Parque Ambue Ari - Volunteering with Pumas

**Two blogs in two days! If you haven't seen our Bolivia blog, check it out below this one. We're headed into Brasil for Carnaval and our last two weeks in South America - Europe here we come!**

We spent two weeks in the jungle in Bolivia volunteering at Parque Ambui Ari, the new property for Inti Warra Yassi, ans organization dedicated to provided homes for jungle animals that have been removed from their natural habitat. (Check out their website at www.intiwarayassi.org). This was an amazing and unique experience that we are so lucky to have found out about and done. The accomodations were basic (no electricity), and we have never seen so many mosquitoes (multiple layers of clothing and mosquito nets were a necessity, despite the sometimes sweltering heat), but this was more than made up for by the chance to interact with some amazing animals and all the wonderful people that we met there (who we want to thank for sharing their pictures with us - we've borrowed a couple for this posting, cheers guys!)

We were assigned our first day to the pumitas - three female pumas about 1.3 years old. They have been raised since they were 1 month old by the park, and as such acted more like big housecats than wild animals. Their caretaker, Noemi, of the last 8 months left the day before we arrived, and our first two days on our own (with another volunteer, Sam) proved to be extremely challenging as we tried to learn how to motivate the girls - it was not looking to be a fun two weeks. However, thankfully, we were joined by a fourth volunteer, Sarah, and this along with our developing relationships with the animals, turned the situation around. We got to know the uniquely different and delightful personalities of each of these three lovely girls, and we were so lucky to have cats that were interested in us and gave us such love in return. The two weeks ended up flying by in a blur, and we were so sad to have to say goodbye to our cats and the other volunteers. We highly recommend this experience to anyone with a spare few weeks in Bolivia - we would have stayed longer if we could!

Ben started out walking Wara, the largest and reddest of the three. We nicknamed her our war queen as she was the most likely to pounce on her sisters during the walk. She had beautiful big eyes, and could be intimidating at feeding time. However, like a big pussycat, she could also melt in your hands if you gave her a good chin and chest rub.



Karen started out walking Yassi, the second biggest. Yassi has the darkest facial markings, and when she meowed (yes, they all meowed, just like kittens), she looked like a sad clown. She really likes to be in front of her sisters during the walks, and would let you know she was happy to be there with her unbelievely loud, burbling purr and frequent stops for cuddling. She loves to play with the fruits of the cacao tree, and would try to climb those trees to get the fruit whenever possible.



Inti was the smallest and most independent of the three cats. She was always easy to identify with her red collar. Inti loves to play with sticks, particularly fetching them out of the water, though she really looks pathetic as a wet cat. When she was feeling affectionate, she'd show it - we all have received a good licking from Inti (as Sam is demonstrating) - she'd give Ben a full head bath which was fine as long as he could keep her rough tongue off his sensitive neck skin.



Our daily activities involved taking the cats for two walks per day, which meant walking through knee-deep water and having wet feet all day. The cats loved to take us on sporadic sprints over logs and through mud and water. They also loved to pounce on each other, which meant we had to watch out for stray claws and hold on tightly as we could get pulled into the attack or dragged behind an escaping cat.



Each day we took the cats down to the river for a swim. Inti particularly liked to fetch sticks out of the water. We were also responsible for feeding them meat twice each day, which they caught in mid-air as we threw it to them. Every other day we hand fed them eggs, good fun.



Other cats
In addition to our three girls, the park has a number of other cats to care for. The are three other adult female pumas, including the lovely, playful, and cross-eyed Tequila whose cage we passed on our way to the pumitas. There are also two male jaguars, Ru and Rupi. Ben got the chance to walk Rupi one day, and he learned first hand how much bigger (and scarier) the jaguars are compared to the pumas - the pumas weigh in at about 30 kilos and can manage to fit your hand in their mouths, the jaguars weigh over 100 kilos and can fit your entire head in your mouth (as some of the volunteers found out) - it's all in play, though.



Small animals
Each of the volunteers started their morning by feeding and cleaning up after one of the many small animals that call Ambue Ari home. Ben and I took care of the pios (American ostriches) who can't really be classified as small, especially judging from the quantity of thier droppings (which we had to shovel up - lucky us!). There were parrots, loros (small parrots), a deer, tortoises, a young ocelot (spotted cat), monkeys (more later), and the cutest baby giant anteater that Ete took care of (she and Marco manage the park). This little gal is someday going to grow to 2 meters!




Monkeys
Our lives were definitely touched by the day to day activities of the two resident male howler monkeys: Coco and Faustino. From howling concerts throughout the day, to cuddling and grooming "old man" Coco who always managed to look sad (except when he was getting some good loving from Sarah, or trying to lick sweat from strange parts of your body), to pulling them out of our rooms, kitchen, and dining room - the howlers were an integral part of life at the park. In addition, there was a baby howler monkey, Junior (sitting on Karen's shoulders), a family of wild howler monkeys that showed up for feeding times (their baby around Ben's neck), and our very own spider monkey, Hugui, who made the most amazing sounds and was great fun to watch.



Banditos and Chanchos
Apart from the resident monkeys, the other animals we saw on a regular basis (and worked hard to keep out of every building) were the banditos and chanchos (pigs). The little creatures with the striped tails are actually coatimundies but nicknamed "banditos" by the locals. As the name would suggest, they really were trouble makers and were best summed up by a fellow volunteer Sean as ¨they do everything frantic¨ whether they are scratching themselves, searching for food, or attacking you. They can be adorable - such as the red one (Mimi), who would routinely climb your pant legs (or face) in a flurry of rapid sniffs and squeaks as she searched vainly for food - or be right little $*%!s when they break into everything looking for food like the dark one here who the volunteers nicknamed "Bitey". The chanchos were also free to roam and were usually harmless enough, paying you no attention on their endless search for food scraps or roots to dig up. However, add food into the equation (like when one gets into the food store) and the cute, bristle-covered creatures would suddenly bare tusks and go for legs. A baby pig arrived while we were there, and we learned that they did start out cute (Wilbur became his surrogate mother and the pig followed him everywhere barking like a squeaky dog to get fed)