Privateering Done, Volunteering Undertaken
My goodness that title is attrocious. Aight peeps, I will try and give a quick low down as to what Im doing. I am always on a time crunch when in the town of Tena. This time crunch comes about because to get to Reserva Amazoonico before the suns´ light fails, I have to catch a 2:30pm bus and then a 4pm canoe to get back to my home on the range...range of wild and exotic Amazon wildlife that make post cards all over the world wrinkle and fold in desparate jealousy.
Amazoonico is not a zoo, but a rescue center with about 460 animals whose main goal is to nurse, rehabilitate, and reintroduce these animlas who are mostly pets or confiscated from illegal trade and the black market. That line is around the third statement from my introduction speech which I give on guided tours to locals and foreigners alike. Yes, I, Joseph Greenberg, am a wild life tour guide now...following in the foot steps of the late Steve Irwin, R.I.P. If you find yourself harboring a monkey´s curiosity, the foundations website can be found here:
http://amazoonico.org/Some quick stories to tell after 8 or so days: A wooley monkey named Uspa serisouly serves as my alarm clock at 6:30am. My first day saw the brutal task of bloodgeoning a mouse to death to feed a jaguarundi, and my eyes were the first to behold the 5 hour old baby Spider Monkey. All days generally have me (and others) smelling like a rotten apple short of a dumpster by about 10am, and there is absolutely ZERO electricity on the reserve. There is fresh water from a natural spring that we have access to, there is plumbing, there are biblical like hoards of biting insects, and there is a Tamarin monkey named Chilka who is just about the most adorable thing I have ever seen. Paris Hilton, if you ever come to the reserve, I will sick one of the three ocelots on you. There is no hotwater, and for the first three days, I used a waterfall as a shower, while being spied upon, of course by my animal friend Uspa/Alarm clock. There is so much to update, and I will try to do the best I can with the breif free time I have.