volunteer Ecuador (monkeys and more)

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Went to Latacunga,it was nice. The hostel I stayed at had a self guided walking tour of the city so I got to see a bunch of things I wouldn´t have known about (what Riobumba needed). I met people who I did part of the Quilotoa Loop with. I highlyreccomend it. The 1st night we got a bus to the LuLu Llama hotel in a town whose name I don´t remember. We got a tour of a woodworkers studio. An Italian woodworkermoved to this TINY town and teaches locals the craft. They focus on church stuff, it is beautiful. From there we walked 4 hrs to another town (the name starts with a C I don´t feel like looking them up) Both places were beautiful Quechua communities, very high up in the mountains. I had trouble walking up hill because of the altitude, and myfitness level. The next day I took the bus to Quilotoa crater while the people I was with walked 5 hrs up hill (around 4,000 meters altitude). The lakeis amazing I just spent the day sitting on the edge of a volcanic crater lake reading a bad book, looking at snow capped mountains in the background. It was freezing. After theses few days my feet were cracking and bleeding. That was fixed in Merazonia wearing rubber boots all the time moistened my feet... (www.merazonia.org) A Wildlife rescue center just outside of Mera (another teeny tiny town). I stayed there justovera month. The daily schedule is basically: feed animals and clean cages (yes pickup lots of poo) from 7:30 am until about 8:45 breakfast until 10:00. After breakfast everyone cleaned a building then whatever needed to be done. This varries from cutting down trees to decorate cages, to building a new capucin monkey cage, tocatching grasshoppers to feed tamarin monkeys. This lasted until 1:30 which was lunch until 3. After lunch is cleaning and feeding then working until 6. Afterthat was free but wetook turns cooking dinner, yes that means I was in the kitchen most of the time. The worst part about Merazonia was the dessert almost every night... ok kinkajou poo might be worse but I can´t say no to dessert in front of me. I saw so many cool things I can´t even think ofwriting them all. Merazonia is very professional, they have a live in vet (who is amazing), huge cages that are constantly being expanded. There aremany wildlifeparks that arejustthere to makemopney this isn´t like that all the money goes to animal food and care. and I want to go back we´ll see if I can. I now am in Quito trying to figrue out what I´m doing. Ithink I´m going to extendmyvisa in Ecuador... and maybe go to Peru... we´ll see. I don´t feel like writing more. Tell me more of what you want to hear about.

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Comments

[Jane Stanfield]

How can I work with the monkeys?
I teach classes on how to volunteer when you travel. Can you tell me what was the cost, what were the accommodations, how large was the group of volunteers and the average age. Have you done any other volunteering with animals as I am always looking for other options and first hand recommendations! Thanks so much. Travel in Safety. Jane