For a long long time at home and throughout this trip we have been really looking forward to working in an animal sanctuary. After lacking enough time to work at one in Ecaudor we were really happy to find another one, Inti Wara Yassi in the Chapare region of Bolivia. You may have heard of this region, as it is one of the worlds biggest producers of cocaine, and in the middle of a dengue fever epidemic - two excellent credentials! The news that we werent allowed to use any sort of insect repellant in an area where people are currently dying from a disease transmitted by daytime mosquitos wasnt greeted too warmly, but as Deet is perhaps more harmful to humans than mosquitos it certainly isnt good for inquisitive monkeys!

So after a long and fretful journey (we were told get off the bus after the big bridge. there were several) we made it to Villa Tunari, a tiny steamy little town notable only really for possessing the animal sanctuary. Here they take in and care for wild and endangered animals (a LOT of monkeys, pumas, ocelots, a bear, lots of exotic birds, coatis, turtles, a sloth, and a tortoise) that idiot Bolivians have bought, caged up, and sadly mistreated and abused like you wouldnt believe (it really hit home just how disgusting humans can be when i was introduced to a spider monkey who had been raped by a man). After paying up for our accomadation we were given our jobs for the 3 weeks; Kate would be working with 6 baby capuchins essentially being their mum, and I would be working with 28 spider monkeys and a few capuchins.

First day in the spider park; i had been warned that an adolescent male named Octavio could give me quite a hard time. So i calmy walked into the park (situated on a hillside overlooking a large river bed, in the middle of the jungle) with Nick, a fellow volunteer trusted by the monkeys. Upon being released from thier nightime cages Octavio immediately spotted me, ambled over in the comical spider moneky gait (they sort of wave their arms in the air and saunter about as they arent really designed for bipedalism, resulting in a very camp looking mincing walk) and jumped onto my head. It was clear he was very excited, and testing my nerve somewhat by biting down onto my skull and biting my ear. If he wanted to Octavio could do a whole lot of damage, but he was just trying to play, luckily my fear of losing a body part was miscounstrued as calmness and control, and after his best friend Tomasita (a high ranking female) came over to investigate me and decided i was good enough to groom her, all was well in spider park.

Days in the spider park were spent feeding the monkeys fruit and vegetables, grooming the spiders (although many were seriously abused by humans they are also now very dependant on human contact and so as soon as they see you so long as you arent currently occupied with a higher ranking group member they will come over to sit with you and then take your hand and show you where they want to be groomed. One female called Negra will insist you spend hours checking her neck time and time again where she used to have a terrible sore from being tied up), being groomed by the little capuchins who took a great deal of interest in my beard, trying not to ingest any beans that were generously thrust into my mouth by a capuchin named Panchita (sharing food with monkeys = a quick way to get parasites!), cleaning up the serious amounts of mess that 30+ monkeys can make in day, trying to avoid any females on heat who take an unnerving interest in wellington boots, and making sure none of them gett tangled up with each other.

This is because, although one day many will hopefully be released, some of the monkeys simply cannot fend for themselves and if left completely free in the daytime they will run out of the park the wrong way, not towards the jungle, but towards a dangerous road, electricity pylons and human food. Sadly this meant that 7 of the 30 are attached to cords, which are then clipped onto different rope runners around spider park. It does mean that they are much freer than in a cage, but we still didnt like seeing wild animals being constricted, although fully understood the necessity of this particular method of protection.

