Broken Bones, Crashing Cars and Bye Bye Bolivia

After 20 months away in Bolivia we have safely returned home and are enjoying the comforts of hot showers, supermarkets and sensible drivers.

We returned to the park at the end of April for a somewhat eventful last couple of months. Matt returned to work in the office and I returned to working with the spider monkeys, however Matt, keen to have a final stint of working with Roy, filled in for a day. Whilst training other volunteers how to safely work with a large, wild feline, managed to get the rope caught around his hand and quite spectacularly fractured his second metacarpal (hand bone between index finger and wrist). After being patched up at the local hospital, one of the doctors (qualifications questionable) did suggest that he may want to be seen by a surgeon in Cochabamba. So off we went to go and see Cochabamba's finest surgeon (who has treated many a wounded volunteer) to go and have half a dozen screws and a plate inserted into his, now bionic, hand. After a couple of days in hospital Matt was allowed out but instructed to stay in the city and not to return to the park for 10 days to avoid any swelling, and so we went and stayed with some good friends of the park. Me being a somewhat unsympathetic wife (physios are known as 'trained bullys' with good reason!) decided that instead of helping to nurse Matt back to good health, I would head back to the park without him.

I got a private car from Cochabamba to Villa Tunari on May 28th as I was transporting a rescued sloth to the park. I thought the driver was driving pretty fast, but then they always do and so I decided not to say anything, when we swerved to one side of the road, and then the other, and then everything went black. I woke up in the car with the sloth on my lap, with no memory of where I was or why I was there or anything that happened over the last few days, especially not why I was holding a sloth!

To cut a long story short, we had a head on collision with a truck. My driver was killed instantly and I know that the truck driver was taken to hospital but am unaware of how he is. I tell this story not to be dramatic but to share that when people say 'wow you were very lucky' I have to reply that it really was not luck but a series of miracles that saved both me and prevented not more people from being hurt in the accident. Firstly the driver wanted to pick up another passenger in the front seat which is a common line that drivers use to make more money on a private contract. I said that that was fine but that I would not pay the full amount, so he decided not to bother. If he had, they most certainly would have died as well. Secondly, we stopped one metre infront of a 100m cliff drop, after having slid at least 15m to the other side of the road. Thirdly I only had enough battery and credit to call one person before my phone died, and the only person who I could remember at the time was our friend in Cochabamba who was looking after Matt and able to come straight to the hospital where I was treated. And finally and maybe most dramatically I was sitting less than a metre from the driver who was killed, and yet I was let away with minor concussion, whiplash and a few scratches.

I know that people may think there is a technical explanation for this, but I know that I was saved by a miracle, and that God is giving me a second chance. So thankyou so much for all of your concern, but please be reassured that we are both fine, and if anything this has brought Matt and I closer together and more determined to make the very most of our very fragile lives.

So after returning to Cochambamaba and staying in the same hospital that Matt had been discharged from a few days earlier, we eventually made it back to the park for the last couple of weeks of work before many tearful goodbyes. Living and working in Bolivia has been an eye opening and humbling experience and we have been lucky enough to meet some incredible people and make some wonderful friends, most notably Nena, the park director and now President of Inti Wara Yassi, who is without doubt the most inspiring woman I have ever met. We will look back on the time we spent in South America with many happy memories, but it will also be a time that has taught us to really appreciate what we have here. And so it is that the Brimbles Bolivian Blog ends and we enter a new chapter in our lives invol

ving 9-5 jobs, council tax and cooking at home which is still about 8 times more expensive than eating out in the nicest restaurant in Villa Tunari! But it also involves spending quality time with friends and family and each other.

With all our love to everyone still reading and apologies if we haven't been in touch yet but we will do our best,

Matt & Sarah x

Long Overdue

Despite promising to do a better job of updating the blog more regularly in 2009/2010 I am fully aware that there has only been oneblogentry in 2010, due to the usual excuses of rubbish internet connection and being ridiculously busy. I think after last year in Bolivia we were under the impression that because we knew what we were going back to, it would be much easier to cope with, and therefore I would make more time to keep in touch with people and do the blog etc, but sadly that has definitely (evidently) not been the case!

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’

Matt and Sarah go there separate ways

So when we left you last time Matt was working in Borneo with Raleigh International and I was in the UK about to return to Bolivia. Matt´s group went well, no lawyer-murder and one fully functioning gravity water-feed system in place. The trip finished with the lawyers taking Matt and one of his best mates Jim (technically his boss at that time) to a five star resort for two days. They fully made the most of the happy hours! Once finishing with Raleigh Jim and Matt went to the Philippines for a spot of diving, biking and kayaking before returning back to the UK for some Bolivian visa fun (straight off the plane), quick family visits and Quest training weekend.

During this time I was sweating in the jungle in Bolivia, where I was back into the role of coordinator and in charge of the spider monkey park within 2 hours of arriving. It was a tough time as the park director was away for a lot of it and matt wasn´t there so I was stuck with all the income and expenditure, idiot volunteers to deal with and 30+ monkeys to look after. In addition to all that fun I was elected as Guinea pig of how to get a 12 month temporary residence visa in Bolivia, involving 5 24 hour return journeys to La Paz, only to find that all the documents I had got in La Paz were invalid and I had to go through it all over again in Cochabamba. A chance to see Bolivian Bureaucracy atits finest!

Fortunately 5 weeks passed relatively quickly and Matt and I were reunited at Santa Cruz airport (deja vu as that is where we first met 4 and half years ago... ahhhh). Throughout December our feet barely touched the ground as we worked all the hours that God sent, regardless of chrsitmas or new year, wknds, evenings etc sob sob violin music. On a more serious note though it has been a tough few months as there have been very low volunteer numbers (we have hit the lowest ever recorded number of volunteers - 16) which has met that matt has been working with two cats, as well as being volunteer coordinator, cat coordinator, accomodation coordinator, administrator etc etc (basically he is just trying to get the largest number of titles he can - and according to him, holds the current record).

