Sacha Yacu animal sanctuary

The last week has rushed by and I am melancholy at the thought of leaving the animal centre. It has been absolutely incredible and the peace I feel when I am with the animals and the family that own the reserve is truly amazing. I will and already do miss it so much and hope I can return someday. It just amazes me the fact that I am in the Amazon at this very moment writing on a dusty couch in the communal kitchen, listening to the cicadas and the jungle breath slowly in and out. The air here is fresher and I feel more alive as the jungles heartbeat pulses slowly through the rainforest and me. It is odd but without the modern 'necessities' and trinkets that we have all around us in normal life, one can properly notice the details around themselves and within themselves. Worries slip away and the need to constantly be chatting to people about what's going on across the Atlantic fades away and you can truly be present. 

(Photo by Pip) 

This week was a lot more chill, less manual labour and I fed and played with the animals a lot more as the people at the centre trusted me enough to feed and clean the cages of the animals without supervision which I am so honoured by. Some of my favourite animals are the birds, they are hilarious. Wolf whistling and always greeting us with hola as we walked by or cleaned there cages. Different types of parrots were looked after as well as macaws, all incredibly bright in colour and with their own individual personality. 

The Zonga Zonga monkey is adorable, fluffy and little, basically a round fluff ball with a tail and tiny ears :) he would sing to you as though he was at an opera his mouth a perfect O if you sang to him while you fed him. The Coati which to me looks like a Pisoté which are kind of like mini anteaters but fluffier and with striped tails, we would see a lot of them in Costa Rica when we would go up into Monte Verde. 

The monkeys are adorable and I've heard wild monkeys above us but never properly seen them, but one thing that the monkeys and I have in common is that we both absolutely love sugar cane. Every here when they are first introduced to it bite a bit and suck it before quickly spitting it out, the best way to do it to get the ultimate juice is to just chomp into a large bit and suck the sugar water out of the stem. It's so refreshing and tasty and I love watching the monkeys drink it as soon as we put out a fresh one. The kinkajous love it to, hmm how to explain or describe these cute little creatures. They look a little bit like a slow loris, a tamarin monkey and a cute snub nosed fluffy sloth combined. They are adorable and I get to play with Luna who is a baby kinkajou :) every time I fed them or when I had the job of making their playground of sticks even more challenging. Luna climbs all over you and nibbles your ear with her tiny teeth and licks your face with her extra long tongue. 

 

She is clumsy yet adorable. I am going to miss her so much. We woke her up so early (9:45am - early for a nocturnal animal) today that while she was crawling all over us she was yawning so wide that her eyes would close in cute little lines. Awh I just want to go into the pitch black jungle just to hug her. But then I might get eaten by a ocelot as they are incredibly frequent in this part of the jungle (supposedly..?) 

Anyway I must sleep and listen to the noises of the jungle in this part of the Amazon rain forest one last time xx 

Here are some photos to peak your interest while I download a few more of the animals :) 

Besos 

Xx

M 

Amazon jungle - part 1

 We walk down from the main road, down a slippery steep 'shortcut' to the road/path that leads to the animal sanctuary. The first thing you see are hammocks slung up underneath varies huts dotted around, promising a relaxing atmosphere. We are greeted by the family who run the place and they embrace us with their warmth and love that they clearly hold for us as well as the animals. 

Negro the family dog that walked into the shelter and decided to stay, is the sweetest thing and reminds me of my dogs back home and so to combat missing them I cuddle Negro all the time :) 

The kitchen is very basic yet feels very much like home. We settled in really quickly and soon the centre became familiar and the feeding of the animals became a routine. I loved feeding the birds and the kinkajous, the birds would fly onto you and chat to you while you cleaned their cage and gave them food and the kinkajous are similar to a slow loris and marmoset combined, super cute and Luna the little one loved climbing all over me and licking my neck with her weirdly long tongue! It was adorable. 

Animals can get away with being weird without coming off as creepy, like the monkey called Junkie who decided to cling onto my leg and search my pockets and check under my shirt, bit weird but supposedly he loves women and is scared of men, which is a good thing because as a girl it's very easy to feed him but is a bit worrying as it makes you wonder why he is scared of guys. 

We spent the last 6 days cleaning, feeding and building new enclosures! Lots of satisfying manual labour and the nicest part is you can physically see the difference that you are making as the fences go up or the walls of the new house are built. 

(Cafe in Baños)

It's an interesting part of the 8 weeks as people know each other but just not well enough into backgrounds so assumptions are made and frustration and anger can sometimes feel more exaggerated then what is really going on. I think in the next week it will shift to be more positive, because three main members of our group left. Heidi, Horatio and Joe left early Friday morning as they were only doing three weeks. And for me it was hard as they were super positive and silly and the people I generally felt comfortable with. But the rest of the group are super lovely and so I am excited to get to know them even better. I am actually sitting in a Cafe with Evvy who has the best sense of humour, we are just chilling here while the others go off doing some adventury stuff. We have had one day away from the jungle to shower and relax before heading back into the jungle for two weeks. One week at the animal sanctuary and one helping an Amazonian tribe.

