Inti Wara Yassi - Playing With The Big Boys

21.04.2012 - 24.04.2012 28 °C

The rain kept going all night and the girls that are working in the Aviary measured 45cm overnight.

I let my guard slip while I was playing with Cesar and he proceeded to give me a hard bite with like half of my hand in his mouth. Only one tooth pierced the skin but my hand feels really bruised and tender. He got me good haha. There is a reason why these guys are in pens.
I also got groomed by Baby for the first time. It is probably going to be the last time as well because he is mental when it comes to grooming. It felt like a dog trying to dig a hole into my skull. He cut up my scalp and when I pulled away he grabbed a chunk of hair and ripped it out. It gave me an instant headache and I actually got an egg from where he ripped my hair out. It was pretty intense but I can easily avoid that happening again by not presenting my delicate skull within reach.

At dinner I was asked by Megan (volunteer co-ordinator and Spider Park specialist) to change from Quarantine and dedicate 2 months to the spider monkeys in Spider Park. There were several reasons for this. One of them being that the spider monkey group known as Los Negros is quite unstable now that they attacked and removed one of the core males (Mickey-Thomas) from the group and by having more long term volunteers it is one less stress for the monkeys not to have to deal with new people. I agreed, which means that I actually only have a couple of days left with the capuchins in Quarantine. I’m a bit sad about leaving Quarantine after only 2 weeks; I intended on staying for at least 6 weeks. I really wanted more time to further develop the relationships that I have worked so hard for. But perhaps I will go back there after the 2 months with the spiders.

The last couple of days went smoothly. As expected I was bitten both days, once by Corolla right on the first joint of my index finger, it’s also a bit infected so I’ve been washing it with Iodine. Baby also got me again as I was feeding him peanuts.

I also had a hilarious moment while I was lying on the ground with a curious Eric checking me out. Not sure if anyone has lain down before so he was really curious. He got fixated on my lips and I opened my mouth to show him my teeth and he instantly shoved his arm up to his elbow down my throat. It was so scary and hilarious at the same time. Luckily he didn’t grab any of my guts, but I certainly won’t be letting a monkey look down my throat again.

I was able to get a few nice photos on the second last day but it’s almost impossible to use a camera around monkeys. They all go crazy trying to grab it and bite it and smash it so that is a shame but these memories will take a very long time to fade!

What was meant to be my last day in Quarantine ended up being fairly horrendous when I woke up at midnight needing to run to the toilet to simultaneously shit and spew. This repeated every hour until 6am. I also had a crazy fever and I slept in a shirt, 2 jackets, and track pants, where I normally just have boxers on. So I had a day off – this was a bit shit though because I had planned on taking heaps more photos. But I’m sure I’ll get back there some point

So tomorrow I start my first day in Spider Park – not looking forward to that hill but it will be a good experience to work with such a different species of monkey.

These are a few of the pictures that I took.

^^ KP being super cute as usual