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Published: November 4th 2005
Warning: There were animals slightly injured in this story. Sorry. Ambue Ari national reserve is a rarely heard of animal sanctuary somewhat off the beaten track (which is what drove me to go there in the first place). The park is for animals, normally the animals have been maltreated or kept in captivity by circuses or ambitious pet owners. Those that travel through bolivia will probably hear about Villa Tunari and intiwarayassi, which are part of the same movement with the same objectives and whatnot, which normally has about 30 or 40 volunteers. Whereas Ambue Ari normally has a maximum of 5 or 6 (and that's pushing it). And there's a core body of 6 bolivians that run the park so knowing spanish is a big plus.
The animals that one finds in the parks range from howler and capuchin monkeys to wild pigs and jaguars. So shortly after my and my israeli friends week in cochabamba to learn to play and perfect playing (respectively) the charango. We took a night bus to santa cruz where we began to ask people how to get to Ambue Ari. Nobody had a clue. Eventually we found someone that knew what we
were talking about and told us that we had to get a bus to guarayos and from there another bus or taxi to ambue ari; which we did and then took a taxi with a very shady driver that managed to shake even the army-days forged sang-froid of my israeli friend. There was no sign of iris in his eyes only pupil and a strange odor emanating from the seats. He drove with everything that tells you information about the car on the other side of the car ie speedometer, heat and petrol gauge (unfortunately fairly normal at times in bolivia) and it wasnt even working, nor trying to work. So we drove at unknown speeds and arrived at the park and were greeted by the excited chant of "voluntarios! voluntarios!" as the bolivian contingent realised that more people had come to help (two other people had arrived that same day so it was like christmas for those guys).
On arriving we found out that they didn't just have pumas in the park but jaguars, "Quality" I thought. And the pumas were a good deal smaller and the jaguars were fully grown. So the next day I started work
with Yaguaru, a three year old 100 kilo jaguar, with Linda a long term traveller from Norway that had been working with big cats for about 6 months by that time. Linda happened to be the only female of any species with which yaguaru came into contact so he was quite protective of her (the previous male volunteer had shown me his torn apart clothes). So he would probably take me as a threat to his manlihood and his girl as well...
Yaguaru We arrived at the cage after a 30 min trek from base camp. and when we arrived the norwegian girl told me we were going to do it poco a poco (a bit at a time). So i thought "Right, today he stays in the cage and he´ll just see me, well get to know each other like that and maybe tomorrow we´ll go out with him. But no. She immediately entered the cage and put his leash around his neck.
Yaguaru exited the cage calmly and began to lick my knee as he was to do pretty much every single day, and it´s not just for a few seconds either, if you don't
move away or stop him he can go for a full 15 minutes until you are dank with cat spit. The work with Yaguaru itself involves walking through any of the number of possible trails that he has through the jungle, he also has a runner by the side of a nearby river where we can go if he wants to cool down or play with his "toys" (varying plastic objects tied to logs in the water). I was told that the first day jaguaru jumps at a new volunteer to test their strength, and that I should just be ready for it and push him down firmly when he does so. The first day he tried to jump me twice, once when he had the height advantage on the slope next to the river side so I quickly sidestepped as a jaguar jumping on me is one thing but with the high ground on a slippy slope, no thanks. and the second time on the way back to the cage, but i held out my arm and said "No" and he stopped getting himself ready to jump, which i bizarrely thought would be the end of it. (Linda had
after the yaguaru bout 1
just looks like my shirts ripped but all down the sides of the trousers it was ripped as well. and my skin as well.told me that recently there had been a guy about my height and build, working there building his house in his cage, and he jumped him but the guy pushed him away hard and so he was associating me with that guy and probably wouldn't jump me because he remembered the first guy and was a little scared).
The second day yaguaru was determined to try and jump me but again wanted a height advantage and so was climbing trees and anything elevated so as to get the edge, and it's somewhat unnerving to see a jaguar preparing himself every few steps to "get you," but i was always far away or should i say far enough away from him, when he climbed so he just climbed back down again. Then all of a sudden walking through the slightlier reedier section of the jungle trail he turned around and jumped at Linda a couple of times and then at me, he fell to the ground and put my ankle in his jaw. Which was a first for me. And what you must not do in any circumstances is panic and rake your limb out of his mouth because then
Nana trying to look seductive
Nana the lion monkey has an unhealthy obsession with watching males shower or go to the toilet. The only solution is to throw water on her. She also pees on you all the time. the resulting tussle may get you hurt and the jaguar undoubtedly (probably) has no intention of causing you any permanent damage. So you just talk to the jaguar in a calm voice and eventually he releases his grip and you can slowly retract your leg from his mouth and he will slowly get up and carry on walking.
