Friaje

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Hello everyone, time for another blog update. I have had a request to put in what I typically do on an average day, so will put that in along with an update on my news for the week. On Monday we have early morning obs which start at 5.45 am, but thankfully there is not enough space for everyone on all the platforms, so on Monday I got a lie in, which is always welcome. After that I had lodge maintenence, which is basically tidying up the main part of the lodge - the kitchen and the "bar" (a smallish room with a tv player, a computer, a bench that serves as a bar when we have parties, and various logs to sit on), and feeding all the animals. There has been quite a lot of changeover with the animals recently. We used to have two macaws that used to be in captivity at the lodge, and now that they have been released fly around because they know that occasionally they will get food. They also bite your feet, an and anything else that they can get at. But two weeks ago they went missing. At first we were hopeful that they had just flown away somewhere, but last weekend someone turned up with the blue and yellow one saying that they had "found" it with it´s wings clipped in the river near the lodge, and then sold it back to us for 150 soles. So it has gone in a cage with the other macaws that we have at the lodge, as it can´t fly anymore. There is no news of the scarlet macaw. Also new as of last weekend are a pair of parrots (they are very chatty, but are yet to master the wolf whistle, "hola", or "f*** off" that the other resident parrots squawk as you walk past), and a pair of very very cute baby toucans. They are now my favourite animals as Taricaya, as Maarten, the six week old donkey who previously occupied the post unfortunately died last weekend. So there was lots of sorting to be done with enclosures this week, including moving the agouti (a small rodent) in to a new cage, which we did on Monday morning. I got lumped with the job of feeding the pair of turkeys, the male of which is notoriously violent. I have never been attacked before, but on Monday it attacked me twice - first it flew at my shoulder and started pecking, and then at my head. The second time, it chased me out of the door and then managed to get out of the second door which wasn´t closed properly. Eventually we mananged to get it back in the cage by tempting it with a plate of food. I think I will make all possible effort to avoid the turkeys from now on...

On Monday afternoon three of us went on a swamp walk. The theoretical idea of a walk is to look out for interesting animals and things, but on Monday it was pretty much entirely based around swimming through swamps. First of all there were a few that we had to wade through, and then we got to the swimming part. The water is very cloudy, and you can't really see anything underneath it. It´s also covered in algae, so that every time you deep your chin under water you emerge with a green beard. And a word to the wise - you really don´t want to swallow swamp water. It´s not at all tasty. We didn´see anything exciting on our walk, but we did have a lot of fun.

In the evening we had a party to say goodbye to three volunteers - one of whom was here for 6 months, and 2 for three. The theme was jungle, appropriately, so we all covered ourselves in leaves from the jungle. This made for another late night... but thankfully on Tuesday we don´t have early morning obs. Still, at 8 o´ clock a number of people were still drunk as we set off for morning activities... I went to a farm over the river to dig holes for coffee plants, and one such volunteer managed to slice into his finger with a machete, which, combined with the hangover that soon developed, did not look at all fun. In the afternoons, we have obs again. We went up to canopy, but after 20 minutes it started to pour with rain in the distance, so we gave up and came back down as quickly as possible, and we just managed to miss the rain.

On Wednesday I had early morning obs at hob platform, which is in the middle of a swamp and has a reputation for being the worst of the three platforms, partly because to get there you have a choice of walking over a very slippery log or wading through the swamp, which usually just goes over your boots. The name hob actually stands for "hungover blind", because the day that they started building it everyone was hungover (which in fairness happens rather often...) We didn´t see anything terribly exciting, although we did see a group of about 80 cobalt winged parakeets flying overhead.

After breakfast I went trail clearing, which basically just involves hacking away at trees and branches with a machete to make a new path. This one is to provide an alternative root to canopy, as the current pathway now has mud up to the top of welly boots. Banana trees are the most satisfying to cut down, as they are rather large, but a machete will slice through them like butter. In the afternoon I had donkey training - you strap the donkey on to the front of the cart, and then go for a walk along a particular trail. Some steering is necessary to avoid falling into holes or tipping over branches... and if you are leading another donkey behind, you are in frequent danger of being dragged off the back of the cart if the donkey decides to stop for a little rest.

On Thursday we had to clear out the animal cages around the lodge and put sawdust down. This was particularly interesting in Rachel the baby jaguar´s cage. Rachel is at the stage where it´s still just about possible to go in the cage without being attacked, but you don´t really want to stick around... we did it as quickly as possible, all the while casting tentative looks towards the perch in the corner from which Rachel hissed at us. But thankfully we all got out whole. In the afternoon we were meant to have obs, but instead we were all roped into helping to pull down two trees that were in the way of the new bridge that we are building over the creek. This invovled a lot of heaving, and it was lucky we all stayed because with a little less pull, the tree would have gone into the lodge.

On Friday we woke up to the sound of pouring rain, which is not unusual, but it was also very cold, which is. Early morning obs were cancelled because of the rain, and at 8 o´clock everyone appeared in the kitchen looking rather wet and cold, wearing fleeces. It turns out that this is the start of a weather phenomonen that happens about 4 or 5 times every year, and lasts about 4 days, in which cold winds from Patagonia blowover the rainforest, making everything very cold and wet and windy. The temperature is about 15 degrees (usually it is 30 plus) but the wind makes it feel a lot colder. We still had to go and do morning activities unforutunately. I went to cut flowers at our farm across the river. The boat ride was choppy to say the least, and by the time we arrived we were all soaked. We then had to navigate our way over the Percy´s swamp on a small broken raft, which is interesting at the best of times. After 2 hours of flower cutting we were all freezing and no one could wait to get back to Taricaya. The staff seemed to decide that by this point it didn´t matter whether or not we waded back through the swamp since we were all so wet anyway so we gave up on the raft altogether. The water in the swamp was actually suprisingly warm. We spent the afternoon sitting round shivering and playing cards.

We are now back in Puerto for the weekend. To answer some questions, weekends mostly consist of internet, going to the market, and going out on Saturday nights. There is a nice steak restaurant where you can get a very good steak for 2 pounds 50 complete with veg or potato or chips. It´s rather posh, especially by Puerto standards. Later on we tend to go out to a nightclub called Witites, which is always very hot and crowded, and where the main excitement of the evening is if they happen to play Shakira or Madonna. This Saturday someone brought us a baby howler monkey which has lost its mother and sold it to us, so we now have another monkey to join the Taricaya troupe. It is very sweet, but will only sit with certain people.

On Monday I´m moving into a rat free bungalow with some other girls which will be such a relief. The rats eat the strangest things, e.g. underwear, mobile phones, jewellery... so it will be nice to move out. And we will have our own shower (all the showers are cold, but that´s not usually too bad in the jungle.

Hope all is well at home xxx

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