Swimming with sharks

Well, no. But that sounds a whole lot more impressive than swimming with plankton. Ok, so now I’m understating our experience. We got to swim with some really beautiful and pretty big fish, but I’ll get to that.

With my monetary funds being as stretched as they are, and with at least 6 months of travel left, there was no way that I could justify splurging and blowing a good $1K for a few days in the Galapagos.  So when Claire discovered the ‘poor mans' Galapagos’ in her guide book, it shot to the top of our itinerary. By this stage, we can definitely say we are ‘poor men’ in the money stakes. 

With found memories of Uruguay and the coast, we were keen for some more beach action. We are getting rather pasty - Ecuador is not the tropical haven I expected, often needing to pull out my huge woollen jumper, jeans and socks to keep warm. And, it rains like you wouldn’t believe. ‘Spose we are right in the middle of wet season so it is more so bad timing for a visit on our part.

Anyway, after plotting several spots along the coast that we thought sounded good – I can’t resist a place when it as described as being full of hammocks, and barefooted, board short wearing people, off we went, smiles as wide as our faces, looking forward to sand. First stop, the small fishing village of Puerto Lopez.

First thing we did after we pulled up, after being harassed by a man and his Thai style tuk-tuk who was desperate for us to stay at his hostel, was head straight to the beach. It was picturesque. Little blue fishing boats bobbing up and down, the clouds reflected in the ocean. We strolled along the foreshore, looking for a place to stay, desperate to stay on the beach. Who greeted us at the door of the place we eventually decided on? The man with the tuk-tuk. He just laughed at us for having walked all that way.

Puerto Lopez at sunset

Next stop – organise a tour. Just like Banos, everyone and anyone in this town will offer you a tour of the ‘poor mans Galapagos’ or the Isla de la Plata. From every passing tuk-tuk driver, to the internet cafe boy who looked about 15, to Javier, the guy who was looking after our hostel. One thing that the South Americans have mastered is the art of nagging. Javier kept nagging and nagging for us to go with him to the Island. We kept coming up with some silly excuse to avoid committing to him. However, with his price kept getting cheaper and cheaper, in the end we caved, even though we were dreading the thought of a little tinny pulling up to take us the 30kms across the choppy Pacific to the island.

So it was no tinny, but it was scary enough travelling the good hour to the Island on the ‘Amazing I’, even for me, who is well accustomed to tipping boats (thanks, dad). The Pacific rolled us in every direction like balls in a pin-ball machine until we finally, and thankfully, arrived in one piece; except for my head that got a good knock thanks to a really big wave.

Luckily for us we got the boat in the background

I have come up with a theory as to why it is called the Island of Silver, it is no ‘Island of Gold’ in terms of the animals it has to offer. Gold is the best. Gold is the Galapagos. While the Isla de la Plata plays host to Galapagos Albatros, Blue Footed Boobies, and other species of bird, it misses the Galapagos turtles, seals and other amazing animals you will witness at the Galapagos. Guess I can’t complain. I did get to play with Galapagos turtles at the sanctuary, and I did pay only $45 for the entire tour. I should only get to see a fraction of the animals and wander the parched island in the stinking heat. Though we were lucky enough to catch a glimpse of two turtles swimming underneath our boat as we pulled up.

 
Blue Footed Boobies

The best part of the day was snorkelling about 20 metres off shore. Diving off the boat into the slightly murky, but still very blue water, we dove with fish of various varieties and sizes. They weren’t shy at all. At one point, you didn’t have to put your head under half a metre and you were swimming in a circle of fish. They were very inquisitive, some of the larger ones a little too inquisitive, giving one guy on our tour a bit of a nibble.

With the weather rather inclement, except of course on the day we decided to leave, and Puerto Lopez rather unimpressive, we decided to skip the rest of the coast and head back to Quito to organise a trip to the jungle.

