Animal Sanctuary - Parque Ambue Ari

Ruri as she started getting more inquisitive.
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We arrived at the animal park at 3pm having no idea what to expect.  First thing we saw as we walked in was a guy play fighting with one of the howler monkeys and someone thrust a baby monkey into my hands so instantly thought we were onto a winner.

First we met Naomi, who is a local Bolivian who manages the park in conjunction with the vet Zandro.  We sat down with her and discussed the rules of the park and then she allocated us our animals, I got a Jaguar called Jaguaru and Jo initially got a Puma called Yuma.  Both pretty happy with that as we both wanted to work with the big cats and another couple who came with us weren't so lucky, the lady ended up storming out and leaving the park after finding out she would be looking after the monkeys (which in actuality is a really good job) that's the volunteering spirit for you!

Coco in full form after he saw Yuval.
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After that we were given a brief tour of the place seeing most of the other animals which consisted of six Pumas, three Jaguars, four or five Ocelots, heaps of birds including toucans and parrots as well as two emu looking things called Pios and of course the monkeys, four howler monkeys and a little monkey called Ruri who was only a month old and looked kind of like a skinny Gizmo out of Gremlins.

From now on this will be split into Craig's bit and Jo's bit as we practically spent 12 hours doing different things each day.

The big fella, Jaguaru
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CRAIG'S BIT

The first day of actual work was great, up at 6:30am and then helped build possibly the worlds worst eagle perch with Jim (an Aussie bloke we had met on the Pampas tour) It has probably fallen down by now as the wood we used was somewhat termite ridden.  After breakfast headed down to meet Jaguaru with Pete and Yuval (who had turned up the day before me).  I got the rundown of the rules as we walked the half hour to his cage, rule one was be confident and don't let him know that you are afraid, the next five or six rules set about undermining any confidence I had in the first place eg. don't take anything off him eg camera as he will bite you, don't turn your back on him as he will jump you, never be lower than him as he will jump you,  don't talk loudly or get angry with him as he will jump you...you get the idea.

Ru again
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First glimpse I got was as he came stalking up out of the jungle inside his cage and I didn't really even see him until he was right up next the wire and then he happily licked our hands through the wire (as he has a little fetish about the salt in sweat), as always he was the perfect gentlemen when inside his cage. The big bugger is simply amazing to look at, huge paws, nearly all muscle, with a coat that is absolutely striking.

Next we let him out and I remember thinking I must be insane to be standing here next to a big cat and I was partially right as he jumped me and tried to pull me to the ground twice in the first five minutes of being out, he was just play fighting and testing out the new guy but he doesn't know his own strength and can get a bit rough sometimes.  Any way after that he jumped the other guys a few times as they were all new too, in fact we didn't really now what we were doing as we had a collective experience of working with Jaguars of four days.  Once he got bored of jumping people he wandered down on his runner towards the river did his really stinky morning poo then went for a swim before we enticed him back into his cage with an egg (I have a new found appreciation of eggs now as it is the only way we could get him back into his cage.)  Afternoon we fed him his daily 2kg of meat or chicken which is easy and stress free as he is chained up whilst you go into his cage.

Ru crunching through a chicken like it's a rice bubble
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Next day was pretty much a standard day for the next couple of weeks, involved doing my morning job which was to feed the pigs (not as bad as it sounds) the pigs are really cool and behave more like dogs, one of the pigs was in a pen by itself and I only found out after a week of walking around in it's pen and play fighting with it, that it was in the pen because it bit a volunteer and gave him 6 stitches in his hand, I was a lot nicer to him after I found out that little bit of info.  Jo had the cushiest morning job in the park, feeding the baby monkeys.

Coco doing.......I'm not sure
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After breakfast we would head to walk Ru (by this stage it was just me and Yuval).  On this particular day Yuval was collecting wood when one of the howler monkeys called Coco (that monkeys alright) started following him, he went behind one of the buildings and next thing I hear him screaming, I ran around and coco had latched on to the back of Yuvals thigh and was in the process of giving him a pretty decent bite, after that Coco was a monkey possessed he would follow Yuval everywhere and attack him at every opportunity (even caught him trying to get into the shower while Yuval was in there), and he could do some damage as he is the size of a medium size dog with big fangs.  So one of my new jobs after that was to drag Coco away every time he came to attack Yuval.  Apparently Coco was mistreated by his previous owner who was a tall guy with big hair and unfortunately for Yuval he fits that description quite well.