So we find ourselves standing on the edge of another separation. Gazing into the gorge of loneliness but happy in the thought that we will still bask under the same sky of love that will keep us together and unite us despite the distance between us(yes - matts words not mine) . Matt and I have left the park and we arrived in Sucre on Thursday for a mad couple of days of getting things organised for the first Quest groups arrival on Monday. Our hard work has paid off though and so Matt and I are enjoying a whole day of relaxing together today - the first we have had in many many months! Sucre is a beautiful city and quite compact so you can walk everywhere. The main square is lovely and there´s always lots going on. There´s lots of good food and the climate is mild, so it is a welcome change from the steamy heat and torrid rain storms of the jungle. I will be in charge of the group this year, so we will go our separate ways for the next three weeks whilst I stay with the group during their language classes in Sucre, and Matt returns to the park. We will briefly reunite in La Paz before another 4 week stint apart: 10 days of construction work in the new park followed by 2 weeks working with animals in the old park, whilst Matt is off doing a wrecky for the new expedition route. Finally on March 8th we will be reunited with the group to run the expedition together. Hopefully we will fill you in around then!

Sorry for the lack of updates... we don´t expect to improve in 2010.

All our love,

Matt & Sarah x

Brimbles Bavarian and Bornean Blog

So its official - after a mere 6 trips to the Bolivian Immigration office in London I have finally obtained a visa to return to Bolivia and so the Bolivian Blog will restart in a few short days. But I know it has been a long time since we have written anything, so before part 2 continues, let me get you upto date with what we has happened since leaving Bolivia:

Not ones to enjoy a slow paced life, we got off the plane at Heathrow after our flight from Lima with enough time to stop off for a bacon and egg fry up with grandma and grandpa before heading down to Brighton for the Quest reunion. Despite us flying around the world for it, sadly only 5 of our students made the effort to come (ungrateful *&$%%££$s!) but at least we got to play on the bouncy castle so it was all worth it in the end.

After enjoying a rare few days together, Matt headed down to Somerset to catch up with his family and then off to Brighton for a very successful Quest meeting with the British Standards people. I joined him briefly with a pretend fractured sesamoid which managed to get me out the karaoke evening but didn't see us getting out of signing up for another year with Quest. We're still not really sure how that happened!

Off we went for an extremely civilised Brimbles-Richards trip to Cat and Tobi's wedding in Switzerland. Beautiful views, sunshine, cow bells and excellent company provided a wonderful weekend and a relaxing start to our time in Germany... which wasn't quite as relaxing. After Matt finding out that he had been offered a short term job working for Raleigh in Borneo (which took place during our holiday in Borneo), we also found out that the situation in the park in Bolivia and the road being built through it was a lot more serious than orginally thought and so a large part of our time was taken up reorganising our future, which now involves me flying back to Bolivia slightly earlier than expected (next week) and Matt staying in Borneo for over a month and joining me in Bolivia on Dec 1st. Matt’s time with his mates who came to visit provided a good distraction from all the stress and they filled four days with beer and sausages at the oktoberfest, whilst I enjoyed four days all to myself (heaven!), before hanging out with the Clelland seniors for a few days.

After another manic week in England of organising and sorting it was finally holiday time! Although being in the UK and Germany was great, it didn’t really feel like a ‘holiday’ and so we headed off to Malaysian Borneo to visit Jim and enjoy a somewhat shorter version of the originally intended 3 week holiday (now only 9 days) The first couple of days we hung out with Jim in his beautiful 10th floor apartment with sea view (beats Valle Grande!!) and we both quickly fell in love with the area of Sabah – the food, the people, the beaches… and so we found ourselves regularly asking why are we going back to Bolivia and not Borneo??!!



After hanging out with Jim, we transferred to the island of Mabul where we stayed for 4 days diving. The diving was INCREDIBLE. It’s difficult to say what the highlight was as there really were SO many: a school of over 20 reef shark, holding onto a rock for dear life during a really strong current whilst 100s of barracuda were swirling around 2m above with shark on the edge and garden eels everywhere poking there heads up, or the huge number of giant green sea turtles gliding silently through the water, or dozens of brightly coloured nudibranch and flat worms, or a rare blue ribbon eel, or flamboyant free swimming cuttlefish, or the gorgeous coral gardens, or a school of giant bumphead parrot fish… the list goes on. Our last dive how ever was perhaps the most special – my first night dive and Matt’s 200th dive, we saw the mandarin fish’s nesting spot, octopus, cuttlefish and so many weird and wonderful things, in addition to me experiencing my first ‘phosphorescence dancing’ session with Matt. It was a magical four days where we clocked up 14 dives!!

The next day we headed north to the village of Sukau, situated on the lower Kinabatangan river. We stayed in a beautiful lodge backing onto the river and went on a tranquil river cruise where we spotted numerous groups of long tailed macaques, two wild Orangutans (very cool) and group of Proboscis monkeys, including a mail giving one of his harem a bit of a ‘seeing to’! We also saw two of the highly acclaimed Hornbills (Rhinoceros and Asian pied) and a few Kingfisher birds. It was a wonderfully relaxed afternoon and it was incredible to see such pristine and untouched rainforest.

Before returning to Kota Kinabalu we visited the Sepilok Orangutan rehabilitation centre where we saw one of their feedings and took lots of rubbish photos. It was very interesting seeing a project similar to ours in someways (they rescue orphaned orangutans as a lot of the rainforest and the Orangutans natural habitat is being destroyed by the palm oil industry, and rehabilitate them and release them back into the wild). However, at the same time the project is so different as they have government backing and heaps of funding and support... two things we have in very short supply in Bolivia.

Now I'm back in the UK with my sis for a few days before heading back to the park for another year, and Matt's group of Junior Lawyers have just arrived for three weeks of installing a gravity water feed system in the northern Pitas district of Borneo. Huge apologies to those who I meant to catch up with whilst being back but have not managed to. It has been such a whirlwind stay and I can't quite believe we are already heading back.