The days carried on as normal, Yaguaru was normally fairly relaxed (and is so when theres hot and muggy weather) and yaguaru didnt seem to want to jump me again but then one day the weather that was oh so hot and muggy in the morning became blustery and cold in the afternoon. Linda, Yaguaru and I were down by the river and Yaguaru´s lead got caught up on a branch down by the river bank i went down to free him. Trying fruitlessly to do so from a relatively safe position up high I had to go down and sort him out, no sooner had i done so, to thank me, Yaguaru decided to jump me, I tried to climb up the bank Yaguaru jumped ahead and pounced on me from there I slid down the bank and went by
a different route eventally reaching the top of the slope, yaguaru followed, linda oh so portentously assured me Yaguaru wouldnt jump any more, Yaguaru arrived at the top and jumped me. I took the leash and he seemed to chill a bit. Linda again assured me that Yaguaru wouldnt jump me again in her ever-ignorant-of-the-unpredictability-of-jungle-cats tone. We walk towards Yaguaru's cage and Yaguaru begins to explore a little nearby cabin (a ruse, one might say). Linda tells me that she is going on ahead to prepare the cage and put out Yaguarus food (about 7 kilos of pure red meat) thus leaving me alone with the jump happy jaguar, hmm, I think. She tells me that he's "tranquilo" now and i can bring him in when hes finished looking at the cabin. So Yaguaru waited until linda was out of easy earshot (if you ask me) and then made a break for it into the undergrowth, i detained him (which i quickly regretted) he had penetrated several metres into the undergrowth, enough for a run up. He lowered his head so as to put foliage between the gaze of our eyes (makes him feel more like he's on the hunt)
and i thought "Oh. No." And so began Yaguarus jumping session, he made good use of his run up and the first jump was pretty strong and he kept on coming afterwards five or six times, then he'd rest and lick my knee (perhaps another weak ploy to "put me at ease" that he wasnt going to jump again. But oh he did, in bursts of 5 or 6 and because it was cold he just didnt get tired, so we continued like that for another two rounds me nervously petting his head in between bouts saying "ok Yaguaru thats enough calm down now," hoping that Linda was on her way. But, hes a jungle cat and doesn't understand a word I say, I had up to that point resisted the urge to call to Linda (not wanting to empower young Yaguaru) as she prepared the cage and the food which takes a full 5 minutes, to clean the surfaces and discard of bones and offal and what have you which, when a jaguar is using you as a play toy, is an usually long amount of time. Eventually my foot got tangled in the undergrowth and he floored me
aha you want to floor me dont you little pussy cat
the old "I only want to hold your leg so as to give you affection" trick. face down, and then faced myself front wise as fast as I possibly could as lying prostrate beside a jaguar at that moment in time wasn't top of my list of things to do. And so, somehow, I ended up kneeling on yaguaru´s chest pinning his front paws and then trying to get hold of the lead by his neck but everytime I did he went for me with his jaw, and, seeing that his front paws weren't giving began to bring his back paws into play bending his legs in between mine which i fretfully tried to impede. At which time appeared Linda and immediately yaguaru became Mr Submissive as though he hadnt been doing anything. She got hold of Yaguaru´s lead I made myself a good distance between us and caught my breath. Yaguaru then went back to his cage with relatively little persuasion as "he knew he´d done something wrong" said Linda. Afterwards we made our way back to the camp and linda told me that the previous volunteer went home like this every day (clothes shredded and numerous flesh wounds) but then again two weeks later she told me the same guy never had any problems
with Yaguaru because he restrained him by pushing down on his shoulders when he was about to jump, and never even got a scratch. god knows. (It also arose that the "Big Man" that had pushed Yaguaru away so firmly had done so two years ago, and he was actually two inches taller than me an very physically big. I have never been mistaken for someone 2 inches taller and 4 or 5 stone heavier than me, never.)
Coco It then rained fairly heavily for four days, almost as a divine punishment upon yaguaru, as the big cats dont leave their cages on rainy days as they become very volatile in cold weather and the volunteers dont want to die. And shortly before this time began the saga of Coco the monkey. Coco the monkey had (4 or 5 days previously) began to pursue an argentian guy and attacking him, viciously (monkeys are FAR more dangerous than wild cats on a day to day basis, as when they bite they rip ´n´ tear) so viciously once (when the poor chap found himself face to face with coco alone) that he needed four stitches. But it also happened to
10 painful seconds of claws in my side this took.