Ecuadorian buses never cease to amaze me, in a bad way. They by far have to be the worst in terms of causing annoyance. Not only do they stop to pick up every person standing on the side of the road, even if they are only going a couple of kilometres down the street, the also pick up every street salesman, selling who knows what. At first, the guy who gets on trying to sell you underwear is amusing, but by the third one, it is aggravating. And the list of items they have for sale is never ending – seriously, if you needed to shopping you should just sit on an Ecuadorian bus for an hour or so and you would get everything you need. Sunglasses, check. Pencils, check. Whole coconuts, check. Raw beans, check. One guy got on with a rooster stuffed in his duffel bag and the girl behind us had a chicken. You get a lot of beggars as well who love to sing songs in return for small change, from the blind to young children, they have no qualms about beating out a couple of songs, usually entirely out of tune, at the front of the bus.

Bring on the jungle!

Ecuador’s Machu Picchu

After exhausting the to do’s of Cuenca, which has earned itself the title of Ecuador’s most beautiful city, – wandering the flower market, visiting the odd church, and walking down river bank we thought we’d up the anti and get some cultural experience as well by visiting Ingapirca – apparently ‘Ecuador’s Machu Picchu.’ We liked the ring of that.

The thing was, that for 3 hours of travel, the bus having stopped to pick up everyone on the side of the road, our bus driver only gave us 45 minutes to explore. We could have stayed longer, but that would have meant navigating several buses in darkness to get home. To be honest, the site wasn’t so impressive that I felt it was worth missing our bus and struggling to get home. We should have got the hint that it wasn’t going to be anything special when there were only 2 other gringos on the bus trekking out there.

The site does not even come close to be being half as impressive as Machu Picchu. Being not even a twelfth of the size, and with only one building still standing, you kind of feel sorry for Ecuador that this is all that is left for them of the Inca empire when Peru has Machu Picchu.

Our Spanish guide raced us around pointing out important rocks which remain (some which made up a calendar) and a mountain opposite that resembles a turtle (? – this may just be my crappy Spanish totally missing the point here, but that’s what it sounded like) and then we had to go.

The calendar rocks

I must admit, the scenery was beautiful -  Perched high up on a hill the site has a 360 degree view of the surrounding valley for miles. The calendar rock was interesting, but what got most of our attention was the llama orgy that was going on. A group of about 10 males were fighting over one female. They head bunted and tackled each other, legs were entangled everywhere, while she sat peacefully in the middle of all the action. The Americans found it so amusing they filmed the whole thing on their camera, instead of filming the site.

It’s probably one of those things that if I hadn’t done it, I always would have wondered what it was like.  For the record though, it is no Machu Picchu, but this may just be my Inca ignorance.

Other Cuenca happenings:

The worst thing that happened? Claire spotting bugs on her bed. I looked closer at mine, and there they were. Tiny little creatures. Gross. We changed rooms.

The best thing we ate: vindaloo curry para mi and marinara pasta for Claire at Cafe Eucalyptus. The chef was awesome – I’m probably just saying that because he came out to talk to us and that has never happened to me when I haven’t had the parentals around. Felt muy especial, hahaha. No, the food really was spectacular. He was a really nice English guy. My only complaint – the curry could have been a tad hotter. Yum, yum, yum.

The worst thing we ate: Mexican food at a restaurant in both our guide books that was apparently the ‘best’ Mexican food in Ecuador. I would hate to taste the worst. My stuffed pepper was covered in sour cream, so that all that was on my plate was a giant white turd, sprinkled with Garana. The meat was still cold. Claire’s burrito was 2 cans of kidney bean slush wrapped tightly in burrito. Sin veggies. Sin queso. Deeply disappointing considering how hungry we were at the time. 

 

The funniest thing we saw: street vendors, dressed up in drag with bums and boobs stuffed to the nines, singing in an attempt to try to sell lollies.

Biking ‘round Banos

With this ‘exercise thing’ we seemed to have going – horse riding, volcano climbing and waterfall trekking, we figured “why stop now?” So, with our muscles in agony from lack of serious exercise until now, we returned to Banos in a private taxi (woo hoo!) with a driver who had no idea where he was going (booooo) for canyoning, biking and hiking galore (we had spent the weekend here during our time at Santa Martha).