Lots and lots of love to all and I will check back in from the deep Bolivian jungle asap,

sxx

WHERE HAVE THE BRIMBLES BEEN???

I know – WHERE HAVE THE BRIMBLES BEEN? Are they OK? Was Matt finally beaten by Roy the puma? Did Sarah get so bored of looking after sick students that she moved even deeper into the jungle to join a wild spider monkey colony? Sadly nothing quite so exotic has befallen the Brimbles and the boring truth is that the Brimbles have been busy. Plane, boring old western style ‘too busy to keep in touch’ kind of busy. Sorry. So, before we get to bore you all in person when we get back (less than 3 weeks!) with the details of what we have been up to since May (even more boring for us than for you), we will write it all here, so please don’t be offended if when you ask us we refer you back to the blog, entry of August 20^th, ‘Where have the Brimbles been?’.

We managed to get rid of most of the Quest students at the end of May, when I immediately sped the 36 hour bus journey from Cusco back to the park. Matt followed en suite, having still not quite managed to shrug off one of the students who followed him back. After 7 short days working and being in the park together, I returned to Cusco to meet up with Mr & Mrs C for the looooong planned Peru/Bolivia adventure , leaving Matt in the park. Mum and Dad’s ‘concerns’ about travelling in a 3^rd world country worked to my advantage as I swapped 2* ‘modest’ hostels for 4 & 5* luxury hotels, and travelling ‘local’ style (aka in a sardine can) for private cars and aeroplanes (not private ones, sadly). After a wonderful ten day tour of Peru (Sacred Valley, Machu Picchu, Cusco & Lake Titikaka) and Bolivia (island of the sun and La Paz). We finished off in the park where we met Matt and his dad, Mike, who came out to volunteer for two weeks before a spot of travel with Matt. Despite having three parents around at the same time, which was about three too many (just joking oldies), it was very special to share our home and our lives with them and we really enjoyed having them here (yes, they are reading this). After a couple of days in the park Mum and Dad departed and Matt and his Dad set off to travel Sucre, Potosi, the salt flats and Santa Cruz, which I am lead to believe went very well (yes, I believe Mike is also reading this if he can figure out how to turn a computer on). This time it was my turn to be left in the park , not only managing 30 monkeys but also coordinating 50 + volunteers, managing accommodation and at times also in charge of all park income and expenditure.

Still not time for us to be in one place at one time together, Matt kindly stopped off to surprise me for 10 hours in the park after Mike left, before speeding on to La Paz to meet his next group. The four weeks after the ten hour reunion were pretty tough for both of us. I managed to get one day off from the 7 days a week 14 hours a day work, and Matt didn’t get a single day off as he was with his ‘group’ of two girls working in three different parks. One more tag team was played as Matt arrived with his group the day before his birthday, so fortunately we did get to spend his birthday together... until midnight when I got a bus to Santa Cruz to meet my friends Emma, Lucy and Caroline. Apart from Caroline’s bags being lost twice before she even got to the park, we had a great trip – a couple of days in the park followed by Sucre, Potosi, the salt flats and La Paz (original!) before Caroline left. After that the three of us trekked the three day Choro trail and then spent a couple of days on the island of the sun before finishing the trip with a couple more days in the park. Again, it really was very special having them come and visit and I really appreciated them giving up their summer holidays to come to Bolivia – not the most exotic of places (they’re reading this too :o)!

So, the Brimbles are finally back in the park together for two weeks until making our way up to Lima for our flight home. This is the part where we are probably supposed to write some deep thoughts and reflections on this year, but that all seems a bit final and I am tired just thinking about the last few months so we will leave it for now.

Big love to all, Matt & Sarah x

Quest Expedition

As I write this I have five long, empty days stretching out ahead of me as Matt has gone with the group to treck in the Huayhuash mountain range, south of Huaraz. Unfortunately one of the students has come down with some Peruvian lurgy and so it is that I finally have time to catch up with the blog.

Where were we? Just finishing off four weeks of tough, dirty, sweaty volunteer work in the Bolivian jungle I believe? So, the first stop after the park was in La Paz, the third largest city in Bolivia (after El Alto, which lies above it and Santa Cruz), lying at some 3500m above sea level. Needless to say, the change in altitude and climate was enough for the first students to drop like flies and so it was that yours truly started the fun 'hanging-around-while-Matt-and-students-go-off-and-do-fun-things' game, as they went iceclimbing. PHOTO: Looks too cold. wouldn't have wanted to go anyway.

As if La Paz weren't cold enough, we headed over towards Lake Titicaca (3812m altitude). As I am not sure my own words can do it enough justice, I thought I would treat you to an extract from the student's group update:

'the following day we went to copacabana in a bus. then we went to isla del sol in a boat, then we went to bed in a bed. sunsets are awesome, so are sunrises. lake titicaca is big, swimming in it is cold. sally looked awful on the boat ride back. i think she felt sick. but you can never tell with that one. when we got back to copacabana we snacked and then bussed it to Puno, via a sweet border crossing. got to Puno and had supper in an italian restaurant. post supper a few sprightly characters headed to the cake shop and unfortunately paid the price the following day, vomit-wise, making the reed islands less than jokes'

This demonstrates two things: 18 year olds can no longer write English (where are the capital letters at the beginning of sentences? Since when are full stops and commas interchangeable? And Mr Sealey definitely told me there has to be a verb in every sentence...). I have just realised how much that makes me sound like my mother... moving on: Secondly, this signals another sitting around in a slightly odd smelling hotel room for me - waiting for students to stop chucking. I have to admitt it is a strange job, this being an assistant leader thingy. Basically it consists in both waiting around while other people do fun things, and then hearing all about the really fun things that people have been doing. It seems like an odd way to make money, but I have to admitt that there are definitely worse ways of making money. PHOTO: Uros Islands - looks too silly. Wouldn't have wanted to go anyway.

