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I arrived at the Flor de la Amazonias animal rescue centre on Monday 22nd September. The power was off when I arrived so no water available either as the centre is on top of a hill and the water has to be pumped up it. This was not a great start but I settled in fine and immediately had a better feeling about it than I had at the Santa Martha rescue centre.
I was sharing a room with 4 others again but this time at least it wasn't all in the same room as the living area. There was 1 building with 4 bedrooms sleeping up to 19 volunteers and another building which was a communal kitchen with hammocks around a fireplace outside.
We had 2 bathrooms which each room took turns in cleaning each day. As I'm sure you can imagine, with 19 people using them and trailing mud into them all the time they got pretty grotty. They also seemed to be a haven for all sorts of enormous insects (moths, grasshoppers, mantises, etc) which can be a bit disturbing when you're trying to have a shower.
Each morning we met at 8am to discuss the days work. We were organised into groups to look after specific animals during our time there. My group looked after the Coati (South American mammal with a stripey tail a bit like a raccoon), Kinkajou (another mammal which looks a bit like a ferret) and 3 Capuchin monkeys (like the one Ross had in Friends or the one in Outbreak (but without the ebola virus)).
We'd then spend the morning feeding and watering the animals & cleaning their enclosures. Picking up shredded lettuce from a muddy monkey cage takes longer than you'd think.
The Coati was cute but scratchy. He was taken out for walks each day on a harness so that he could snuffle around for insects etc. We would also collect insects for the animals but it was difficult to ever get enough and it's good to encourage him to find his own anyway. We'd lure him into his trap cage with some grapes and then clean the enclosure.
Kinkajous are nocturnal so I didn't see too much of him. Plus he was brain damaged from a bump on the head and a bit aggressive as a result.
The Capuchin monkeys however, were a right handful. Their nicknames were Tina (her sticky-up hair was not dissimilar to Tina Turner's), Grumpy and Mischief (self-explanatory). Tina was very volatile and also the ringleader of the three so if she kicked off then they all went nuts. Tina bites (people and other monkeys) so she always had to be locked in the trap cage when we were in the main cage. But it was difficult to get them all in there so we often cleaned the cage with either Grumpy, Mischief or both in there. This meant constantly checking over your shoulder that you weren't about to be jumped on or have your hair pulled. While I was there we worked on a new, improved enclosure for the Capuchins as their old cage was not very robust and made up of a patchwork of different wire meshes. This can't come a moment too soon as Tina escaped twice while I was there and we spent 3 hours locked in the kitchen on one occasion while 2 volunteers tried to catch her.
After the feeding and cleaning we'd do other jobs around the centre - building new enclosures or structures for the enclosures (I now know how to mix concrete but I can't say I really want to use that skill again). We also carried five boulders each up the hill every day which was absolutely knackering. The hill is about 80 metres high although I'm not sure how long the path is.
Although the work was really hard physically, there was a lot more variety than at the previous animal rescue centre, so your muscles got a chance to recover and it was a lot more interesting than scrubbing empty cages for 5 days straight.
We'd have a break at about 10:30 and then another at around 2pm.
In the afternoons we'd do more construction work, take the Coati and Songo Songo monkey for a walk or go insect collecting.
The Songo Songo is possibly the most stylish monkey I've ever seen. (Jen Smith - if you were a monkey you'd be a Songo Songo). She is fairly small but has a big fluffy reddish brown coat with a strip of white across the top of her eyes. She was originally someone's pet and her owner used to treat her like a baby and put perfumes and lotions on her which gave her skin problems. She donated the monkey to the centre as she eventually realised that this wasn't the life for a monkey. The Songo Songo didn't know how to climb trees or look for food when she arrived but she can climb and jump really well now and is starting to investigate fruit in the trees when she is taken out.
Before she can be released into the wild they'll have to find a group of captive Songo Songos which are also going to be released to integrate her into, as a monkey on it's own in the wild would not stand a great chance of survival. They need to be in groups and she wouldn't be accepted in the wild.
This is also the case for the Woolly monkey, he needs a group or a family of his own before he can be released. At present he's really lonely. He's so lovely, he has a pad of skin on the tip of his tail which he can use for gripping. He was also kept as a pet originally. Woolly and Songo Songo are the only two animals which can be touched by us or petted as they were so used to getting affection before and they'd get depressed if it was withdrawn completely. Over time though they will need to become more wary of humans.
Other animals at the centre include:-
10 more Capuchin monkeys,
8 Spider monkeys living free in the trees around the centre,
a Toucan,
3 Macaws,
loads of Green Parrots which are learning to fly,
a load of Pecaris de Collar (a bit like wild boar),
a Margay (a small big cat, if that makes sense - she gets live prey which means a bunny rabbit or guinea pig is doomed every other day),
2 baby Cabezas (a bit like weasels) and
2 baby Falcons which fell out of a tree cut down on a nearby property and lived in my bedroom in a shoebox while I was there.
We'd finish work at around 6pm and then try to shower the days accumlated dirt off. Volunteers took turns to cook for everyone. Cooking for 19 with only pasta, rice and vegetables is a bit of a challenge, there are only so many variations on a theme you can do. I think my day turned out all right though, a truck-load of rice and some sort of vegetable stew I think.
I left the rescue centre on Saturday 4th October ready for some rest and relaxationand& headed North to Otavalo.
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