As you know I arrived back in the park in October and Matt followed on in early December after finishing a job with Raleigh International in Borneo. It quickly became apparent that the problems we had to deal with in the park last year were just a warm up to what was to happen this year. Without boring you with all of the details for quite a while now there has been a growing rift within the internal management of Inti Wara Yassi - the NGO that we work for. This came to a head this year when the president of the organisation launched an unpleasant and personal attack on both the vice-president and Matt (the administrator), and so the first few months of 2010 were taken up with endless paper work and meetings with lawyers on how best to move forward for the benefit of the community and the animals. It was decided that this would sadly involve removing the president. It was a really tough and draining time for Matt (largely due to the presence of death threats and an ensuing restraining order taken out against said president), and so it was almost a blessing that at the same time we were very short on volunteers and so Matt had to escape to the jungle most days to walk with Roy – the puma he has been working with off and on since 2006.
I continued to work with the spider monkeys until January when I left the park to start working with a group of Quest gap year students, who I have been with for the last 3 months. It was my first time doing the full three month stint and I have to say that I was more than ready to relinquish control to Matt half way through, when he joined us to become the expedition leader. The three months involved 2 and a half weeks of Spanish classes in Sucre followed by a 4 day tour of the Salt Flats in Uyuni, and a trip to the mines in Potosi. The students then did a months work of volunteering in the parks which is broken down into 2 weeks of construction work in our newest park, Jacj Cuisi, and 2 weeks of working with animals in our oldest park, Machia. The final part of the trip is the expedition which Matt was in charge of and involved trekking and activities in Bolivia and Peru, culminating with walking the Inca trail to Machu Picchu dressed as super heroes.
We finished with the group 4 days ago and were looking forward to a few day of relaxing and time to ourselves, but work seems to have taken its toll on us and we both came down with illnesses the day after all the students left! As I write this we are on our way to La Paz for a final day of relaxation (or recovery) and shopping before returning to the parks for our last stint of work. The current plan is to return to the UK around the end of June... and then who knows? It is both sad and exciting thinking about leaving Bolivia. We have made many friends here and feel that we have truly become part of the community, but at the same time we have given all we have to give, and are both more than ready for some home comforts!
Sorry that this blog entry has been so totally boring – it is difficult to know where to start when so much has happened, but hopefully who ever has taken the time to read this will appreciate it’s nutshell like character and be happy going on with your day.
Lots of love ‘The Brimbles’