10. Never ever buy a camera that takes more than a split second to turn on (not that any of you would as its just common sense to not do that). And yaguaru doesnt even look big in this photo (at one point in this 10 second stretch he reached up to the top of my chest. his blurred head is trying to grab onto any loose fold of skin to put pressure against. and all because LINDA wanted him to walk, when HE didnt want to. some women eh? irrespective of specie crossover, always trying to control. be the case that the argentian guy was a nob and so after numerous confrontations the park management decided to give him the boot. They had blamed the behaviour of coco on the fact that the argentinian guy swore a great deal and coco didnt like that people swore. Tenuous. The day that the argentinian guy left, coco of course pursued him to the gate where said argentine made his way to a nearby tree and armed himself with a makeshift cudgel to which coco had second thoughts then arrived sandro the veterinarian and restrained coco and the argentine made his merry way from the camp, coco seeing of his prey made his way back to the camp. I happened to be leaving the toilet and making my way to the bunks at that point and i saw sandro following the trundling sight of coco, i ask sandro if aforementioned argentine has gone he says yes, and i suddenly realise that coco has changed his trajectory which seemed to be converging with mine "erm, sandro, why is coco following me" (thinking of the ruined argentine leg) "no chill" says sandro in spanish "he wont do anything" "I am walking calmly
but hes still following me sandro" the monkey carries on following me i start doing back steps and sandro grabs coco's tail just as he lunges for my shoe. I make my way sandro plays with coco to calm him down. We have a meeting about the attitudes of people on the camp, with the park president she tells everyone to be calm around coco, he´d been stressed out by the argentinan and two israelis recently so we'll try to leave him in peace more and they even gave him a code name "Isidoro." At this point coco was patrolling the canteen room and when i came close he began to bite the netting to get in with canines that a monkey that just eats fruit and vegetables really shouldnt have. properly elongated-from-the rest fangs.
Thus it was decided that if coco approached me again nobody would say anything, not advise me not anything which i didnt particularly like the sound of but every man has to face his monkey some day. One day I came home from working with yaguaru, i looked around coco was nowhere to be seen i made my way to the dorm put the
door ajar and began to read 10 minutes later the ajar door was a swinging open slowly door and who should be at the threshold but an "innocently seated monkey with his tail curled up round his body, I stayed seated as I'd been told to not even pay attention to him, to in fact find some little chore around me clean a shelf or something. coco began to explore the shelves by the entrance, knocking over toileteries and whatnot, i stayed seated, reading, saying over and over again like a mantra "estas tranquilo coco? yo sì. los dos estamos tranquilos. no te he hecho nada" or "you cool coco? me, Im cool. both of us are cool. i havent done anything to you" coco made his way to the bunk bed where i was sat after a while, not too happy of having that monkeys teeth near my face i got up and moved away and suddenly coco didnt want to climb th bunk bed, he went back to the doorway and explored a little while longer I continued with my mantra. then coco calmly trundled towards me andwhen in reach of my shoe gone was his inquisitive ooh-shelves-
sandro the vet colouring in
with linda appreciating from the penumbra. bonhomie and in a hulk like transformation he went mental grabbed my shoe and started tearing apart the leather upper. He stopped after a few seconds and then escaped. The reserve president came in shortly afterwards and asked me what coco did i said nothing much although if iw asnt wearing shoes i wouldnt have a big right toe now. She told me that he'd be more chilled now and probably wouldnt do much although she still told me to stay in the room and lock the door from then on. But lo and behold Coco continued following me, from kitchen to canteen, canteen to bedroom, and even the toilet wasnt sacred, as went i went to do the essential coco would spot me from his lookout branch and then try to prise the door open looking at me through the crack in the door like a little brown hairy chucky's revenge as i looked at the bolt hoping that if he got me, it just wasnt like this. then sandro or jaime (another volunteer from the park) would drag him away by the tail so i could leave unscathed. But then one day when cutting up vegetables for the
rheas (o ñandu a type of flightless bird found in south america rather than the greek fertility goddess) coco was making his way back from the "monkey park" (where they had started taking him of the morning to help calm him down) and sandro the vet was out of monkey restraining reach so coco took advantage of the situation and approached my leg but a little higher this time. apparently in a weak attempt to defend myself i pretty much gave him my leg which he began to rip n tear, sandro pulled him away by the tail whilst I yanked my leg back saying "ow. ow"
managing to liberate myself coco was locked in sandros room and sandro attended to my leg, giving me just the one stitch (on having it removed i was told it should have been two, but then again sandro is a vet for animals, not for people) but it hurt to walk so i was to take a break from working with jaguars as where coco had injured me was the favourite place of yaguaru to hold my leg in place (with claws) and i didnt fancy getting the wound reopened. Nena the president
saw me later that day , not noticing my hobble she commented that coco definitely seemed calmer now, he attacked me I said, oh I guess he's not then. and from then on I took to carrying round a hammer never really sure if id actually use it if the occasion arose. coco was locked in sandros room after 6pm to go to sleep, which gave me some coco welcome coco-free time. but during the day he was very muchg at large so i got people to go ahead of me when returning home from yaguaru to report on his whereabouts, so i could make my way to the canteen area and wait out the strike of 6 o'clock.
