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Published: October 31st 2006
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We have finally come to the end of our time here at the animal refuge after two months, and the time has moved so quickly it's mindblowing. Laura spent 3 weeks with Quirqui the puma, then changed to the Spider Monkey Park to work with Tim's 28 new black, long legged friends.
The spiders have seen a lot of changes to their home over the last few weeks, the largest one being the introduction of a new female monkey named Bibi. She has been at the refuge for about 7 months, and all of that time was spent in quarantine on a small cord with little interaction with other monkeys. Tim spent day after day visiting her, trying to convince 'der management' that she should come up to the Spider Park to be integrated into the group. Finally we managed to bring her up where she was introduced to her new home and the other spider monkeys (probably for the first time since she was a small baby). At first she was a little overwhelmed and clung to us, avoiding the other monkeys who all wanted to investigate the new arrival.
On her second day when most of the
Bibi noving to her new home
Veronica, one of the vets, helps Bibi into a cage to be taken up to the spider park. other monkeys were off swinging in the forest she started to investigate. She climbed and explored the reaches of her runner (a long rope her cord is attached to) looking more and more wide eyed. It was a moving moment to see her realise that she now had a large space of amazing forest to play in.
Two weeks on and she has integrated brilliantly. She has made friends with lots of the others and is often seen play fighting with her best friend Negra. It's so wonderful to see her swinging in the trees and gradually becoming accepted by all of the other monkeys, especially as she was treated horrifically in her time before coming to Inti Wara Yassi. It makes you feel all warm inside to think that you've made a difference to the life of this one monkey.
We also had a difficult week in which three of the group disappeared (Patty, Tomasita and her daughter Primavera). Although they are not on cords they are free to come and go as they please and always come to the cages at night. It was very worrying when there was no sign of them the next day,
it felt like a friend had just vanished without warning and we were all fearful of the worst as a wild jaguar had been spotted in the park on the same day.
After four days, we had all but given up hope on them when suddenly Patty just strolled in at breakfast, casual as anything, looking thin but otherwise unharmed. Two days later we had news that some spider monkeys had been seen on a road a short distance from the park. When they arrived, Tomasita was found by the road, alive and well. Sadly there was no sign of Primavera but someone did report seeing a dead monkey on the road. Tomasita was brought back to the park and Primavera is now assumed dead. It has been very difficult for Tomasita since she is missing her baby and is struggling to fit back in to the group. She is the third Alpha female and much work will be done by the current volunteers to help her to maintain her position in the hierachy.
Other than that, we have been doing the usual work of cleaning their very dirty cages every day (20 of them sleep in one
cage, so you can imagine the mess in the morning!), taking them for walks on the beach and in the jungle, washing their blankets (yes, they have blankets when they go to bed) and making their food. Laura, as a female, has to also spend a large part of the day grooming the Alpha females, who grab her hands and put them on their heads as if to say "Groom me now, please". Tim, as the acting Alpha male, doesn't have to deal with any of that and can just enjoy playing with the monkeys and fending off the ladies with their sexy faces.
As the rainy season begins to set in, we have to admit that we are quite pleased to be moving on. When it rains here, it is almost as though the sea is falling out of the sky onto your head, everything floods and rivers run down the streets. This means that the whole park becomes muddy and slippery, and sitting under a rain shelter for a whole day with 28 muddy, wet monkeys may become a little difficult to handle after a couple of weeks. Also, we recently had a bit of a laugh
Watson
One of the lovely macaws at the park. with our accomodation (provided by the park). After a particularly stormy day in which it rained so much in such a short space of time that it was quite unbelievable (around 30-40cm in one day), we were quite looking forward to getting back to our dry hostel for a shower. We got back and found our room was flooded, and that the showers had no water (?) so we decided enough was enough, and went to grab a clean, non-damp place in a hostel in town. We can look back on this and laugh now, though, as you'll be pleased to know that nothing was damaged!
However, we are both so sad to be leaving our gorgeous monkey buddies as (and we know this sounds weird) we have been accepted totally by the group and feel part of the family. Each monkey has its own strong personality, you learn their expressions and you know what will annoy them, or how to make them happy. It really is like having made 28 new friends, and we will no doubt shed a tear when we finally get on the bus to La Paz...
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angelika
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you lucky lucky people
You guys are so lucky to have been able to spend time with these wonderful creatures. Only by having the chance to get to know how important all the different kinds of animals all over the world are, can e begin to address the damage we have already done - I will get you both to go vegan when you get back!