Nate and Kia

Hey Friends,
Sorry it's been so long. I've been quite busy wrangling monkeys. Nate and I have now been in Puerto Viejo for two weeks. We've moved in to our apartment and it's great. Living in hostels is pretty tiring, so it's nice to have a home base for a while. This place is bigger and nicer than our last apartment, and it is much cheaper. Its right up against the jungle so we get some pretty fun and some pretty gross visitors. Lots of cool birds and lots of bugs. Here's my favorite gross bug I've found in our home.

I know this appears to be a turd, but it is actually a slug. Turd-slug. We also had a plague of toads travel through our front porch.

I started working at the Jaguar Rescue Center a few days after we arrived in Puerto Viejo. The Center is run by a couple, Sandro and Encar, who both have backgrounds in biology. It's not a sanctuary or a zoo. What's special about it is that almost all of their animals are released in to the wild. The only permanent residents are animals who could not survive on their own. Currently they have snakes, howler monkeys, two-toed sloths, caimans, dozens of birds, a porcupine, possums, a margay (wildcat), frogs, horses, tarantulas, a coati and a white-tailed deer.

Life at the Center is pretty relaxed. I spend most of my time either cleaning cages, monkeysitting, or watching after baby sloths while they get their exercise. Everyday the monkeys and the coati go to monkey school. Monkey school involves two volunteers hiking in to the forest with arms laden with baby monkeys. In the forest we lay out a blanket and release the the little guys in to the trees. A group of wild monkeys knows we show up at the same time everyday and meets us to play with the babies. Some of them are too young or scared to go in the tree so they sit on the blanket with us and take a nap. Once it's time to go back the monkeys see us packing up the blanket, scamper down the tree and jump on our shoulders for the walk home. Monkey school is designed to get the monkeys used to being in the jungle and dealing with their own species in the wild. Once a monkey is ready to be wild again it just wont come back down from the tree at the end of the day. It's entirely up to the monkeys to decide when they are ready; we don't make them stay or go.

I get to spend a lot of time napping in the jungle with lots of little primates, but there have been some exciting moments. Sometimes one of their previously released monkeys, Conga, comes down to the kitchen and begs for bananas. Yesterday Conga's neck and stomach was covered in horrible pustules. What she had was botfly larvae living in and feeding off her flesh. Me and the other volunteers stood and watched as Sandro and Encar sedated her and began removing the larvae. It was easily one of the grossest things I've ever seen. Too gross to describe in detail here but if you're interested, you can watch botfly larvae being extracted in this video. (WARNING: Do not watch if you're easily grossed out. Seriously.) After a few minutes of intense emergency medical attention, Conga was released. We've seen her since and she's looking healthy and happy. Monkey injuries seem pretty common. A few days ago one of our monkeys fought with one of the wild males and now has bandaged feet and a big nasty bite wound on his leg. Luckily his wounds aren't that serious and he should heal just fine.

I really like working at the Center. Hanging out with the animals is really great, and all of the people I've met there are really nice. Now please enjoy these pictures of me playing with cute non-human babies.