Life with the Monkeys

After a six hour bus ride our driver dropped us off on the side of the road, right across from our destination: Inti Wara Yassi´s Parque Machia. The animal refuge is located just on the outskirts of the sleepy town of Villa Tunari, which once overtly prospered from the numerous cocaine production facilities in the nearby jungle...and was also the site of a CIA-backed massacre of 28 coca growers from the area in 1988. But, we had sought the village for different reasons altogether: two weeks of volunteering with some rescued animals.

We arrived early in the afternoon and were informed that a tour would take place around 5pm, so we crossed the rather dangerous Rio Espiritu Santo Bridge in order to get some grub and work clothes in the village. We had a nice meal and spent nearly an hour rummaging through second-hand clothes which we´d use for our daily chores at the park. I ended up with some women´s elastic-band linen pants and a blue dress shirt, while Heidi got some pants which still had the tags from Marshall´s and a pretty pink Liz Claiborne shirt.

The tour took us through monkey quarantine, the bird area, the kitchen, clinic, cafe and other essential places. We did not get to see any of the large cats or Balu, the giant bear. (The cats are stictly off-limits to anyone not assigned to their care. I did end up seeing Balu later on in my time there, but never had my camera in-hand at the time.) After the tour we were assigned our jobs and asked to pay up. I was assigned to Monkey Park, Heidi got the clinic and Emily (a French woman who arrived the same day) got monkey quarantine. We were all pleased with our new duties and made our way to our hostel: Copa.

The hostel was a dump, to say the least. Ants were crawling around in our shower, the door to our room was "secured" with a janky little loop for a padlock, our pillows were soiled and stinky and the screens on the windows were full of giant holes, big enough for entire mosquito colonies. The crazy thing is we were told, by other volunteers, that we had the NICE room, complete with an ensuite shower...that didn´t catch on fire occasionally like the other one.

We had dinner with about 10 other volunteers at Jazmin´s, one of the more popular eateries for the volunteers in town. Heidi and I had a Hawaiian Pizza, which was complete with ham, canned fruit cocktail (minus the juice) and LOTS of cheese. We had a nice conversation with a couple of the volunteers, including a lovely British couple that had arrived only four days earlier. Stan had been jumped by Roy, his puma, earlier in the day and was still visibly shaken.

The next morning our jobs as endentured slaves began. We got to the Inti Wara Yassi (IWY) cafe just before 7am and ordered some scrambled eggs. After about 20 minutes I was off to work with Renaldo, a Bolivian in his mid-twenties who has been at the park for about two years. We carried two large plastic barrels of food up to Monkey Park and so the day began.

Monkey Park is really just a park for capuchin monkeys. The refuge also houses Spider Monkeys, but they stay in Spider Park, so as to keep confrontations at a minimum. Capuchins are rather small monkeys, although the larger males (especially Solin, the alpha) are incredibly strong and have some teeth which can inflict lots of pain. Speedy, one of the larger males, was lacking a tail: a battle scar from another large male who wanted to ensure that Speedy would never become the big boss. All in all, the park consisted of about 40 capuchins, the majority of which were all free to come and go as they pleased. Three newbies were kept on cords, and in cages overnight, to give them time to be accepted by the group. Since the park is in the lower Amazon basin, it was rife with other wildlife too. In my two weeks I saw numerous species of birds, tejones, yellow squirrel monkeys, capybara, a giant armadillo, turtles, an anaconda, various butterflies, and spider monkeys.

The first couple of days were absolutely grueling and it took some time before I got into a groove. Even so, fourteen srtaight days of work is no fun. (If you work a month you get one day off!) Almost every volunteer wore Wellie boots, which are basically just rubbers for you feet and ankles. While they kept us dry, and our hiking boots intact, they were incredibly uncomfortable, especially walking up and down hilly and uneven terrain.

A typical day for me went something like this:

6:20am- Time to wake up. Since we´re going to get dirty anyways, there is no point in showering. We brush our teeth, get dressed and head down to the cafe for breakfast.

7am- Breakfast. Wolf down some scrambled eggs and a banana.

7:15am- Prepare monkey breakfast. Break bananas in two and toss them into one of two large plastic barrels.

7:30am- Up the hill. A ten or fifteen minute walk up numerous steps gets us to the entrance to Monkey Park, which is off-limits to tourists. We then have to negotiate tricky, and often slippery, slopes to actually get down into the park. Along the way we almost certainly encounter Solin, who is challenging us for our food. On two occasions he jumps on my back, but I remain calm and he doesn´t sink his teeth into me.

7:45am- Feed the monkeys. We walk through the Amazon to a series of 8 feeding bowls, which are hoisted high into the trees on a pulley system. We place bananas in 5 of the bowls and api in three. (Api is a special porridge for the animals, injected with vitamins by the vets in the clinic.)