From Puno we headed over to Arequipa to prepare for our first treck, which, would you believe it? EVERBODY managed to go on - even me!!!! We spent three days descending, traversing and climbing out of the Colca Canyon, which is twice as deep as the Grand Canyon. Due to the demands of the 1100m climb out of the canyon, we got up at 3:00am on the last day to get out in time for banana pancakes in the nearby village (and to avoid the sun). We managed the climb in less than three and a half hours with only one girl passing out, which we though was a pretty decent result.

After a couple of days in chilling in Arequipa and some good nights out, we headed down to the pacific coast. Our first stop was a small, isolated beach called 'Puerto Ica', where we camped on the sand and grilled fresh fish on a barbecue. Idyllic. Unfortunately this somewhat tranquil scene was interrupted by having to sleep an entire night with an Epi pen in my hand as Matt's airways nearly closed up after his second allergic attack to seafood (the first being after eating exactly the same dish at exactly the same restaurant 3 years previously - you'd think he may have learned his lesson the first time...). Anyway, apart from Matt everyone enjoyed the ability to run around without a headache, nausea or shortness of breath after spending so much time at altitude, and so the students decided to punish their bodies instead with sunburn and sunstroke.

Despite some students being unable to don their shoes or bras as their sunburn was so severe, we continued up the coast to Nazca where the students flew in five-seater planes over the famous Nazca Lines. Vast quantities of overpriced tourist tack later, we headed upto Huacachina, a small Oasis town near Ica for an afternoon of spinning around the sand dunes in sandbuggys, and racing down the slopes on sandboards. Having scared the daylights out of all the students prior to this somewhat dangerous activity, the students all behaved themselves and it was a great afternoon.

The following day we wizzed up past Lima, leaving just enough time for Matt to nearly get the entire Quest budget mugged from him, and get in a heated argument with a waiter over a jug of beer which cost 60 pence more than Matt thought it was worth (!). We have now arrived in sunny Huaraz, which is where the very first Brimbles Bolivian Blog update was written, nearly six months ago. Can you believe it? The trek that the group is are now undertaking is the same one that we did when we came in November, so its nice to be able to imagine JUST how beautiful it is and JUST what an amazing time they will be having without me. Sob. ;o)

Less than 3 weeks to go of Quest Exped and then... mum and dad Clelland and papa Brimble will be out here. Should be some entertaining blog entries to come then! Lots and lots and lots of love to all. Hope all are well. PLEASE keep in touch. Even if we don't reply we hugely appreciate every mail you send, sxx

Quest Project

Sorry for the lengthy delay in blogging - since the last entry the Quest group have completed their project work and we are now over half way through the expedition, so lets start with the project phase:

The team of 13 students plus Matt and a handful of both local and international volunteers worked extremely hard for their 10 days in Jacq Cuisi and after blood, sweat and tears managed to complete two puma enclosures, with only minor incidences (the wrong cage diametres being given so 60cm deep trenches had to be redug and softy students passing out on various occasions due to the humidity.)

After the hard toil of Jacq Cuisi the team headed over to Park Machia to spend two rewarding weeks working with animals. Although usually animals such as pumas require volunteers to commit to a minimum of one month of work (due to the lengthy procedure of building up trust with such animals), the park makes an exception for Quest students, and so Matt was held responsible for 13 hyperactive 18 year olds running around the jungle with pumas, ocelots, a variety of monkeys and even a speckled mountain bear.

The students worked well and appeared to have a great time, despite various monkey bites, twisted ankles and even the odd case of trench foot. Although Matt was apprehensive at first about what he would be doing in the park having been away for while and officially not being involved with the accounts, he was quickly sucked straight back infront of the computer, but also managed to fit in a few days of treking through the jungle with his boy, Roy. As for me, I continued cleaning up shit, getting weed on and being bitten by my babies in the Spider Monkey park. Sadly Cussi, Quillas baby who I previously wrote about, went missing on our last day of work. At only 5 weeks there was litle hope of finding her alive and she is now officially presumed dead . However, for every sad event that occurs in the park there generally appears to also be a positive, and so it was that we found out that one of my girls, Negra, is pregnant!

Hanging out with Negra

The Promised Land

Surprising Matt went off succesfully at the airport in Santa Cruz, and I joined the group on their travels down to the new park Jac Cuisi (´The Promised Land´) to start the project phase of their trip. Its a tough life, but this also involved cycling down death road and a night in a hotel in the cloud forest enduring these views.

After a further 15 hours on a bus to Rurrenabaque, and then a day stuck there due to rain which made the river impassable, we arrived in the new land. The group have done really well getting stuck into work building 2 puma enclosures, and I managed to get away with helping for only a day before heading off on my own project to find a location for the spider monkeys, once they eventually move fom Machía. The new land turned out to be even more stunning than I expected and we spent 6 hours walking through this terrain, in search of the perfect place. As you can imagine from the photo, we were not stuck for choice as all of it was as bautiful as this picture portrays.

Back in La Paz now and off to park Machía tonight so apologies fo lack of contact.

Lots of love to all, sxx

Ups and Downs

The last week has been a bit of a crazy week. After only 13 days of life on this planet, my god daughter Sarita was attacked by a wild male spider monkey and had horrific injuries. The vets tried to save her life but she had lost most of her intestines and her liver, and all of her ribs on one side were crushed. The poor little thing was put to sleep after fighting bravely for her life for well over an hour. The next day another one of our monkeys, Tomasita, gave birth prematurely, possibly brought on due to the stress of the events from the day before. The baby was still alive when we went to open the cage in the morning but the mother had abandoned it. The vets gave it mouth to mouth but it died soon after of hypothermia. It was an overwhelmingly sad 24 hours and really hit home the harsh reality of nature. I always knew I would become attched to the animals here, but the sadness I felt for these two mothers and their innocent and so very fragile offspring made me realise that leaving this place will be a lot harder than I originally thought.