  Banos from above – the view from the Virgin on the hill

Banos is awesome – a smallish, entirely touristy town with good restaurants, bars (if you’re karaoke keen) and Ecuador’s best tattoo artist (no I didn’t get one, but a friend did and I’m jealous). Nestled away in the bottom of a valley (dangerous position considering it’s vicinity to a volcano that erupted in 2006 and was puffing out smoke in October 2008), it comes complete with hundreds of tour operators which fill the streets and harass you for your business as you walk past. They are almost as bad as the ones at bus stations: “QUITO, QUITO, QUITO, QUITO” they yell as you walk by; except in Banos it’s “CANOYING, RAFTING, MOTOS; CANOYONING RAFTING, MOTOS.” Times this by the 20 tour operators that line the street your perusing and you get a rather musical (though annoying) tune in a round. One guy didn’t think this ‘tune’ was enough. Instead, he tried to get my business by shoving a fake rat in my face. It definitely got my attention, needless to say I kept walking.

The local church – painting hanging on the walls inside
depict bizarre stories of people being saved by Santa Maria, including tourists that drove off cliff landing on
rocks 200m below and surviving. Hmmmm.

After a day recouping our energy we hired ‘cool’ push bikes, as one jealous American tourist remarked; $6 for the entire day. He had some  dodgy looking red one. Ours were blue, white and yellow and new looking – very chic. The amount he went on about them made us concerned that our bikes might mysteriously disappear along the trail, and we would (unsurprisingly) be left with red ones. We deterred him from stealing them by voicing our concerns to him about our breaks – they couldn’t have been new as our breaks were crapholio. Squeaky as hell, and they hardly worked. Really handy when 90% of the road was downhill.

Anyhoo, with map in one hand and brakes squeezed tightly in the other we headed off down the 60km road to Puyo where you can find waterfalls every 5 or so kilometres. Little did we know that it was the main road to Puyo. Every few minutes you would have a burst of cars rushing past you, honking as they go for you to move over. There was so much to concentrate on – hill, crappy brakes, not falling into the gutter, not being hit by a car, trying not to brake hard on the loose gravel, where is the waterfall entry?, praying your chain won’t come off when you change gears (as Claire experienced), that I spent the whole time looking down and missing the beautiful view. Luckily we stopped at every waterfall for the 30 or so kilometres that we travelled.

Ecuadorians seem to be generally good with bike riders though. They give you such a wide berth, so much so that were often driving on the other side to go around us, even though we were pretty much riding in the gutter. I do wonder whether this is courtesy  or just the way they drive - our bus drivers often take to the other side of the road when they take a corner too fast or just simply cruise in the middle of the road so they can go faster – more room for error. I hope it’s the former. Either way, they are definitely not like Australian drivers, that for some reason feel they should experiment with how close they can get to a bike rider before causing them to fall off.

We rode through this. Choke.

The waterfalls were beautiful. Some even had fun ways of getting to them, like cable cars that felt like (and probably were) free falling to the bottom of the line.

WEEEEEEEEEE!!!

For others, you had to trek for kilometres downhill from the road through the jungle to find it (and then you had to trek back up, NOT HAPPY JAN!)

The trek back up.

You could walk right up to them, and stand underneath if you felt like a shower. I was dumb and did this on the first one, not thinking about the fact that I had to cycle for the rest of the day. Note to self: being saturated + wind from speeding down a hill at 30km an hour = freezing your butt off. Although on the plus side, it meant I didn’t get so hot when we had a hill climb, though my legs still instantly turned to jelly as soon as I saw it.

 
Soaked.

While we’d planned to make it the 60kms to Puyo, after a solid 5 hours of touring, jelly legs, rain clouds and darkness setting in, we thought it best to cut our journey short.

So, we cheated. We caught the truck back up the hill with the 20 or so other people that had given up by that point. Somehow, we all squeezed in, the truck literally billowing with people and bikes for the 30 minute journey home. An added bonus: Claire and I managed to score the front seats with everyone else sitting in the tray with the bikes, much to our bums relief.

 
Piling the bikes up

Climbing Cotopaxi

Having heard enough of peoples qualms about Quito, steaming from the usual “it is so dangerous” to “don’t walk around at night because….(insert terror story here)” (from their personal experience too I might add), we decided to head south for a few days, to the Secret Garden Cotopaxi. With nothing around except waterfalls, rolling hills/volcanos and a lot of cows, I was in heaven.