Los pumitas Happily in the break between coco injury and starting work with yaguaru again I worked with the pumas inti wara and yassi (three females), with which my israeli friend had been working, and I cannot tell you the sheer joy of working with those animals, they are still cubs essentially at eight months old and are about the size of a fairly big dog. Thus they can still live together in their cage and be taken on
Aaah. A tiny little howler monkey
And whats that you ask? Whats that scar on his tiny monkey face? I´m sorry to say that that too was Coco. their jungle walks together as they dont want to dominate as yet. And they only really play and jump amongst themselves. One will run ahead of the others and lie in wait in plain view of the one which is approaching, the approaching one stays motionless watching the other and after a short while paws forward the one lying in wait jumps at the other, the volunteer stand on the lead so it doesnt get out of hand they play fight for a short while and move on, and thus carries on their short trail with striking consistency, occasionally they might seem as though they are going to jump a volunteer. normally running up and at the last moment stopping rubbing up against your leg and purring. Really beautiful animals, occasionally jump at a volunteer but in a cute way and without claws so its just nice.
Sandro's plan After about a week evading the path of coco, I was in the canteen awaiting the clock striking six oclock when sandro entered, took me to one side and exchanged my stockpile for a bamboo baston and then said ok, he's not going to stop chasing you unless hes
scared of you, so, lets make him scared of you (this is of course coming from a vet). so he went outside seized the already waiting coco by the tail and took us both round the back of the hut. whilst i was like erm, are you sure this is going to work how are we even going to do this am i going to hit him defenceless or what? but at that very moment coco broke free of sandros hold before he could answer and at that point it was just me and the monkey. he shuffled towards me and faced with the options of monkey bruise or bleeding leg i gave him a tentative smack with the baston, he shook it off and carried on just a lot more miffed, i thought "best hit him harder then cos im not having this." the second time i hit him with a lot more force and he hesitated afterwards but carried on, but this time he was pissed, in a blind panic i gave him a blow with everything i had he span round 180 degrees and i made an exit thinking if that doesnt stop him i cant
actually wayra the beautiful puma
has her own cage as can be agressive with other pumas and ocasionally with volunteers. But she´s lovely, lovely, lovely. Isnt she? hit any harder. so i went to the canteen and was like, "sandro the monkeys off his rocker, pain doesnt even matter to him, I was beating him with a stick and he still wanted to get me." "we'll have to tether him or something" was heard from the kitchen, but sandro was confident that the scheme had worked, "exit the canteen and see what he does," and on leaving i saw the once berserker rage beheld sight of coco shrink back. which obviously is a damned shame that it came to that to stop the situation, as obviously the park is to help previously maltreated animals, but it came as such a relief to me that now it was over and I wouldnt have to walk from hut to hut avoiding the potential fury of coco. It later came out that coco always has an aversion to white tall males with brown hair, when quest volunteers arrive he didnt attack or anything but always acted strangely with them. And it was supposed that it was a result of the resemblance to a previous owner, (tall, caucasian brown hair) from la paz, as previously coco had been the exotic pet
of a family in la paz he was doted upon and treated well and was a nice monkey, and one day he was captured by someone and when he was found again and returned to the family where he was found to have changed very agressive and they found themselves obliged to give him to the Ambue Ari nature reserve to look after. As Nena the president often said, "it´s never the animal's fault."
Yaguaru again So in a nutshell I carried on working with Yaguaru a for the next two weeks once my leg felt a bit better, and got back to developing the relationship of respect with Yaguaru, and it was great. And after about three weeks with Yaguaru when passing past me on the way back to the cage, he brushed against my leg as cats do, his first sign of affection and all the more worthy as I had to earn it.
