Time flies... and so do birds that aren´t supposed too.

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The next weekend started a little sadly and involved the savage murder of newborn baby rabbits. It wasn´t very pleasant clearing up but it did provide the hawk and eagle with a meal.... I now understand exactly what Elton John was singing about in the Lion King.

On to better things, we spent the weekend in Otavalo, a huge tourist market 2 hours outside of Quito selling the most typical South American gifts. Ponchos, hats, trousers, jumpers, paintings and of course, SpongeBob puppets?! We enjoyed a great meal and listened to a traditional South American band at a Peña (a kind of pub). They didn´t take too well to our "La Bamba" request though.

The following week at the sanctuary one of resident Green Macaws apparently "flew away." He continously shouted out ´corre, corre´ (run, run) after listening to too much football commentary in his last home and loved to wolf whistle so he was a little missed. We´re still not quite sure what happened to him but may he be happy!

The rest of the week was probably my favourite... nothing at all to do with the Baby Woolly monkey we received. As with all new animals, he was placed into quarantine and sat curled up at the back of his cage. That evening I got to make him up a little bowl of baby food and mashed banana and persuaded him to eat. I have the greatest film clip ever and the next day he was so full of beans we got to place him in a proper enclosure with the squirrel monkeys. He spent the next week sitting on my head whenever I went into feed or clean the monkeys and trying to get a hug. How could I resist!

I spent a lot of the week helping the resident vet too. We caught a squirrel monkey, who I held whilst he received three injections in his face. With the help of a trainee vet and another volunteer we also caught a scary capachin monkey with huge teeth. The resident vet stayed outside the enclosure shouting at the trainee vet, "David, grab him, don´t let him get the girls! Those teeth can go right through the gloves!" Delightful! But I´m proud to say that it was my net the monkey was caught by ;o) We also got to treat a Galapagos tortoise who had caught his leg on something.

The rest of the activities involved, standing in the rain holding a ladder whilst Simon fixed the roof on the aviary, trying to keep the tortoises in their enclosures (it´s surprising how fast they can move and how heavy they are), feeding the bear, feeding more big cats, cleaning poo of course, being bit by a toucan (that hurts), playing with baby rabbits and the general maintanance things. I also got to cut a chicken in half with a machete. I´m not sure I should be proud of that! (he was already dead by the way, we get a delivery of about 50 every other day for the carnivores).

The last shift at Santa Martha was on Saturday morning where I was in charge of preparing food all the up top animals... two hours isn´t a lot when you have six capachin monkeys to feed, two woolly monkeys, four squirrel monkeys, one tamarin monkey, a sloth, a baby ocelot, three Galapagos tortoises, sixteen normal tortorises, thirteen turtles, one owl, three kestrels, around fifteen parrots, one duck, two pheasants, six guinea fowl, the bear and don´t forget the mice and rabbits.

I didn´t bother saying goodbyes to all of the animals, I´d probably still be there now. So now, I´m back in Quito and waiting excitedly for Hannah´s arrival. Tomorrow we´re off to the Galapagos booked yesterday!

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Comments

[anna]

Funny blogs sis. Where are the ones from Galapagos? A