The view from our hostel in Quito – The old town

Established just over two years ago, the hostel, run by Tarquin (an Aussie) and Katherine (his Ecuadorian wife, and fabulous cook) is more like staying in a friend’s home – a home with a spectacular view of a volcano (gulp). Communal meals, a crackling fire at night, and a brigade of dogs gives the place a wonderfully relaxed and mellow atmosphere.

Sunset at the Secret Garden

The land was acquired  by putting an ad up in the only shop in town, there being no system of real estate in the local town. A local farmer soon answered their plea. He said he had thousands of hectares and that they should come and chose the bit they wanted. Cleverly designed and ecologically friendly – with rooms lit by candle light at night, and a composting toilet with a view to boot - the network of cabins, a couple of tents (not for the faint hearted because it is freezing at night) and the main house are dwarfed by the magnificent Cotopaxi that looms overhead on the opposite side of the valley. The perfect combo to relax (if you don’t think about the fact that the volcano is still the highest active volcano in the world….)

The magnificent Cotopaxi

 
and the view from the loo

Putting the fact that the volcano might erupt whenever it feels like out of our minds, we decided to get even closer than our spectacular view from the Secret Garden and climb it. Well, climb it at least to 5000m where a glacier had formed. At 8 am we piled into an old green Land Rover – and I mean piled – there where 3 of us sitting on the roof of the car, complete with the owners two young children whom we were dropping at school on the way.  After an hour of very bumpy road (I have no idea how they actually managed to stay on the roof, let alone how they weren’t all blue from frost bite by the time we stopped), we had arrived at the 4200m mark. Stepping out of the car into ice cold winds, we all quickly adjusted our clothes, adding beanies and gloves, before starting our climb to the refuge. With our feet slipping in volcanic rock and ash it was a good hour climb before we reached the refuge, 600m above, and another 30 minutes of climbing (add a bit of ice slippage factor here) before we reached the glacier, 200m above the refuge.

At the glacier

All the walking and dizziness from the altitude was worth it – the view from the glacier was spectacular. And just our luck, the clouds magically parted so that we could see Cotopaxi’s peak as we made our decent.

Coming down from the Glacier, which is up past that yellow building

The view from the refuge

Our other adventures at the Secret Garden:

The first afternoon, we trekked about an hour to one of several waterfalls on the property. In retrospect, considering that there had been flash flooding that day (a local boy died that morning when he was swept away with his fishing net), it was probably not a good idea to trek through the now very rapidly flowing currents to the waterfall, now the only way up to the waterfall after all the rain. With the water threatening to break its bank, we navigated rocks and dangled off branches to reach it, following Remi, our guide. At one point I was told – “just hang on to the branch and it will drop you down onto the next ledge” – that ledge being over a good metre drop and only 20cm wide. Oh gee, I wish it was that easy! I made it. Just. No help from my gumboots that slipped me closer to falling headfirst into the ice cold water.

The opportunity also arose to go horse riding. My yippees were short lived. Asked who could ride, I tentatively put up my hand – wary that I would get the nutty horse. How this worked, I don’t know, but I somehow ended up with the slowest horse imaginable. She wouldn’t go when I kicked her, she wouldn’t  up the hill (she stopped and tried to turn around), nor would she canter, even on her way home when all the other horses took off. With the other horses kicking up dust in my face, I trotted all the way home. My luck of getting the shitty horse continues……

The best part of the day – the view from the top of the hill -  and spotting a cow, on the top of that hill, in the absolute middle of nowhere. She had the best vantage point around.

Technorati Tags: Cotopaxi,ecuador,blogsherpa,Secret Garden Cotopaxi

Two weeks at Santa Martha Rescue Centre (and a rant about Qantas)

There is nothing like a bit of hard work. And, after 4 months of travel, there is nothing like getting back into something that vaguely resembles a routine.

That is exactly what we’ve done at Santa Martha, although when it involves animals it is so much more fun rising at 7 am  in the morning (730 by the time I’d pressed snooze several times). You’re not so keen to spring out of bed at this time though when you think about the amount of poo you are going to scrub and scrape off the floor of the animal enclosures that day, so you just try not to think about that. Rather you think about the baby Woolly monkey that clings to your back and suckles away at your neck while you try to navigate your way through the sticks and hammocks hanging in his cage to clean up the poop, not aided in the slightest by the three Squirrel monkeys that leap from branches onto your closest shoulder, or head if they can make it.