The very same day that Tomasita lost her baby boy, another one of our monkeys, Quilla, went into labour. She had had problems giving birth to her first daughter Pancarita and so the vets were somewhat concerned about the birth and so she was brought down to the vets bedroom to relax and be monitered. After 2 lots of hormones to induce birth and 26 hours of labour she gave birth on the bed between Nena (the park director) and myself to a beautiful baby girl, Cusisiña (happiness in Aymara). Mother is very tired but both seem to be doing well. Some doors close and others open... this reminded me of the beauty of nature.

Baby Cusisiña, 1 day old

Nena and I have shared many many tears over the last week, and already now I am understanding the good that come out of terrible situations. The friendship between nena and myself has deepened, and being a strong Christian, she has continuosly reminded me that God has a plan for us and the park, and how the bad things that happen here are helping us to speed up our work to transport the spider monkeys to the new park, where they will be able to live a safer and happ¡pier life.

To that end I am now in La Paz, waiting to meet Matt and the group (he doesn´t know I´m here so hope he doesn´t read this in the next 3 hours) in order to travel down to the new land to find a location that is perfect for the first group release of spider monkeys. Very exciting.

All my love to everyone, sxx

I´m a god mother!

Baby Sarita, born Feb 16th & named after her godmother - yours truly :o)

Matt´s in Sucre now with the group, and I am still in the jungle. All going fine in the park, apart from the fact that we´re in the middle of a Dengey epidemic and have got a d&v virus circulating too which I have been fortunate enough to partake in (just the d&v - not the dengey as far as I know!). Lovely.

Hope all are well at home.

Lots of love,

sxx

Spider Monkey & Puma Profiles

Octavio. Male Teenager who is constantly chasing the ladies. Clearly not very photogenic though.

Valentina. A true heart throb. Is already running after men twice her age and generally acting as any other teenage girl would. A proper cutypie.

Sebastian was a lot more intent on eating the camera than starring in one of my pics, but I got him eventually. Once he is old enough to stop playing and eating the entire day he will make a perfect boyf for Valentina. Although she will probably still be running after older men.

Little Vladicíto. At 6 months old he is the newest addition to the park, and had captured the affections of every monkey and volunteer in the park. Him and his mum have a constant entourage following them and wanting to play or chat with the baby. Cute now, but will be a spoilt brat when he is older.

Gorgeous Alfito. Had half his tail and a finger bitten off by an older male last year, but is still a heart throb.

The future January 2009 Travelbeard photo of the month pic... Anyone else getting a bit bored of travel beard yet???

Sonko, gorgeous head jumping puma. I worked with him for 7 days and was jumped a total of 6 times on my head. Was pleased to return to the spider monkeys :o)

Accounts, bitten noses and bribing officials

So after 8 weeks of hard work in the park, Matt and I have managed to escape for a couple of days of well earned rest in La Paz, with very little to do except have lie ins on our non-straw mattress, in our non-smelly, non-mouldy room, showering in our non-cold shower (that actually has water in it) in our non-cockroach and non-frog infested bathroom. All that, WITH electricity and a television. Oh the joys of modern comforts!

We left the park on friday night to catch a 10 hour night bus to La Paz (only one seat left on the bus so bless him, Matt attempted to sleep in the 10cm wide isle which appeared to have somewhat over zealous floor heating), followed by a 4 hour bus to Copacabana, then a taxi to the Peruvian border to renew our rapidly expiring visa. After bribing various officials to let us straight back into Bolivia (sometimes you really can´t complain about corruption), we returned on a mini-bus - which not only referrs to the size of the bus but more to the size of the people it is designed for - back to La Paz. We will stay here for a few days until the park truck is ready to drive down to the new land - more of that in a bit.

I have continued to work with the spider monkeys, interjected with a few days here and there of working with a beautiful puma called Sonko. Work with the spider monkeys is both demanding and rewarding and as the ´oldest´volunteer in the spider park, I have been able to build up a wonderful raport with some of the more difficult monkeys who now greet me with a huge cuddle in the morning and usually get themselves so excited that they wee all down me. Now that´s affection! Some days are hard at the moment though as it is rainy season and the male monkeys are very sensitive to climate change and sense the onset of rain and often go quite loopy, attacking other monkeys and volunteers. Up until last week I have had to act as alpha in the spider park which means I have had to protect some of the weaker monkeys during confrontations and discipline the difficult monkeys. This has led to some interesting situations like having a monkey jump on my face and bite my nose! Fortunately a returning volunteer arrived last week who worked with the spider monkeys for a period last year and knows them well, so he has the lucky position of alpha now. A welcome break for me!

Matt has continued to battle through Bolivian inefficiency and over-complication of paper work in his quest to help the park install an effective accounting system. Just to avoid him becoming lonely infront of the computer, he has continued his work as volunteer coordinator, and also took on the role of accomodation coordinator after I threw a strop and told him I was giving up. I think he was actually quite pleased as he can now do it ´properly´:o)

The park is going through interesting times at the moment as it has recently acquired 360 hectares of land near Rurrenabaque and the Madidi national park, a huge tourist hit for people who want to do jungle and Pampas tours. As of yet there is little infrastructure in the new park and there are huge amounts of work to be done to construct areas for volunteers to reside in, in addition to building dozens of animal enclosures and cutting trils for the cats. Currently there are just 2 volunteers who have mapped the whole area with GPS, and Matt and I will visit them later this week, as we intend to bring the group of Quest students down there to do construction work in mid-March. The aquisition of this land is of monumental importance for the park as it is going through difficult times. There is a looming threat of the government building a road straight through the old park - Machía - in the near (in bolivian terms) future, which would obviously signal the end of park Machía where it is. In addition to this park Machía, with only 38 hectares, is already over-populated and realistically can no longer accept new animals. Furthermore park Machía is situated next to the main through road from Cochabamba to Santa Cruz and next to a truck-stop town which also causes problems as any animals that go for a wonder may well end up being road kill, or being stolen by locals and re-sold into captivity. Relations with the neighbouring town, Villa Tunari, have never been great and support for the park is minimal and so all arows are pointing towards a brighter future in the newly named park - Jacj Quisi. If any of you are interested in the new park or helping out in any way - man power, materials or donations then please do drop us a line. Any help would be hugely appreciated, as this is the largest undertaking the park has ever attempted since it started in 1996!