A toucan...the mean variety
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First time taking Ru for a walk was an experience to say the least.  Neither myself or Yuval had a clue about where we going and basically let a Jaguar lead us around for about three hours in the stinking hot jungle until he finally led us back to his cage.  During the course of the walk he jumped both of us a few times mostly when we stopped him going off the path into the jungle.  One incident I was holding the leash and he just took off into the jungle with no warning and took me with him, I ended up tying him to a tree branch which quickly stopped him in his tracks, turns out he really dislikes being stopped suddenly.  He turned around and looked at me with his jumping eyes (when his pupils dilate until his eyes are nearly all yellow you know your in trouble) and that was when I realised I was in a bit of strife.  He was about five meters away from me and took off faster than I thought he could, I stood my ground for about a second then heard Yuval yelling "RUN CRAIG" (bit like Forrest Gump) anyway in the circumstances I thought that was a pretty good suggestion so turned around and ran like the wind (and a bit like a girl) possibly breaking the record for fastest man in gumboots ever, I could hear the big fella catching up to me as he sounded like a horse chasing me, in my terror I was actually running through small trees rather than around according to Yuval.  Anyway this all happened pretty quickly but I distinctly remember thinking he must be just about out of rope...and that was when I heard the branch that he was tied to break (worst noise I've ever heard) shortly after that he was on my back and I was on the ground, I managed to roll over so I was facing him and all the big bastard did was sniff my face and walk off apparently well satisfied with scaring the absolute crap out of me.  After that he only jumped me once playfully for the rest of the two weeks I assume as I gained his respect by running like a pansie.

and the nice Toucan variety
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The next day Ru was not in a great mood and was actually getting quite aggressive in his play, fortunately he was taking it out on Yuval and not me, we had to tie him to a tree several times and give him ten minutes or so to cool off before attempting to walk him again.  Just before we were about to put him back in his cage he actually got Yuval a really good one and put one of his claws to the hilt in the back of his leg and I had to physically drag Ru of him.

By the second week I had a new morning job feeding the Toucans, and I must say they are the coolest looking bird I have ever seen in the flesh, there was two different types the typical orange and black and easily the best looking and the others were a blue colour still nice but not as impressive.  The blue ones were down right mean pecking me on the head as I walked past and attacking my gumboots which lead me to believe these were the females, the males on the hand were much better only biting occasionally and letting me pat them.

Junior looking pathetic..possibly after getting into our room and eating our toothpaste
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On the Jaguar front the second week was a breeze we had gained a third person which made life easier especially as Nathan was the only one getting jumped now.  To make it worse for Nathan ol' Ru must have thought he wasn't bad to look at and was trying to hump him every time he got him on the ground.  A few days later Nath was swimming in the river and got stung by a stingray in the foot (fortunately not in the heart!) and spent the next couple of days in hospital on morphine for the pain which is apparently excruciating.  Fortunately Pierce turned up and we had a new third member for team Ru, by this point Ru had lost all interest in jumping me and would actually come out of the river after his swim rub up against my leg like a house cat and then jump the guy behind me, it was good, once you don't have to worry as much about getting badly mauled, working with a Jaguar is a great experience.  My last day there I got to walk the puma triplets...well I only walked one of them but that was also good, they are very tame and you can pat and play with them a bit which was a nice change.

One of the puma triplets, Jaguaru wouldn't take that shit.
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Other than that we hitched to town every second or third night for beers and meat as the fare at the park was uninspiring to say the least.  Had an especially good night out for our going away party which was truly an international affair, with people from France, Israel, England, Canada, Sweden, Switzerland and Oz.  We ended up getting back at around 3am which was ok for us as we were getting a bus the next morning and didn't have to do our morning jobs but I think a few of the other animals got their breakfast pretty late that day.  Anyway that's about it if you got through all that without falling asleep then well done.

Different triplet, if that was Ru....a) I couldn't pick him up and b) if I could I would be dead. Naomi in there as well
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JO'S BIT

My two weeks was not as eventful as Craig´s as I did not fear for my life every day just every third day.  I took care of two Pumas during the two weeks.  My first Puma was Yuma who I took care of with Carl (a guy from New Zealand) and Naomi.  She was a crazy cat, the second wildest Puma at the park.  You could still take her for a walk and sit within meters of her but unlike the three sister Pumas who were brought up from cubs at the park you could not pat and play with her like a dog.