The Amazon itself is insane. You can stand on the hill above the animal sanctuary and see just jungle and clouds for miles and miles. Makes you think how powerful nature is and how important it is the save every individual tree. Each tree is covered in mini ecosystems of all different type, from the base of the tree to the branches with vines twisting around them. I just feel so at peace and at home in the jungle, without the comfort of modern society you really focus on what you are sensing around you and within your feelings as well. You become tuned into your inner person, it's beautiful. 

Pictures will come soon, once I get a connector cord and have some time to sort through the best ones.

Besitos

Xx

Journey into the Amazon

After chilling in Mancora for a few days, soaking up the sun and reenergising before the Amazon. We are on our way into the Amazon to work at an animal rescue centre and visiting/working with a tribe. We are currently staying in Cuenca for a day but off again at 4:30am to head properly into the jungle. Most likely I won't have internet for three weeks but I'll be writing and remembering everything that is going on. 

I'll write soon :) 

Besitos 

Xx

My thoughts

When you are on long bus rides many thoughts can go through ones head. I think a lot about travel and why some countries attach onto us like a second home while others will only ever be places one visited. So far I've only been two countries in South America but even thinking to the travel I've done before there are so many countries that envelope me and others which keep me at arms length. Argentina completely opened her arms to me and I plan to a go back there in order to truly get to know a Buenos Aires, a small bit of a vast country. Peru hasn't enveloped me, it has showed me its mountains, valleys and inca temples. It's beauty is indescribable yet impassable. If I could describe Peru as a person it would be a teenager that's still growing up and so doesn't like advice from outside even if it may be a good idea to listen. :) 

Blurry photo from bus leaving Cusco :) 

Machu Picchu and the trek

Now siting on a bus the trek seems pretty straight forward but it was a pretty tough 4 days. The first day was about 6 hours of walking with frequent breaks an a yummy lunch, not too many up hills or down hills. Now the second day was definitely the hardest. 11 hours door to door, 10 hours straight walking and an hour for lunch and breaks. Steep uphills and steep down hills killed your quads and then your calfs, finally we arrived at the campsite where is poured with rain all night but it was a super cosy tent and we all managed to get some sleep :) the third day was very straight forward 5 hours of flat walking, lots of chatter with Lauren and Heidi because we could actually talk without dying for oxygen. We headed to some hot springs later that evening which relieved our aching muscles and whipped some of the sweat off our tired bodies, crashed into my tent exhausted, ready for the final day to begin. Instead of walking in the morning we instead took ziplines across a valley, the first two simply straight sitting up and then the next 3 were really fun, upside down, flat on my back and then my favourite was super man, lying on my stomach flying 250 feet above a river valley. Then after lunch we walked the final 3 hours to Agua Caliente, the town in the foothills of Machu Picchu mountain. We got into our hostel and showered properly for the first time in 4 days with hot water and soap, it was a beautiful feeling. 

After a yummy dinner I feel fast asleep in a solo room, which was so nice to have a room to myself. 

The crew

The next morning at 4am we got up to see the sunrise over Machu Picchu. We got to see the sunrise but only through the rolling fog over the temples and ruins. It was cold, rainy and misty. I really enjoyed myself because I could really imagine the Inca's living in Machu Picchu within the clouds above everything. The temples and stone work was amazing, the stones were laid so close together and so neatly cut it was hard to imagine how they managed to create such beautiful constructions without any modern day tools. You couldn't even slide a knife in between the stones of the sun temple as it was so evenly constructed, the time and energy given to the temples was a way to show the gods that they were cared about. Such a fascinating history to learn about and think about especially as it is only 500 years old, so actually quite modern when it comes to ancient civilisations. 

After getting completely soaked in the rain we decided to head down back to Agua Caliente to warm up before our trip home to Cusco, where we celebrated our last night with Lauren.

When the clouds cleared (credit to Henny) 

Now I am travelling on the bus sitting next to Evvy watching weird Spanish movies on the communal television. We are travelling from Lima to Mancora in the north of Peru, Lima was interesting. Very busy, dirty and loud. I chilled at the mall wth Heidi and Horatio attempting to shop for basic things but was too tired to navigate the busy South American mall so we decided to eat some wok and head back to the hostel where we chilled before the rest of them went to the water fountains. And coincidently I bumped into my Belgian friend from Ushuaia. So strange to be in the same hostel with him again but it was great to see him and a good reminder of why I love travelling, especially alone as you meet so many incredible people. 

I'll write soon and sorry about lack of photos, they are all on my camera which I can't download until March. Xx

Besitos

Xx