Days in the park were very very hard, starting at 7.30 am and not finishing until 7-7-30pm, in 35 degree plus temperatures and over 80% humidity, contsnalty wandering around attending to different monkey needs and carrying heavy food and water buckets around. You literally sweat standing still, so it is obvious why we no longer own any of the clothes we wore during our time at the park. It was supposed to be rainy season, but luckily/unluckily (wet from rain or wet from sweat - not much difference really!) we only had two rainy days. Rainy days in the jungle are not like rainy days in England; theres no drizzle here, rain is proper, shotglass full sized sploshes, soaking you to the bone in under 30 seconds, accompanied by dramatic thunder and lightning storms. Rain is a problem for some of the monkeys, many are fine as they simply climb a tree for shelter as in the wild, but the corded monkeys require moving to a rain shelter, no problem on paper, but Octavio the aforementioned excited male likes the rain. A lot. So much so that he gets extremely overexcited, jumps around aggressively, and because he wasnt raised with other monkeys and taught how to play properly (but instead kept caged up and fed pizza and crisps by some stupid moron) he doesnt really know how to control himself, so intimadtes bullies and bites the other monkeys. Its pretty scary trying to rearrange tangled up monkeys who want to simply hide in a corner when he is jumping and swinging around everywhere, especially when he tires to start biting you, but anger isnt at him but at the people who did this to him. The same with all the monkeys, some have severe psychological and mental issues, and none of it is their fault, they belong in the wild yet people took it upon themselves to try and treat them as pets or bar entertainments.

Particular highlights in the spider park included my third day, when Octavio and Alfito (an amazing cool male with dwarfism) didnt want to get into the cage to sleep at night (protection from surrounding wild males in the jungle who will fight and kill them as they cant defend themselves properly), yet when I the new guy approached them, did the "friend face" (purse your lips and furrow your brow) at them they ran straight to me. Another fantastic moment for me was when i caught the monkeys a fish and put it in their water bowl. Wild spiders live in trees, and have no contact with stream and river species, so they had literally no idea what to make of it. Some of the braver members of the group attempted to catch it but were petrified when it moved in their hands, and many just sat around looking at me as if to say what the hell of you done to my water bowl theres a monster in it. Then Tau Tau came along, an enourmous male capuchin (still much much smaller than the spiders) who acts as a substitute alpha male for the spider group as they dont have an alpha currently and he was kicked out of monkey park by another male capuchin, and he took one look, grabbed the fish and ripped its head off. Awesome.

We were supposed to stay at the park for 3 weeks, but as amazing as spending all day every day with monkeys was, we had some issues with the way the park was being run. We felt like we really didnt have a voice in the park, longer term volunteers dismissed any questions we and our friend Martin raised with the retort "well you arent here for long so what would you know", making us feel like we simply wouldnt be listened to unless we were there for months. But even after a few days it was clear to us that more could be done, the park has been open for 13 years yet no spider monkeys have been released, and yes they are building a new park way into the jungle where they will hopefully be released, but this wont be for at least another year, and why havent they done this sooner? They built another park a few years ago, but again this isnt in a good place for releasing animals, so why did they build it there?? Monkey quarantine where Kate was working was chock full of cages, all with one or two monkeys, and we were initially told they spent 40 days there to ensure they were free of disease, fair enough. But some had been there for five years we were told by an experienced long term volunteer. When we raised this issue with others it was dismissed with, "oh it cant have been that long" and told there wasnt enough space for them to go elsewhere. It just seemed to us that more could be done, that release wasnt really top priority, and that you didnt matter to the center as a brief volunteer, you were simply just another worker, and just another wallet. This made us extremely sad to think, but it was confirmed when we spoke to a Canadian family living in Peru who had two children 10 and 12, who had been emailing for weeks and weeks prior to arriving to make sure that their young children where ok to work with the monkeys, their reason for visiting on their holidays. They were reportedly told time and again that they were definetely ok, and when they made the 4 day journey there were told, "oh no they are too young the monkeys are too dangerous you will have to work in the aviary". So we can see no other reason for the lies other than to get the family to pay up for 3 weeks of non refundable money. At the end of the day, despite having an incredible time with the monkeys, it felt a lot like we were working in a zoo that had no visitors. We had been promised we would be rehabilitating and preparing the animals for release, but we really felt we were simply looking after them. We hope more than anything that the animals fit for release will one day be free and wild as this is where they belong, and cant understand why there isnt more urgency to acheive this goal.