Construction

The past 2 weeks have been busy at the park. We're in the second phase of construction, the locations for the cages have been cleared and the ditches and holes for the posts have been dug. This week volunteers are working on cementing the posts so hopefully it wont rain too much!  We were able to buy all of the supplies needed although some of them took longer than expected to arrive.  We spent an antire morning with the whole camp carrying rocks and sand to Koru´s cage!  Luckilly Sarah and I convinced Karen (an old volunteer who came back the park to work with Leo) to take over construction when we leave.  Working with Leo the past two weeks has been great.  Im really glad that I had the opportunity to swich cats before I left the park. Ill be posting some photos of the construction work soon when I have acess to faster internet!

Fundraising!

For the past week Sarah, Emily, and I have been fundraising at the park. A few of us are probably not coming back here for awhile and we wanted to take on some sort of construction project before we left.  There is so much that the park needs and although we all can donate money when we go home you still need volunteers at the park to make it happen.  After debating what was needed most we chose to build new cages for Koru (a young puma) and Mariano (a small Brazilian jungle cat).  We picked projects that we could realistically raise the funding for and complete within a month before we leave the park.  Things have been going great!  We have been making breakfast and desserts every night for volunteers to purchase and it has been a big hit.  We also held an auction where people could bid on things like a 45 minute massage, a romantic dinner for two, and having your laundry done by another volunteer.  We also convinced two of the guys to wrestle in the compost (gross!) to benefit the auction which raised 1000BS alone.  So, today Sarah and I are in Santa Cruz to buy all of the fencing and tools we will need to build the cage.  We raised over 10,000BS in just over a week which is about 2/3 of what we need altogether!  We are going to continue the fundraising and hopefully we´ll be able to purchase the rest of the materials soon.  Volunteering at the park is awesome, but you don't always know whats going to happen in the future to the animals you work with.  We all hope that the next volunteer to work with your cat will to their best but it will be great to contribute something that will permanently improve their lives.  Koru was brought to the park in an emergency, when he was discovered tied to a dumpster living on a military base and since the park didn't have any room he was temporarily put in a very small cage intended for birds or small animals.  Mariano has been at the park for a year, but since he is not a large cat he has not always had a permanent volunteer when numbers are low.  Unfortunately he has been living in the quarantine area for all this time and he is often switched into a smaller cage to accommodate new animals coming to the park.  Now he will have a decent size permanent enclosure.  Anyone who wants to help can send a donation by mail!  We will be fundraising for about one more week. Since everything here is purchased in Bolivianos a donation of just $5 is equal to 35BS :)

On another note, I'm switching cats.  Im really excited because tomorrow I get to go back to Leo!  Unfortunately, the reason I'm switching is because Engine jumped me pretty violently.  He got my arm when he jumped and by chance he got quite close to an artery so it was bleeding a lot.  I'm fine now but it was a bit scary.  Regardless, they decided his previous volunteer would switch back onto him because he is becoming more difficult to work with.  Marc may have more success anyways because sometimes the male cats respond better to male volunteers.   It will be awesome to get to work with Leo again for my last few weeks :D  Jane Goodall is visiting the park next week too!  There´s a short article on the CIWY website about her visit.  We took a half day to do construction projects for her arrival and I helped paint all of the dorms which was a fun and they look great!

3 days of trekking

After staying at Ginger´s for a week I decided to go on a trek. Practically everyone that comes to South America does one at some point so I figured I shouldnt be missing out! I was planning on going to Machu Picchu during my last trip but it didnt happen. (It´s my excuse to keep coming back :) Chris and Sol know a guide that has been highly recommended by a lot of travellers so I decided on a three day, two night, trip to a great fishing spot. And the best part was we were going to take horses there! Horseback riding is one of my favorite actvites and at home it is prohibitivly expensive and you horse is usually retricted to walking, what fun is that? Well, here in Bolivia of course no one is worried about anything so you can basically do whatever you want on your horse! Good for me, bad for the couple that decided to go on the trek as well. Many people fail to realize that if you are not an experienced rider you will probably not enjoy being on a horse for more than an hour or two. Definately not for 6 hours. So, after about an hour they decided to get off the horses and walk, but it would have taken 10 hours instead of 7 to get there without riding. The rain was a deal breaker and they decided to head back to the farm. It all worked out because there wasnt too much more rain and the tent would have never fit all 3 of us. So I had blast cantering with Galla and Vicente (my guide) couldnt believe I didnt fall off when she took off :D


So the first day we took the horses as far as we could and then hiked for about 2 hours along the river. Unfourtunately my camera case and extra battery are floating downa rive in Bolivia somwhere not because when I was jumping onto a rock in an attempt not to get my feel wet my backpack unzipped and they fell out. I wasnt happy but they´re not the worst things I could have lost. :/ We camped on the beach of the river the first night and at about 3am I opted to abamdon the tent (I was pretty cold) and sleep by the fire. Of course, on the coldest night since Ive been here I didnt have my brand new 20° sleeping bag! I had left it at the farm because I didnt want it to get dirty haha little did I know it was going to be freezing the next 2 nights! Well, I survived anyways. The fish tasted great, we made a soup for dinner and then ate them cooked on the fire for lunch the next day. I also managed to fall into the river and somehow not break my camera. It went something like this ... Vicente mira! Mucho pescado! And then he thought I jumped in to catch them. Not exactly. But shortly after we arrived at our next destination which was the house of a family living in this area. They are the only people for miles but it was pretty cool. They fish and grow everything they need and make the two day trip to town if they need something.
The next day we headed back to Ginger´s with the horses. I was a little sad to leave the farm. Being in transit all the time gets difficult after awhile, and Im starting to get bored of travelling. I bet no one ever thought they would hear me say that! But its differnt when you feel like your missing out on stuff at home. So tomorrow I will go to the park and we´ll see how long I stay there.

Santa Cruz

I left the park on Thursday with a friend, Colleen and it took us 12 hours to get to Santa Cruz instead of 5. We decided to hitchhike (which is a normal mode of transportation here for backpackers and locals) because we thought we had missed the bus. Somehow the truck that stopped for us ended up being the slowest vehical on the road! At least it was free ... We´ve spent the last few days mostly just relaxing at our hostel pool. Luckilly it´s not one of those crazy party hostels, especially because Im still waking up at 6am every morning regardless of when I go to sleep. One of our other friends from the park had to come to Santa Cruz for the day so we all went out to breakfast yesterday. And I ordered a huge sundae :) because I´ve really been missing ice cream!

Tonight we watched The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. I thougth it was an interesting story, but it was pretty long. Tomorrow we´re going to Samaipata for one night. It is supposed to be a beautiful village in the Cordillera Oriental. We´re also going to visit an organic farm there that we met some volunteers from. Im really glad I´ve had some time in between leaving the park and coming back to the states because it is a lot to adjust to.

Santa Cruz is also climbing to the top of my favorite cities in SA. It is more expensive than most other parts of Bolivia, but in perspective it´s still really cheap. Today we went to a salon and my pedicure cost about $3 :) Another think I love about this city is that there is an endless supply of street vendors selling various kinds of empanadas and juices. Today my refresco of choice was coco which is a juice made out of the coconut milk mmhhh!