Jaime and Yaguarupi Jaime is a sixteen year old boy that has been working with a jaguar for over a year, he's essentially grown up with it. Yaguarupi weighs in at a good 20 kilos or so more than Yaguaru
as he's bigger but is generally accepted to be the more serene of the two. So one day I said to Linda I'm going to go out with Yaguarupi today and so it was and how very different the Jaime jaguar experience was to be. First of all while Yaguaru needed three weeks of solid companionship before giving affection, on leaving the cage Yaguarupi immediately brushed up against my leg and we went walking through the jungle with me at the lead. This first excursion passed relatively uneventfully for me as Yaguarupi decided (as it seems jaguars seem to do with me) that i was tall so he'd take out his nerves on Jaime as he jumped at him a lot more than usual. The second time however when we went for the jungle stroll Jaime brought along a rake to clear up the fallen leaves by the river side, whilst Yaguarupi played in the river. Yaguaru, still being young (two years old though pretty much as big as a jaguar can get) could amuse himself in the river without the need for plastic toys (his age was also apparent in his territory marking - when he urinated at the
beginning of the jungle trail he always forgot to save a bit of wee for later, leaving us in the slightly embarassing situation of watching a jaguar fruitlessly try to mark his territory with an ever gormless look on his face and then try and rub as much of his body on the area afterwards to compensate for the fact that he was all peed out. Bit of background to jaime, he puts his jaguar out to play in the river and then works out doing skipping, does pressups on his fists and alternatively puts one leg in a loop of a rope hung over a branch and pulls to improve flexibility and then talks about girls that he´d like to do (normally a fairly short conversation as we are living in a nature reserve in the jungle). After Yaguarupi had had enough of the river we made our way back to the cage and Jaime began to mess about with the rake and Yaguarupi leading to the ridiculous situation of seeing a 120 kilo jaguar that stood at about six feet tall on his hind legs, running scared from a sixteen year old boy with a rake, and so
Ocy the ocelot that comes to visit the camp on occasion
I can't remember her real name. It's the same size as a domestic cat (pretty much) but would tear the crap out of your legs if you messed with it. Jaime put Yaguarupi into play mode, and the nearest playmate without a rake was yours truly, I had been told that Yaguarupi never used his claws when he was wrestling, this was not true. But he didnt tear apart my legs like old Yaguaru either. And the key difference between wrestling with Yaguaru and Yaguarupi is that with Yaguaru i had Linda who although brave did put herself in a bit of a state when Yaguaru jumped or anything like that and began to analyse what could be the matter with him. Whereas while i was like "hey help theres a jaguar on top of me and his jaw is near my neck" jaime stood back and laughed and just said "you have to win, but, ill take photos if you want". But the truth us its the best thing that someone can do for you when you're tussling with a wild cat, as it can almost be considered fun (I´d say) once you get over the fact that the cat doesnt want to eat you. And in the end the most frustrating part of the whole episode was that although we were on the floor for nigh on ten
Mimi the quotter (or something like that)
They call her a tejon over there, but that means badger, and that, is not, a badger. (They like to scavenge and sneak into the kitchen and you have to chase them out). minutes (this time) he hardly managed to take one good photo and didn't use the video function properly. But anyway after that the wild cat apprehension/fear pretty much disappeared off the chart.
Thus if you do want to work with a jaguar and you want to have FUN if you go to Ambue ari I'd suggest working with yaguarupi and jaime. Although sometimes he does almost take things to far (as he thinks of this jaguar as others might to a fairly big dog) one time he told us we were going by a new trail when in actual fact we were just walking along an awkward river bank, and he kept on trying to get Yaguarupi to pull me into the water. So whilst I was restraining Yaguarupi as he tried to go further across the river Jaime "cheekily" said to hold him tight and then threw a stick into the river which Yaguarupi gladly chased after and I was going to slip into the river if i held on, so, I let go and said "now its your problem". And we watched Yaguarupi from the other bank thinking that if we didnt follow him he'd turn round and
come back to our side of the river, but instead he crossed and started making his way to a nearby village. So Jaime himself had to uncloth and quickly pursue Yaguarupi, and bring him back across the river in his playful mood. Where one was able to see a 16 year old kid playfighting with a jaguar getting him in a headlock and all sorts, only stopping short of giving him a noogie.
And so there you have it that's pretty much the Ambue Ari National reserve for you so if you're going past that neck of the woods on your travels one day I can thoroughly recommend that you stop by there as they are always very grateful for any help, and its a wonderful experience. They only charge the nominal fee of 4 dollars per day which includes your food and lodgings. If you want to work with big cats they appreciate it if you stay for thatn just a couple of week. Go on. Go get jumped on by a jungle cat.
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Dad
non-member comment
Welcome back :-)
Good to read your latest exploits. I hope you will be able to settle just a little back in the UK in 2006 after all this! Take care. God bless you.