Villa Tunari Day 2

We woke up this morning and had a great breakfast. There was so much food with so many fresh fruit and jam and bread. It was so nice. Our friend that we had met from Australia had left early this mornign to go to the other animal park farther away. We decided to go and visit today and then move on. We tried and the timing just isn´t right. If I want, I can come back some other time.

After breakfast we walked to the animal park. The lady asked us why we weren´t volunteering and it really came down to timing. I wore my stud earings and my watch. The website said no flasy jewelry and they are not flashy. Well, we walked into the park adn little did we know that the monkey´s are wild and running all over the place. One ran up and jumped on Sarah. She was freaking out. I sadly was lauging and taking pictures. Then I was attacked by a monkey who ripped the face off of my watch, that I didn´t know came off, and tried to get it back. However, you don´t take things away from these monkeys. Luckily it lost interest and dropped it. My watch face lived, it just have monkey love bites on it.

We then went to the monkey part of the reserve. We sat and played with some monkeys for a bit. Then we decided to walk and check out the rest of the park and come back to the monkeys. Walking towards the birds and other animals, I was attacked by 4 little yellow monkeys. They all jumped on my tring to take out my earings and just causing hvock. This was sarah´s revenge. Instead of helping em, she just laughed and took pictures.

We then went for a walk and ran into a few people. They were sitting on a trial playin with monkeys. We asked if they volunteered and they said they did. They worked with an Andean bear named Baloo. But he wsa taking a nap, so they were waiting for him to wake up so they could take him on a walk. I can´t think of how cool volunteering would be. One of the volunteers started swinging on vines with the monkeys which was fun to watch. Another one was holding a spider monkey and petting him. Then another guy, picked up this little opposum/ardvark type creature by the tail. They said it was really mean. So he held it by the tail and let the monkeys take turns slapping it. THIS WAS NOT COOL! Finally he let it go and I thought, no wonder why hes mean.

All of a sudden, a bear came walking down from the trees with a little harness on. It was Baloo. I didn´t know that they ment he was sleepign here. He was so cute. He was done with his nap and ready to go on his walk. He had a little harness and a little leash. It was the cutest thing. So, we kept walking to some waterfalls. We saw monkeys on the way. One of the monkeys got lost and cried for his friend. It was so sad. We are in the middle of the jungle, its hot and humid and I have drenched my shirt in sweat with the climb up the mountain. On the way up I banged the heck out of my toe,which was a pretty brutal cut, but I kept on trecking. We made it to the top, looked at the view and played with some monkeys. Then we decided it was time to go back and play with some more monkeys at the bottom. Plus we were really thirsty.

On the way down, we stopped off at the bird enclosure. These birds are so beautiful. We talked to one of the volunteers for a while and she told us some of the birds´stories. She also told us about the little devilish monkeys who run around, steal the birds food and torment them.

It was time to go back to play with the monkeys. This was so much fun. The monkeys would lay on you, want you to pet them, feed them and play wit them. We sat there all day. When you would walk on the trails, the monkeys would get lazy and jump on your shoulder for a ride. My toes got completely bit by little ants. It looked like I had some weird disease. We sat and played with the monkey all day. Some of them had leashes and were tied totrees because they weren´t completely socialized yet. Others had small leashes where they walked themselves and the rest were wild. Sarah ended up really liking this place and said we should come back again tomorrow. I had no complaints.

So, we had spent the entire day at the reserve and then went to get some dinner before we headed back to the hotel. We stunk. We sweat all day and smelled like monkeys. Its not a pretty smell. But we are ready to do it all over again tomorrow. One of the best days I have ever spent!

03/26/2008