The team at Santa Martha

We had a bit of an adventure however to get to Ecuador and the Sanctuary. No thanks to Qantas. They had failed to inform us that they had not reissued our tickets after we made changes to our itineraries. This meant we had no seats booked, only reserved and we only found this out from the LAN lady 10 minutes before our flight began boarding.

Sitting patiently in the departure lounge, after having perused the duty free shops and doordled through kiosks on the hunt for plane snacks, we suddenly heard “Claire Cogswell” amongst a whole heap of jibberish (ie. Spanish) paged over the PA. The problem - while LAN had (stupidly) issued us tickets, they later discovered that Qantas had only reserved our seats. As our tickets had not been reissued by Qantas when we made changes to certain flights, we had no confirmed seats (though my online Qantas itinerary begs to differ). They had 3 hours to tell us this – us being so prompt and all - and yet waited till 10 minutes before boarding to tell us there was a problem. The result - The LAN representative, Claire and I running through the airport like crazy people - back through security, back through immigration into the main body of the terminal to sort everything out. And I mean running. The only thing was, we couldn’t sort it out. Though we showed the LAN lady our e-tickets, we had no ticket number (thank you Qantas). The only solution, to fork out over US$700, or miss our connecting flight. Not much choice. Especially when you can hear someone on the LAN ladies walkie-talkie questioning her as to whether we are coming or not, or whether they can leave. Thank you Qantas. You will be hearing from us.

Finally on the plane

Anyhoo, after all that debacle, everything went smoothly. We were picked up from our hostel in Quito by ‘Danillo’ our friendly Tambillo taxi driver, and were driven, squashed along the front seat of his ute, to Santa Martha - my legs wedged between the gear stick (making it impossible for Danillo to change gears) and Claire, whose lap was laden with bags up to her chin. We figured this option was better than riding in the tray, that had been converted into a people carrier for the 45 minutes along the highway to Tambilo. It looked more like something that you would see sheep or cattle being transported in, only on a smaller scale. No seats, just standing room. Though this is the way the locals do it – you often spot an entire family lying down in the back of the ute, children included, hanging on for dear life as the driver takes a corner to quickly or winds all over the road, as they are so accustomed to doing here – we figured we would savour this experience for a later date. In broken Spanish, we spoke to Danillo about the areas of Quito, the weather (always a good topic) and where he was from, stopping on the way at good vantage points to take photos of Quito on our way up the mountain.

Quito from above – apparently spanning over 40kms, one end to the other

Luckily, not long after we had exhausted our Spanish capabilities we pulled up at the Sanctuary, greeted by two Dobermans and a Lassie dog (random). Shown to our quaint accommodations at the bottom of the valley by Lizzie, one of the old volunteers, adjacent the Jaguar aka ‘Brenda’, we got to do our last bit of lazing around while we waited for the other new volunteers to arrive.

That is Brenda and me in the background, looking out our kitchen window.

Housing with Anne, an Engligh lady who’d already been there for a week, and two more newbies, Andrea from Portugal and Iza from Poland, both vets, we had a fabulous time cooking for each other in the evenings and teaching each other our homely traditions. Iza absolutely loved the ‘fairy bread’ that we made her, though she turned her nose up at the idea at first. I couldn’t believe that no one in the entire sanctuary had heard of ‘fairy bread’ except for the 3 Australians. She went home to Poland on Saturday and swears that the first thing she is doing is making ‘fairy bread’ for her niece.  We learnt the secret ingredient for Sangria (no, I’m not putting it up on here), and also a fabulous recipe for chocolate mousse which is absolutely drool worthy (also my little secret). However, though we tried, we couldn’t quite get them hooked on the Vegemite.

Memories from the animal sanctuary (good and bad):

1. The lioness had two cubs on our first day! Our afternoon meeting was interrupted by a raucous in the lion cage. We later discovered the cause of the commotion was the birth of two cubs, now rolling around in the den. Though there was not much hope of them surviving at first as there was fear they were the result of inbreeding, two weeks later, they are still going strong. Not that you can get very close, the mother threatening to eat you when you get within 10 m of her.
   