Lazaro at his cutest, all I can say is awwwwwwwwwwww.
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Each animal at the park had a sad story behind them but the lucky ones came to the park at a young age and were given lots of love so they were the friendliest.   Yuma's story was that she was bought off the black market and raised in a household where she was mistreated by the women so now she only likes men.  She actually came to the park on a bus on her male owners lap.  I worked with Yuma for 2 days and then changed to another Puma called Wayra.

Wayra was also slightly wild but she was tame enough to pat and sit next to when she wanted you to. She was a performing animal previously and as a result was not happy when she was forced to do anything.  For this reason Wayra and I had a few encounters.  I took care of Wayra with Manu (a French girl).   Manu and I were definitely thrown into the deep end with Wayra as we had a days experience with Zandro the vet and the reference books written by the other volunteers.  It was a bit of a process learning the trick to make her do what you wanted.

Jo and her babies....are you happy now mum and dad??
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Like all the cats Wayra was the most pleasant and loving animal in the cage.  She would greet us with loud Meows in the morning.  This didn't last for long though as she was in heat during the two weeks and got very grumbly.  We also found out after a few situations that Wayra was very territorial which made for some very interesting walks.

Our main incident was when we got lost and ended up at the river half an hour from her cage and ended up walking for 5 hours.  As most of you know my sense of direction is appalling.  Well unfortunately for us Manu's was worse.  Anyway it started of as well except for the fact that Wayra was showing us the way instead of us directing her.  After one of her sporadic sprints she took us down to a dead end.  Now this was at 11 in the morning and we had already been walking around for an hour and a half.  We turned back and then got lost and somehow ended up on a random path.  The scary thing was that one of the paths lead close to Craig's Jaguar's cage which was a big no no for the Pumas.  Not so much that they would hurt each other but they might turn on us in the panic.  This is when our panic set in.  We spent half an hour running around trying to distract her and make her turn back but she was having none of that.  We finally pissed her off enough that we both got some scratches and decide to tie her to the tree and wait.  This would have been fine until the Mosquito started feasting on every piece of skin they could find.  By this time we just decide to let her keep going and ended up at the river at about two after stopping every 100 meters.  We started stressing and decided to try and find the way back so there I was in two layers of clothes, gum boots and a mosquito net over my face running through the forest yelling out "Is anyone out there" , "someone help" all the way back to the house.  My defective sense of direction miraculously led me back.  I then had to run back with another guy and managed to coax her back to the cage using myself and my hat on a stick as bait.

Craig getting a rare bit of affection
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The rest of the two weeks was just a slow learning process on how to coax and trick her into doing what we wanted.  Lunch time was the worst as she did not want to go back into the cage after being out for three hours.

Wayra did finally make peace with me and once I learned to deal with the mosquitos I was able to sit next to her and pat her.  It was quite funny the things I did to get her love. I read to her, sang to her, ran around like a clown with a stick but it was definitely worth it when she let me sit next to her and pat her.  Unlike some of the other Puma that were like dogs Wayra was hard work and it was so much more rewarding to get close to her.  I was a bit sad that I had to leave just as I was making progress.  Apparently that is always the way and that was why they wanted volunteers for longer than a month.

Ru having a feed in his "cage" actually a giant bit of jungle with a fence around it
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My other job was feeding the baby Monkeys.  This was the most amazing job ever.  Even in two weeks the two little babies, Lazaro (a howler monkey who's mother was shot and he lost his arm in the process) and Ruri (a nocturnal monkey who also lost her mother) grew and got more inquisitive.  I loved waking the both of them up in the morning and getting a little cuddle from Lazaro after he finished sooking.  Ruri would go crazy as soon as she saw her milk syringe and then I would have to fight with Junior (the other young howler monkey) to keep the milk for Ruri.  Lazaros milk mustache after he shoved his face in the bowl never lost its cuteness.  I didn't even mind that Ruri would pee on me at least twice a day.

Jo with a little gremlin on her head. It's 6am hence the dazed expression.
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Overall I didn't realise how quickly you could become attached to the animals and how different their characters could be.  It was an amazing experience that I don't think I could ever match.  It was worth getting bitten 160 time on one hand ( I promise, Craig counted them) to live with them for two weeks.  The people there were amazing for what they did and how much love they gave the animals.

Ok Craig again here, I think I can talk for both of us when I say it was one of the most amazing things we have ever done and I reckon Bolivia is the only place in the world where you would ever get to do this with absolutely no training and without working with another experienced person which is half the fun, if anyone ever comes this way one day, then put it on your must do list.