After we return back to the park at the end of this week, Matt will only have 2 more weeks until his Quest Group come out and he heads to Sucre to meet them for their first month of languge classes. I will stay working in Park Machía, and so we will be going our ways for a little while :o(. Scary to think how quickly time is going! So that is about it from us. Apologies for the lack in contact and many thanks for the emails you have sent. Internet near the park is appauling and too frustrating to use more than once a week. Sorry!

Lots and lots of love to all,

Sarah & Matt

Happy Belated Christmas

A VERY MERRY BELATED CHRISTMAS TO ONE AND ALL FROM BOLIVIA,

AND

WISHING THAT THE NEW YEAR BRINGS YOU

PEACE, JOY AND MUCH HAPPINESS

ALL OUR LOVE,

SARAH & MATT

Christmas with monkeys!

So, here it is, the Christmas edition.

I apologise to those of you following this, as Sarah has drafted me in to throw the latest instalment together, and as many of you already know, I'm not always the most patient of people, the internet is so poor here that I'm ready to put my head through the screen after almost half an hour of waiting to get to this one page!!!
So please forgive if this offering is not quite as eloquent as what Sarah normally offers up.

We have almost been a month in the park now and we are both still really enjoying it.
As followers will know, Sarah is working with the spider monkeys and has spent the last week (or two) as acting 'Alpha male' in the absence of a suitable man to do the role. The monkeys have been getting more problematic up there so a man has been drafted in from tomorrow. Although Sarha will still be the boss.
I had a fantastic month with Roy and actually starting receiving some affection from him - something he gives out very sparingly. However the call of duty beckoned and from yesterday I have been working on the park accounts - it's like 1998 all over again! They have 7 lever arch files FULL of unrecorded receipts that I have to go from and input. Why someone couldn't have started it before now baffles me, but it needs to be completed by the end of the year, so my nose is to the grindstone.

We do still have big plans for Christmas festivities though and as we speak Sarah and a few others are out buying materials for a Cottage pie, Roast chicken, a number of salads and some deserts, one of which I beleive includes Apple crumble! Yum.
We are having a large meal tomorrow (Bolivians traditionally celebrate on Christmas Eve) and are doing our secret santa then. Then on the day itself we will be working and are trying to organise some sort of pool party for the afternoon/evening, although considering it has started raining at around 4 or 5 every afternoon for the last few days, I'm not sure how much of a success it will be! But then we did chose to be here in the rainy season.

We do miss you all loads, especially at this time of year and hope that you have a fantastic time over the Christmas break. We send you lots of love and goodwishes.
Have a wonderful Christmas period,

Lots of love,

Matt, Sarah, Roy and the Monkeys
x x x x x x

Work & Home Pics

This is the view from the spider monkey park where I work.


This is the ´Master´bedroom. Nicest room out of all three Volunteers accomodations!

Inti Warra Yassi Animal Refuge

Alfito the gorgeous spider monkey

So after a month of fun, the hard work has begun and we have now been at the animal refuge for 2 and a half weeks. Apologies for the lack of contact but since we are working from 7:30am until often 20:30 in Matts case (19:00 usually for me, until tomorrow when I am supposed to become Volunteer Accommodation Manager - eek, and then will have to work most evenings), we have been poretty tired and the internet connection here is pretty bad.


Matt has been working with a puma called Roy who he ´walks´ (mainly runs) for about 3 hours every morning and 3 hours every afternoon. He has also taken on the position of Volunteer Coordinator so the little time we had left to enjoy together of an evening has come to an end! Basically Matt assigns every new volunteer with an animal to work with and sorts out all the issues that current volunteers have with their animals.


Roy The Puma


I am working with a group of 32 spider monkeys, most of which are totally barmy. They all sleep in a cage at night so there is a lot of cleaning and feeding and 8 of them are on runner systems as they are prone to running off and turning up in random villages where they run the risk of being recaptured and sold into captivity. The others are free to roam around the park as they wish all day. They really are gorgeous animals, and getting a hug with all arms, legs and tails from a spider monkey is an expoerience that really everyuone should be entitled to in life - boy do they know how to hug! I promise more park news will follow sooner rather than later.


Much love to all and big monkey hugs xxxxx

Brimbles Bolivian Blog Begins

Another episode... another fun bus journey. This time we boarded a ´direct´ bus from Cusco to La Paz, which confusingly ended up involving 3 buses, a ´combi´(mini-bus) and a boat, as well as a 3 hour breakfast stop, and an hour and a half for lunch. I am slowly starting to remember that when quoted lines such as ´you will definitely arrive in La Paz by 1:00´ actually means ´you will be very lucky if you have crossed the border from Peru to Bolivia in time for supper´.

Anyway we made it to Bolivia and are thoroughly enjoying the return to Mineragua, bowler hats and the sheer chaos that La Paz is so prompt to provide. However, the closer we get to the animal refuge, the more we are longing to be there, and after dinner with Nena, the park director who told us how desperate they are for volunteers we have decided to cut our stay in La Paz short. So it is that tonight (after we FINALLY get to spend a cultural afternoon watching the Quantam of Solace, and recovering from a hangover which I am also remembering is not a lot of fun at 3700m altitude) we are catching our very last night bus - for the near future - (will you miss our bus stories? Or are they just getting a bit tedious now?!!) from La Paz to the animal refuge to embark on our true bolivian adventure.

For any of you that have even more free time on your hands than just to read the blog, and fancy writing to us (or sending christmas presents / packages / telegrams / well wishes) then please write to

Address:
Matt & Sarah Brimble
c/o Comunidad Inti Wara Yassi
Casilla 1600
Cochabamba
Bolivia

Mobile Phone

Sarah: 00591 70160131

Matt: 0059170160173

Lots and lots of love to all,

Sarah & Matt

Apurimac

Controversially claimed to be the source of the Amazon, the Apurimac is located in Peru´s second deepest canyon, and is claimed to be one of the top 10 white water rafting spots in the world. Although I had rafted the apurimac once in 2005, I have been going on and on and on about it to Matt ever since and so it seemed only fair to give him a taste of it too!

