Blogs from East, Ecuador, South America - page 29

Hey folks, thanks for the comments! So i wrapped up my shivering and my Spanish lessons in Cuenca, and sadly said goodbye to my teacher. Caught a bus to Macas, and once again was just mesmerized by amazing scenery. Lush green, towering mountains, waterfalls, clouds at eye level. the first 6 out of a 9 hour bus ride flew by! Macas was a hole, as was Puyo, so i quickly headed up to Tena, the base for my last volunteer experience, to revel in the heat. From Tena, i took an hour long bus ride and then a 10 minute canoe ride to Amazoonica, an animal sanctuary in the Amazon jungle, run by a swiss lady and her Ecuadorian husband. As i stepped out of the canoe, a monkey greeted me! whooaaah! Turns out, our volunteer ... read more

It´s been an interesting week at El Arca. Firstly we have a new addition. A nightwatchman called Pedro. No-one seems quite sure exactly what it is he´s supposed to be securing - escaping animals? Wild animals? Animal thieves? Escaping volunteers? Whatever his mandate he cuts an unusual figure for a security guard in that he´s, well, really really short. To give you an idea, he´s shorter even that Javier, one of the Ecuadorian workers, whose colleagues habitually refer to him as ´The Dwarf´. Nonetheless, Pedro patrols with gusto and a large torch every evening, and so far all is well. Since Monday we´ve been building a new enclosure to house a bird I am unable to identify above and beyond 'it´s large and it´s blue'. Rusillo, the mother of the family who own El Arca maintains ... read more

So I´m in the jungle. Well, obviously I´m in an intenet cafe, but the jungle isn´t far away. Since Tuesday I´ve been doing my volunteer work at the aminal rescue centre. It´s great, there are creatures EVERYWHERE. I have a new best friend, in the form of a Marmoset that follows me around and attempts with tedious regularity to get inside my t-shirt. He´s quite partial to pissing on me as well. Among interesting tasks I´ve had assigned to me, I´ve fed live chickens to Ocelots (wrestled with my conscience about that one, but in the end it wasn´t me eating it, and it was necessary), cleaned the swimming pool of the Galapagos tortoises, and built a bridge out of bamboo. Yesterday I was cleaning enclosures. This included those of a number of animals that could ... read more

We got up early for a morning hike through the jungle. We took a boat to get to the hike. To be honest we didn´t see that much. Jose tried to find interesting things, but the only great find was some spider monkeys in the tree (btw, dad, they were a lot bigger than the one in the museum in Bournemouth). But it was a kinda disappointing hike. We pretty much stuck to a trail, which seemed to be the antithesis of being in primary rainforest, and a group of five was probably a little bit too big, because the animals can hear you a long way off. What was interesting was watching Jose. He literally was in touch with nature on a level that we weren´t. He would just stop and sense things that we ... read more

day 5 in la selva ecuatoriana... today was spent mostly in the canoe again as we were heading back to our 1st camp by the community of Nekempare. on the way we stopped at eh house of another of Moi´s relative´s on the river. we saw the most crazy stuff at this house... -loads of cooked bush meat inc peccary (which the non veggies amoungst us tasted), monkey and mb tapir -more handicrafts nmade of exotic animal bits u certainly wouldnt get thru customs eg turtle shell, toucan feathers -a huuuge jaguar skin - hanging up where several animal skulls, inc caiman (small aligator) and a boas head... the man of the house had caught one the day b4, wrestled with it and won the fight. outside the skin was stretched out to dry, at least ... read more