   
   Barbosa, the male lion - blind in one eye from being whipped by his circus trainers :(
   
   
2. Baby Woolly monkey.  “Woolly” had to be the cutest thing at the Sanctuary. Being only slightly bigger than your hand, the poor little thing craved motherly attention. Any female that entered the cage was instantly clung too by Woolly. He would instantly clamber onto your back as soon as you opened the cage door, and would hang on so tightly he would strangle your neck; or he would grip to your front and nestle his head into your chest. The most heartbreaking moment was when it was time to leave his cage. Woolly would have to be plied off you, him screeching and screaming in the process. It was heart breaking – his little hands desperate to keep hold of you, trying to make it impossible for you to put him down. Chances are you also had to remove up to 3 Squirrel monkeys that were hanging off you (pooing and peeing on you in the process). Woolly would not come near men on the other hand. It took one of the volunteers, Nick, two weeks for Woolly to even approach him. By the end of our stay, Woolly had become the surrogate for one of the baby Squirrel monkeys, that clung desperately to his back at every moment – much to Woolly’s disgust. He tugged and flicked at the Squirrel monkey to get him off. Having the Squirrel monkey on Woolly made it even harder for you to get them off when cleaning was finished. The Squirrel monkey nipping and scratching at your fingers when you tried to escape the grip of Woolly.
   
   
   Baby Woolly biting my arm as I tried to remove him
   
   
3. Poo Fact: There was a lot of poo. From bird poo, monkey poo and Galapagos turtle poo, puma poo was definitely the worst, and Claire and I got the lucky job of cleaning the Puma cage. The poo, mixed in with mud, rain and pee, had the most putrid smell which was amplified when you dug deeper into the puma’s poo trench. Any whiff that got up your nose made you gag. Better yet, we had to carry buckets of the stuff. You will not appreciate the difficulty of such a task if you have never carried a fully layden bucket of mud, poo and pee (if you don’t believe me, maybe you should make some mud pies and test it out). Carrying the buckets, that had to have weighed at least 20kgs, was made even more difficult by the matter inside that threatened to slosh everywhere and all over you with every step you took. After going down 15 stairs and then up a good 50 more you eventually arrived at the ‘shit pit’ where, you guessed it, all animal waste, and the odd animal carcass is disposed of, only to empty your bucket and head back to the pumas for more. 
   We still smell of puma poo.
   
   
4. Though having stinky poos, patting pumas was definitely an highlight. ‘Leo’ and ‘Pumara’ were rescued from someone’s home, and they behave exactly like your household cat. They purr and rub their backs along the wire, like a cat does along your leg to get you to pat them. And you do. You stick your hand entirely through the wire fence and stroke them. Idiotic when you think about it now, but for some reason at the time you seem to forget that these majestic creatures are 10 times bigger than your normal cat, coming up to at least your knees and that they have teeth that would take off your fingers in one easy crunch – you ignore the donkey leg in the corner that they are devouring that gives you an indication of the strength of their jaws. You are so sucked in by their purring and longing for pats that you quite willingly stick your hand through the fence. Claire got a small nip from Leo which quickly brings you back to reality.
   
   
5. Being clambered on by Coatis. Resembling a small anteater, these little critters are very inquisitive. They get a good whiff of you first (apparently to check your not edible), and will then clamber onto your lap and fall asleep. Even if you were standing up, you will soon be crouching, for they dig their very sharp claws into your legs and climb up you like a possum would a tree. They will even take flying leaps at your back from their house which is at least a metre off the ground, as one volunteer found out when she felt a huge force hit her in the back of the head – flying baby coatis. The other trouble: the two older ones, blind from various human inflicted injuries, don’t get along with the baby. As they can’t tell where the baby is very well, you often found your self caught in the middle of a coatis fight with a baby on your lap, and an adult coatis trying to climb your leg.
   