The Group

There were 18 of us on the trip, and although it seemed hard to believe that we had gone over 2 weeks of travel in South America without much interraction with Israelis, this was obviously not to last and 11 of the 18 were those wonderfully responsible, friendly and interractive nationals - note the subtle sarcasm. For those of you that have not encountered Israelis on your travels then maybe I should take a moment to explain, before you think I am the ultimate racist: I have never been to Israel or encountered an Israeli in their home land and therefore have no idea what the ´true´Israeli is like, however whilst travelling they have a distinctly... ´unique´shall we say, reputation. Israelis, unlike most other travellers who are generally quite keen to stear clear of people from their home nation (hence why they are travelling), appear to have a particular need to meet and travel only with other Israelis. It is therfore not possible to encounter just one or two israelis in any one place, there must always be in a group of a dozen or more, and whilst I appreciate that when many people from any one nation meet with one another, they will talk in the common language - hebrew in this case - it must be said that Hebrew is not exactly the most INclusive of languages, and therfore one can feel somewhat EXcluded when amongst such a large group. Oh, and whilst I am complaining about them, they smoke too much. Is it really necessary to have a cigarette between rapids whilst on the raft? I don´t think so. OK, enough complaining. Anyway, unfortunately the 11 Israelis on this trip were no different and so it was that we had one raft of 6 ´extranjeros´(german, suiss, french, dutch and english) and 2 rafts of isrealis during our three day trip.

The ´extranjero´ raft

After a hair raising 5 hour bus journey along unpaved, narrow, hairpin roads (class V roads), the first day consisted of practising all the commands, as well as plenty of raft flipping and swimming, and some low grade rapids, in order for prepare us for day 2. Just as well, as on day 2 we spent 7 hours on the water and it was A LOT of fun but very very tiring. We rafted rapids upto class 4 and managed to avoid flipping, although Matt chose to swim or ´body raft´ most of the rest of the river and quickly became known as ´la sirena´(the mermaid!). Once we got to our camp site the guides set up a zip wire from the opposite side of the river to the campsite, where we climbed up some very slippery rocks and then slid down and dropped into the river. After almost an hour of setting the zip wire up and a lot of shouting at each other across the river, I tentatively asked one of the guides if it was the first time that they had done this, to which I received a very half hearted and mumbled ´no´, which I instinctively took as a ýes´, however despite Matt´s risk assessment coming out as red (how do you spell L.O.S.E.R?), we safely dropped into the river and it was brilliant fun. Definitely one to try at home (just joking mum). Finally we dried off and had an amazing dinner infront of a camp fire. Extranjeros on one side, Israelis on the other. Much like a school dance .

Zip wire

The Calm Before the Storm

So far everything was going smoothly. That night Matt and I romantically decided we wanted to sleep under the stars (cue: ahhhhhh), and decided not to bother with the outer of our tent - I mean what the worst that can happen? A thunderstorm? An avalanche? (I am aware that the outer of the tent would not have been great protection in this case!), Yup! Turns out both! I was having one of my first bouts of ´travel belly´ (first of many no doubt) and so was awake as I heard the first droplets of rain coming and so begrudgling (and ´accidentally´kicking matt on the way out but he didn´t get the hint) I got up and put the outer on and crawled back into the tent. The rain grew steadily heavier as I contemplated the joys of voming and diarreah in the rain, before the most ENORMOUS crack of thunder came - I´ve honestly never heard anything like it! Fair enough, I though to myself, even if lightning strikes, didn´t Matt say something about it hitting the high places? So I am sure being in a canyon is the safest place we could be. These were my somewhat naive contemplations as I fought another wave of nausea. Very soon after an equally loud sound came which sounded remarkably like stones falling... yup it was an avalanche. As numerous heads popped out of tents wondering if it was on our side of the valley, our rafting guide exploded out of his tent so quickly that he broke the tent door, only to find that the avalanche, which repeated itself a few hours later was fortunately on the other side of the valley.

The rain continued on well into the next morning and so the ´rafting games´which were to be played that morning were abandoned for a few more hours sleep, or in many cases, to ring out sleeping bags and clother which had become drenched (turns out we weren´t the only ones with romantic notions of sleeping without an outer!). Feeling somewhat worse for wear we navigated throught the hardest of our rapids - class 4+. However, the stuning surroundings, as well as spotting otters, condors and seeing the first locals we had seen in 3 days - 2 guys who had walked 5 hours from the nearest village and were panning for gold at the river side - made it easy to forget about the previous night, and enjoy an amazing end to a fantastic trip.

Back in Cusco now and we have decided that if we leave for Bolivia tomorrow night we may just have time for one last trecking or biking adventure in La Paz before heading to the park.

Lots of love to all, sarah & matt xxx

Cusco

We made it!

The buses weren't all that bad.... hold on, what are we saying? They were TERRIBLE!!!! The first bus left Huaraz promptly and also promptly began leaking! Sarah had the window and I had the aisle, unfortunately right underneath a roof-vent, which haemoraged water for the entire journey (despite it strangely, not raining!) at some points quite forcefully. Add to this our driver was going for a new personal best time along some quite uneven road surfaces, imagine any vehicle bouncing around in the middle of the night - bad enough - but being at the back of a huge double decker bus - not sleep enducing!

So we arrived in Lima slightly bleary eyed at 5:30 in the morning, wondering around Miraflores trying to find somewhere for breakfast and ending up playing two hours of ´s***-head´in a street cafe. After our breakfast we made a flying visit to Villa Maria, a shanty-town project that Quest run on the outskirts of Lima. The project provides a day-centre for underprivelidged children, where they can play and interract with other chilren in a safe and supportive environment. As soon as the kids saw us, we were immedately treated as a new novelty toy and we were swamped by dozens of kids. In Matts case boisterous boys who wanted to use him as a climbing frame, and in my case the more reserved girls who coyly wanted to hold my hand and play with my hair. As if I wasn´t broody enough before we arrived!!!

