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Whos a pretty girl
I worked with Elsa every day for a month and she is the best puma in the world Hola Amigos!!!
I just got a ride into town on the back on a ute - delicious to lie and stare up at the clouds and the tops of the trees.
I am volunteering at an Animal Sanctuary in Bolivia in the Jungle. I have been here for three weeks so far. Its so hot and humid that sweat rolls down your body in streams. The insects are lords here. Ant giants patrol in glossy black armour while fire ants carry termite babies in a canabilistic conga line. Fire ants leave a mark of burning pain for half an hour. Tenacious wasps hang off you like mobiles, their sting is worse than the fire ants but only lasts about 10 minutes. Butterflies bewitch with their beauty, wings flashing irredecent blue, green, red and yellow but they a carry in their lava the dreaded bora bora which if it hatches under your skin grows into a worm which lives in a pus cave in your flesh. Red backed ticks cling to your skin with hooked feet while they bury their heads in you. Spiders lay in wait across jungle paths, you collect their webs on your hat and they dangle like
Capàchin monkey
A cute little dude i saw on my walk to work one morning corks before your eyes. Tarantulas scuttle into holes in dead logs. But the King, the devil, the absolute cursed bastard Demon of the jungle is the mosquito. They fly low with fat red bellies full of your blood or high and fast ready to feast. They drill through clothes skin and flesh with the efficiency of an oil rig. Your ankles, hands and upper back are the choisest meat in mossie cuisine but anything left uncovered will be devoured, foreheads, palms, arms buttocks boobs thighs, feet. The itching wakes me up at night scratching my skin raw. The fork is the best scratching implement but tree barks works well (watch out for the fire ants).
At night rats crawl on top of your mosquito net and chew through your underwear. There is also a charming bush pig here called Panchita who is the ugliest dirtiest creature that roams this earth. She baths in mud and swamp and oil, she eats used toilet paper and drinks from the toilet bowl, when i first came and was staying in my tent she ripped through it in the night with her razor sharp teeth and tried to come into my tent - not
a good way to wake up.
You may be wondering why I am volunteering here!!
The reason is a Puma called Elsa who I love. Every day me and another volunteer, Hannah, walk a kilometer to her cage past monkeys, turtles, snakes and other jungle creatures. We spend the day making her cage better and petting and playing with her. The first time we had to go in the cage with her was one of the scariest things I´ve ever done because neither of us knew what we were doing and noone was with us. I walked in while hannah watched the door. Elsa walked up to me calmly and then jumped up and bit my thigh, I was trying to calm her down and she jumped higher and bit my sides, finally she got down and I quickly got out the door. It took a good ten minutes for my heart to calm down and then I felt so high!!! I have big bruises and scratches all over my legs and back from her ´"playfulness" but she is much better now and really listens when I tell her to get off me. We are trying to get her to
Howlers Howling
They are born to howl! So Noisy!! come for a walk through the jungle with us but she is scared of the lead so it will take time. There is also the howler monkeys who give great monkey hugs and try to pick your hair for nits and lick the sweat off your neck. And deer, coatis, pacos, toucans (vicous, try to peck your skull), parrots, tapirs and a recently freed sloth!!
The other volunteers are really awesome too, we go and get drunk once a week in the nearest town, where the bars are open shacks and the Rum is cheap and sweet!! The rest of the time we amuse ourselves with card games and guitar playing. Also a new volunteer came yesterday who was a Hollywood Executive for Miramax, and used to have coffee with Brad and Jen and so now there is only 2 degrees of seperation between me and heaps of really famous people.
Its about to thunderstorm so everyone is hypo!!
I have left the jungle now, on my last days i got to run and swim with the pumas through the jungle and see the biggest jaguar, Yaguarupi, who was amazing. I miss it all already.
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Emily
non-member comment
Rumble in the jungle
You wild crazy cat... you look beatutiful and so do you dee..... he he he. i'm jelous of most of the things you are doing. the butterflys seem a bit freaky... miss and love you loads E