   Baby coatis in between my gumboots
   
    
6. Poo fact: Apparently, small bird poo is extremely toxic to humans – leading to blindness and respiratory problems  if you experience prolonged exposure to it (aka Cryptococcosis). Oh the handiness of having a vet in your house that knows these kinds of things! The result: Claire and I cleaning bird cages with headscarves over out noses and mouths. Though probably slightly paranoid, the amount of poo a bird does in a day is incredible. Times this by 20 birds in an enclosure, and your scrubbing at it means you’re inhaling a lot of poo particles. No, I don’t regret looking like an idiot and wearing something over my face - I’d much rather that than bird poo up my nose!
   
   
7. By far the funniest animal, and one of my favorites was the Galapagos turtles. Heratio, at 190 years old, loved to be hand fed papaya, and loved a good chin rub. He would spot you coming down the path and would wander over to the gate to wait for you – though he would never beat you there.
   
   
   That’s Heratio on the right and his mate Yoshi.  
   
   
8. Playing vet for a day (and night). Iza, while cleaning the rabbit cages one day discovered that one of the bunnies was very ill with an infection and was not eating. Because of the way rabbits bodies operate, in that like cows and horses they have to eat all the time to keep acids in their stomachs at a normal level (i think…), if the rabbit did not eat she would die very soon. This meant that every few hours, around the clock, the rabbit had to be force fed by syringe a concoction of vitamins. When the vets left, rabbit duty passed over to Claire and I. This meant 2 am duty. For once we got up when the alarm went off, as tempting as it was to press snooze. In the freezing cold, torches in hand, we headed to the rabbit runs. I have to admit I was a bit scared of being shot by one of the farm hands. A couple of night earlier they were roaming the property, rifle in hand, because of poachers. We had been told not to walk down the exact road that takes you to the rabbits… nevertheless, rabbit calls. Not 2 minutes in to feeding the rabbit, as I held her in my arms, she began to spasm. At first we thought she was just fighting the syringe and food, so I put her down for a break. She lay down on the floor and passed away, leaving eight little baby bunnies to fend for themselves. It was so sad, but we weren’t doing anything to treat her infection because the Sanctuary didn’t have the resources, so it was inevitable. It’s just shitty when it happens on your watch.
   
   
9. More facts about poo: rabbits have two kinds of poo – one which they eat again because there is still vitamins in it and turtles don’t seem to ever poo. Cows here on the other hand poo all the time – a fountain of poo – because they are fed nothing but fresh grass. Interesting (and kind of gross), huh.
   
   
10. Donkeys for dinner. Having a lot of carnivores requires a lot of fresh meet. While on the odd occasion dinner would entail rabbits or guinea pigs (I had to chop one up), for the most part it was donkeys. Unfortunately for the donkeys in the bottom paddock, they were these donkeys, including the beloved ‘Percy.’ Twice a week, a donkey was shot and cut up to be feed to the 4 lions, 1 jaguar, and 2 pumas. Who got the task of cutting up the donkey ? The volunteers of course. I never put my hand up for chopping up duty. I figured helping in the killing of a rabbit for the new mother lion was enough. Though I did witness several limbs being removed. While I wasn’t at all queasy when watching, I don’t think that I could be the one with the machete in my hand. There is something about an animal having it’s head and fur still attached that makes it so much more real. Like chopping up a chicken. When it is cooked, no problem. But in Tambillo, you buy chickens uncooked, and totally intact – I’m talking head, feet, gizzards. I had a hard enough time chopping up the chook for curry. I didn’t think it was time to advance to donkeys.  
    
    
11. Need to move an animal? A lion perhaps? Call your neighbourhood taxi driver. Not having that much room at the sanctuary, animals come and go very quickly. In one day, we lost 2 lions. Who did they call to transport them to a refuge in Cuenca, a town a few hours south? Danillo, the friendly neighbourhood taxi driver that drove us from Quito. He piled them into the back tray (anesthetised of course) – where we would normally sit. On top of that, he added an anesthetised baby bear, 4 monkeys and about 30 birds. I had no idea what was going on after coming up from the Galapagos and walked around the back of the taxi, only to find a lion, out cold, laying unsupervised and not locked up in the back of the truck. Gulp.  It was a site to be seen – stay tuned for photos.
    
    
12. Cows… those of you who know me will know that I love cows. I found this calf irresistible...
    
    

13. Other random photos

Flickr Tags: blogsherpa. Santa Martha Animal Rescue,Ecuador,Tambillo,Quito,Qantas