Villa Maria Shanty Town

After our fleeting visit we embarked on our mammoth bus journey of almost 20 hours! We had sweet seats, 'panoramico' at the front of the bus with lots of leg room and fortunately no water falling from above our heads! The bus was really good, we were served a hot meal of a staple favourite of chicken and rice! And got to see 6 films! We didn't get much sleep, but we were comfortable, which was just as well as the bus was 3 hours late arriving in Cusco.

Back in Cusco we are enjoying chilling out a little, reunions with old friends and some of our favourite Cusquenian restaurants. The benefits of having friends here include upgraded, free accomodation and not being able to pay for dinner no matter how much we insist! It's proving hard to spend our money here, so we are 'splashing out' and going on a 3 day rafting trip on Weds. We are rafting the Apurimac, the biggest most exciting river in the area. It will be my first time, but Sarah is an experienced pro, either way we're both really looking forward to it.

A small taste of our suite at the Fallen Angel.

HuayHuash Trek

After a frantic dash around Huaraz after our day walk to buy food, re-pack, sort tents, gas, stove and pans, all to Matts frequent moans of ´but this is what the Quest students are for´, we headed into the Cordillera Huayhuash for a four day treck.

The village where the trek starts - Llamac - was deep in the throws of a parents inter-village sports day when we arrived, which was a truly entertaining sight: Peruvian women who one might associate with working the fields with a baby strapped to their back huddled in a generous layer of skirts and thows, were hurtling themselves across volleyball courts with suprising gusto, clad in violent purple and blue ´Llamac´or ´Pocpa´( the next village) labelled rugby shirts (some still with the giveaway layered skirts and wooly socks underneath). Needless to say we were the only ´gringos´to be seen and so had to endure frequent ´gringo - da me un caramelo´(whity - give me a sweet) from the numerous children.

Our guide - Percy - was a born Llamac citizen, and enthusiastically told us that he was to become President of the village this forth coming year... as well as that he was ´the king of Huayhuash´, ´famous in the region´, and self-confessed ´incredible´for having walking the Huayhuash circuit in 3 days. I feel we learnt a lot from such humility, however I would be lying if I said that it did not wear somewhat thin after 4 days...

The first night before setting off we camped in Percys garden - and it truly was a beautiful garden, however there was something very very wrong about it. It was almost quintessentially English with a young apple tree and a pink rose bush, and to cap it off, a little cage with 3 beautiful, squeeking guinea pigs. However, it did not take long to realise that a man in his 30s was not keeping the Guinea pigs as pets... you can see where I am going with this, particularly if you are aquainted with my History of Guinea pigs (Marshmallow, Paddington, Victoria... RIP). I did try to translate these little squeeks to Percy as ´Percy! Please don´t eat us!!!´, however I think he thought this was just another gringo eccentricity as he declared he was saving them for his names sake day. :o(

Anyway, I digress. The first day of the treck involved climbing 1000m over a 4300m pass, which was stunning and excellent practice for me on how to deal with moaning students (love you Matt :o).


Pampa LLamac Pass (4300m)


After reaching the pass it was probably fortunate that Percy was more concerned with getting his ´educated´ donkeys to the camp site before the rain set in and they got wet, so we were able to go at our own pace, and didn´t see Percy most of the day. Even more fortunately a dog which was creatively known as ´perrito´ (doggy), followed us all the way from LLamac and showed us the way to the campsite, which was next to a beautiful lake called Jaguacocha.


The view from our tent at Jaguacocha


The next day we set off in search of the point where Jo Simpson´s ´Touching the Void´ took place. After an hour and half of trying to chase Percy, who insisted in marching up the hill as quickly as possible until he was out of sight of us, and then lying down and looking extremely bored and as if he had been waiting for hours as soon as we caught up with him, we arrived at a lake which was known for its trout fishing. At this point Percy declared that we would not be able to make it to the pass, as there was too much snow to get through. It is important that you understand that despite all of Percy´s shortfalls, he was very passionate about wildlife: particularly about his donkeys and about trout. Therfore it did not come as a huge suprise to us that our ´day´s walk was to end after an hour and a half so that Percy could fish. Feeling a little miserable and cold I decided I wanted to go back to the tent and sulk, however fortunately it was Matt´s turn to be the adult and he suggested that we leave Percy to fish and carry on walking... and how glad we were both were when we climbed another 300m up a scree slope to find a stunning emerald green lake at 4700m that Percy appeared to have forgotten to tell us about (see video). How ironic life can be when we returned to Percy after 2 hours to find that he had not caught a single trout.





The third day was the highlight for both of us as we both felt healthier and more acclimatised, and happy to walk at our own pace. We climbed upto a stunning pass at 4800m, before descending to our camp in Rondoy, through a snowstorm. I would love to say that I shared Matt´s sentiments of what an adventure it was to walk through a snow storm - however if I am honest what comes to mind is having needles thrown in my face for an hour. I can honestly say it was worth it though for the views that we saw from the top.


Pass at 4800m


The last day was an easy 3 hour walk down a dirt road, (which helped us thaw out after shaking off all the ice from our tent - I think I´m starting to regret bringing my 8 year old 2 season sleeping bag to camp over 4000m when its still then end of winter here). We finished off back at Percy´s house and got ´combi´(mini-bus) along a narrow and winding (= terrifying) road to a town called Chiquian, followed by a coach along an even narrower and windier road back to Huaraz, where we arrived yesterday evening in need a of a good shower and some food that wasn´t pasta.



Last nights camp at Rondoy with Percy President and his girl-friend / servant... not quite sure.


Tonight we are catching the nightbus back to Lima and then getting a coach for a whopping 20 hours to Cusco, where we will way up our options of another treck... or perhaps stay in the city and visit friends and do ´cultural´ things (mainly in the sense of drinking local beer).

Lots of love to all,

Sarah & Matt x