Some of the spectacular sights we saw on a daily basis...
After settling into our ant-ridden bunk beds, donning our long sleeved jungle wear and putting on our hole-ridden wellies, we were put to work. Dave was given the job of monkey man, as alas only men can enter the monkey park. This is due to a black howler monkey called Tahlia who hates females of all species and attempts to urinate at them in fury. Her sweet smile belies a mega demon with issues.
However the other 3 howlers were very friendly indeed and just required a little instruction on how to be monkeys in the wild, having lived all their lives in cages or serving in restaurants. Most afternoons consisted of trying to get them to climb tress, find food, peel bananas and ween them off fags and PG tips.
Getting them to do anything other than lie on Dave was fairly hard though.
Here you can see the older male, Woody, on Dave´s knee. he is so called due to the constant erection he sports. Look carefully, he isn´t camera shy.
The youngest one, B´ton, was raised by the resident spider monkeys and still believes he is one, resulting in a lot of badly judged leaping and subsequent falling on face.
As girls weren´t allowed near the monkeys, and big cats were only assigned to those volunteers staying for a month, Sophie got the glamorous task of construction despite her lack of any DIY skills whatsoever. In fact, in the space of 5 days, she managed to pick up a massive piece of mouldy wood (in an attempt to look strong) and get stung by a scorpion, take a crow bar to her already thrice broken nose and chop a chunk off her thumb with a machete. Tim Allen eat you heart out!
...with a nose on the mend waiting for a hitch.
Both of us also took on the challenge of building a new compost toilet, which involved digging a 12 foot hole whilst trying to avoid the attentions of the local spider monkeys.
Was great fun, though as we were building it next to the old toilet, the earth we were digging was more or less full of old poo so it did require a certain strength of character.
This is the beast in all its glory.
All the hard work, lack of sleep, intense heat and mosquitoes resulted in friday nights ending up like this. it didnt help that rum was 1 pound a bottle.
On the final day, we were both allowed to go out with a puma on their flooded, fungus ridden trails, quite a treat after 2 weeks of digging and poo scooping. Dave spent the day with 3 very tame puma sisters, wading after them, waiting for them as they cat-napped and attempting not to fall over as they ran through the jungle on a leash.
The lack of photos of Sophie is because she got given a horny cat who kept on pouncing on her, resulting in a few scratches and one very scared tourist! Back to poorly executed construction it was.
All in all, was a grand old adventure and well worth the battle scars!We made some great friends and laughed a lot more than we cried!
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