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