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Was up at 4:45am on Saunday 7th to catch the boat from Isabela back to Santa Cruz to catch the bus an hour across the island to the airport to catch the plane back to Quito on the mainland to get a taxi to the hostel. Long day.
Monday I caught a bus to Tambillo which is the nearest town to the Santa Marta Animal Rescue centre high up in the Andes. I think it´s about 3500 metres above sea level & God could I feel it. I walked up a hill and thought my lungs were going to explode although my body didn´t feel tired at all.
Good things about the Santa Marta Animal Rescue Centre:-
They have lions, pumas, jaguars, coatis (little cute rodenty things), bears, macaws, eagles, toucans & loads of other birds including a pheasant which they class as 'exotic' as you don´t get pheasants in Ecuador. All the animals have been brought to the centre by the environmental police who have confiscated them because either they were illeagl pets or were being mistreated. Some have come from circuses or sideshows, eg, the lioness whose pupils are totally dilated & is blind from years of being made to jump through hoops of fire. And the coati who is blind because his owners thought that blinding him would make him calmer & decided that the best way to do this would be to put out cigarettes in his eyes.
The centre tries to either release the animals into the wild or get them rehomed at a good zoo or other facility where they will be well looked after. Some of them can´t be rehabilitated though, eg the hjaguar hates people so much after years of being prodded with sticks in a sideshow that she would kill humans if released into the wild. And a lot of the parrots & macaws talk so can´t be released into the wild as they would teach other wild birds to talk & then theyéd all probably be taken by poachers for sale as pets (it´s happened before apparently).
I watched a lion having a vasectomy the other day which I can´t imagine I´ll see again. I also got to handle his 3 week old baby lion which was unbelievably cute.
Bad things about the Santa Marta Animal Rescue Centre:-
The cages & equipment are all falling apart or don't work. The cages are made of bits of wire & wood cobbled together with sharp bits sticking out all over the place. One guy walked into a bit the other day & concussed himself. The scythes & machetes are all blunt and no one tells you what you´re supposed to be doing with them. Someone else chopped the end of his thumb off the other day.
The water taps are up a massive hill from a lot of the areas you're meant to be cleanin so you have to traipse up & down hills with buckets of water & which gets filthy after 2 minutes so you end up climbing up a ladder made of rickety babmboo & scubbing down cages with rancid water. Maybe if they had more money they could afford more hose pipes & equipment but unfortunately they don't.
The accomodation is terrible. I was expecting basic but not expecting to share what is essentially a studio sized house (beds & kitchen all in one room) with 4 other people including a guy. Thankfully they´re all really nice but it´s a bit awkward & it´s hard to keep anything clean with 5 people in a tiny space.
I´'s freezing here & after 3 nights I eventually worked out the right number of layers I needed on my bed to keep warm (7 including pyjamas & my fleece). I´m on a top bunk bed with no ladder so every time I went to bed I had to make sure I had everything I might need as it´s a bit precarious getting out again.
So today, after 4 days straight of scubbing empty cages & cutting grass with a scythe & machete I made a break for freedom with 3 other volunteers & ran away to the jungle. For all the above reasons (1 - back breaking work, 2 - safety concerns - I´m not prepared to give myself a permanent injury for the sake of 2 weeks here, 3 - accomodation & 4 - I´m a big wuss) I´m not going back. I´ve told them they can keep next week´'s donation from me but I'm not cut out for it.
So I´m now in Banos with Nancy & Oliver from Montreal & an Israeli girl called Tom who´s just finished her National Service in the army.
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