Picture deep Amazonian jungle. Not a sole for miles. Covert expeditions into the jungle tracking
poachers and animal traffickers.
Learning to live off the land. No
electricity, gas or hot water.
Centro Ecologico Zanjarajuno, where Marc
and I volunteered for two weeks was nothing like this. We were in the Amazon but more on the outskirts,
about 30 minutes by car (or one and a half hours by bus) from the nearest town
of Puyo. A road, or more a pothole
ridden, rock covered path, takes you from Puyo on a round journey through some
of the local villages and houses.
Zanjarajuno is one of them.
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| The house where we stayed for two weeks |
We had a lovely room, with the requisite
mosquito nets, in the two-story house which we were to share with three Dutch
students and an Englishman (as well as various other creatures which I will get
in to shortly). The house had
electricity, gas and water so was really quite comfortable.
On our first day we met Molly, an eight
month old Woolly Monkey. She was attached to one of the Dutch volunteers, Rogier and was quite content to cling to him as he wandered about. Martje, one of the other Dutch volunteers gave us a tour of the rest of the centre. The centre is spread across two areas, one side being where we were staying and the other was across the road up a slight hill which was more private and away from the road.
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| Molly out the front of the house with one of the birds who lived on the balcony. |
Including Molly, we learnt that the centre currently held 5 black agoutis including a little baby agouti, an agouti paca called Amelia, a tayra (part of the weasel family) called Anastasia, a collared peccary, parrots and macaws, turtles and tortoises, two spectacled caimans, a boa constrictor which lived in a terrarium in the house and a rooster who followed us around like a dog. The people who ran the centre had three cats of their own, a black dog named Coco and a small puppy named Oso (or bear). The centre was also regularly visited by a large family of squirrel monkeys (cute on the outside but greedy thieving evil jerks on the inside) and a smaller family of saddleback tamarinds (who were delightful but due to their size were often bullied by the evil squirrel monkeys).
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| Two of the black agoutis. They would come to the front of their enclosure at feeding time but they weren't the most sociable. |
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| Anastasia being hand fed by Marc |
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| Amelia the Paca |
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| Patrizio - lots of attitude |
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| But was a big softie when it came to getting a pat |
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| Rooster |
When we returned to the house we were met by Lucero, one of the people who runs the centre, and Sam, the other Dutch student who was to be our translator. Lucero showed us how to feed the animals and clean their cages.
For the next two weeks our daily routine would be to wake up around 7am if you were to wake Molly and feed her or 7.30 to be ready to feed the animals by 8am. Most of the animals lived off a diet of green or yellow bananas and maize. Each animal has its diet set out and it took us a few goes to get the hang of who gets what. Mornings mean cleaning. We needed to clean the enclosures of most of the animals everyday. Most were not an issue but Anastasia often proved difficult. To clean her enclosure we had to lure her out to a separate area with a banana. We would then clean the cage and strategically hide bananas around her house before letting her return. I was not there when it happened but when Fish and Rogier went to clean her enclosure one morning, Anastasia decided she was going to take herself on an outing. After a few tense moments watching her run down the hill and to attempt to break into a house nearby, she finally returned.
After the morning feed Lucero would often ask the boys to help with jobs around the place. Marc and Fish were tasked with fixing a gate, a tank and guttering system, cleaning out and fixing a pool for a potential group of Capybara, catching fish and cleaning out the tortoise enclosure, and cleaning and repairing the agouti's pool. Marc often also broke things just so he could fix things, one example being lock to the front of the house. This would have been less of an issue if we didn't have Molly to look after but she was always so inquisitive to be inside with everyone and eat every scrap of food off the floor.
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| The saddleback tamarinds |
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| A little baby tamarind hitching a ride |
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| Coming down for a snack |
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| Keeping an eye out for the naughty squirrel monkeys |
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| Standing sentry |
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| Showing us why they are called Saddleback tamarinds |
Half way through our first week we had a few problems with our water tank and pump system which meant no showers. We also had to abide by the old rule of "if it's yellow let it mellow, if it's brown flush it down". We all had to head to the river for showers in the evening which was a fun social experience in communal bathing. During the second week we were able to leave little Molly with Lucero and we all headed to the river for a swim. It was great to be able to do something as a group as often person has to stay behind with Molly.
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| Swimming in the river |
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| From left to right: Sam (sitting), Martje, Molly, Fish, Rogier (in the water), Marc. |
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| Old man vs. Older man. We were all losers for having witnessed this. |
Sam found a lovely area where we could take Molly to try and encourage her to climb. Fish, Martje, Marc, Molly, Coco, Oso and I all ventured up there one day in the hope that Molly would venture up some of the higher trees. She did climb a few but we weren't overly successful in getting her to climb anything substantial.
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| Molly thinking about climbing |
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| Molly thinking about eating a bug |
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| Molly trying to camouflage herself |
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| Molly on the move |
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| Molly spotting a tree she may like to climb |
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| Molly testing out the tree |
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| Finally giving it a go |
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| Molly's audience, waiting for her to climb |
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| Marc's one true love |
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| Marc's second love |
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| Leigh trying out her Molly impersonation on Coco, and Coco not being impressed, he only had eyes for Marc anyway. |
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| Molly snacking on some guava |
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| Marc getting some monkey love |
For me looking after Molly was probably the highlight. For the first week we were there she became quite attached to Fish and myself as we spent a lot of time with her taking her on walks, feeding her and talking to her. She had a definite personality and could be very stubbord when she wanted. She liked her independence but wanted to know someone was nearby. She had a habit of curling her tail around my neck and hanging down to try and eat leaves and catch insects. Cute at first but after consecutive days I started to get what felt like rope burn around my neck. She could be very playful and loved being tickled and bounced around. She was like a little child but obviously much cooler as she had a tail.
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| Taking Molly for a walk |
I would say for Marc his highlight was completely ripping his pants apart, sewing them together overnight only to rip them a second time when digging out another animal pool. Luckily there is no photographic evidence of this.
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The Group
Front row: Lucero, her son David, Sam, Molly, Martje
Back row: Leigh, Marc, Rogier, Fish |