8:00am- Chill and observe the monkeys. Renaldo and I just hang out with the monkeys, interacting with them and making sure that the big bad boys don´t attack any of the new guys in the group.

9:00am- Clean. Scrub pooh out of the three small monkey cages, used to house the little guys at night. I also clean the larger cage, where the little guys feed without the hassle of the big boys. Other tasks include raking and shoveling dirt.

10:50am- Back down the hill for monkey lunch. I would bring the two buckets down, as well as blankets for the three little monkeys. Clean the blankets and start soaking lunch in disinfectant, which consisted of papaya, bananas and, on rare occasions, oranges or pineapples. After 15 minutes of soaking I would start cutting them into manageable pieces for my capuchins.

11:50am- Back up the hill to feed the animals. For the first few days I went up by myself, but Solin, Speedy and a couple of other thuggish monkeys were waiting for me and would jump me for lunch. After getting wise I started seeking out and escort; often a vet who had gained the respect of the monkeys. After that I only had one incident. Solin jumped me and Luis, the vet, and took BOTH barrels of food! While I was amused at Luis´lack of control over the animals, I had to run and get help from another vet.

12:00pm- Monkey lunch time. While walking through the jungle I would constantly hear the trees rustling overhead. Most of the time it was a small capuchin, or just a bunch of pesky yellow squirrel monkeys, but I was always looking over my shoulder to see if it was Solin waiting to get me alone and chew on my face.

12:30pm- My lunch. For a little more than $1 we could buy a great vegetarian lunch at the IWY cafe below. Some folks would go across the bridge to run errands, but one hour isn´t much time, after taking the time to cross the bridge and return.

1:30pm- Back up to the park. Upon my return Renaldo would head down for lunch, leaving me alone with the monkeys. I´d put water in some of the bowls and just keep an eye on the monkeys.

2:30pm- Renaldo would return and I would head into the jungle to clean out the bowls, where the sun had begun baking the papaya.

3:50pm- Back down the hill AGAIN. Tim to start preparing monkey dinner, which consisted of the veggies in the pantry. Those included beans, lettuce, beets, carrots and cucumbers. Before cutting them, I would have to soak them for 15 minutes.

4:50pm- Last time up the hill for the day...with another escort.

5:00pm- Monkey dinner. Veggies in five bowls and api in three more.

5:40pm- Time to tuck the monkeys in. The three babies have to be rounded up and placed in their cages for the night. Afterwards, we place a tarp over the cage and head back down the hill for the last time.

6:00pm- Usually the work day is over and I chill at the cafe for a short time. Every third day, however, I was responsible for cleaning the kitchen. Typically, I was assigned to work in tandem with some cat people, but they usually didn´t show up, leaving the work to me alone.

6:30pm- Back to the hostel for a shower. Heidi and I also would wash our undergarments before putting on clean clothes and heading into town for dinner.

7:30pm- Hike across the dangerous bridge and find some food.

9-10pm- Get back to the hostel and get some sleep...so we can do it all over again the next day.

In the two weeks we were at the park somewhere near a dozen volunteers left early, for various reasons. Most of the people felt it just wasn´t for them. A number of the jobs are no more than cleaning pooh, washing blankets and sweeping ALL DAY long. Moreover, the people in charge didn´t do much to make volunteers feel appreciated or tend to their needs. I would be pretty disappointed about that too. Although days were long, I was fortunate enough to work directly with animals, as well as see a number of other species in the wild.

Although the experience was difficult, to say the least, I have sympathy for those running the park. They have an extremely tough job on their hands. The park land is owned by the government of Villa Tunari, so the mayor tells the park whether or not they are open to tourists...and all of the proceeds from ticket sales go to the municipal government. Beyond that, a road was just built right through the park, displacing the majority of the animals. The campesinos, or local peasant farmers, threatened to take the park by force if they weren´t allowed to build the road, so permission was granted. Now the capuchins are often spotted down on the road, where they used to kick it in the trees that were previously there. The capuchins are curious and thieving little bastards too, so they are often stealing stuff from people below and I predict someone will kill a monkey when it bites them.

The park wants to move some of the animals to its other locations, as a result of the new road, but the mayor is insistent that the animals are also property of the village, as the critters live on public land! That all being said, the government, municipal and federal, doesn´t give any financial support to the park...despite constantly bringing more animals by. While we were there an oscelot seized at a cocaine factory and 200 birds from an illegal breeding operation were dumped off at the park.

Needless to say, we were both ready to go. This was certainly an unforgettable experience. Although I miss my monkeys I am glad we are gone and wouldn´t really recommend the ecperience to anyone...although you could never get the kind of animal interaction I had anywhere in the United States.