ciruelo. He looked like a capuchin monkey on steriods and had the attitude to go with it! He had to have a reinforced tether, that he tested on a daily basis by running as fast as he could, trying to snap it. We joked at how scary it would be if he did get loose as he really looked like a force to be reconned with! We actually heard that the day after we left he did manage to get loose, I have no idea if he is back again yet.
Our time at LSV was an absolutely amazing experience and it was a sad day when we had to leave. We made a lot of good friends, humans and animals alike, and enjoyed every minute of it. If we had more time I have no doubt that we would have stayed longer. It is an excellent organisation and deserves all the support it can get. If you would like to know more please go to their website at www.sendaverde.com.
This time in 1 month the quins will be champions.