Lazy Quirqui... 21 April 2008

Well, 3 days have gone by and there isn´t that much to tell because Quirqui is not the usual puma. He is beautiful to look at, but doesn´t do much at all. I have taken some cute shots though of him relaxing like a pussy cat. He has a beige grey overcoat, is whiter under his belly, and the very end of his tail and ears are brown. He has these amazing grey eyes and because he purrs so much, he looks pretty innocent.

However, on the one day that Sarah had her day off he did put me to the test (I had been warned) and did apply quite a bit of pressure when he had my forearm in his jaw. The thing to do is to remain totally calm, NEVER shout otherwise it excites them even more, and not react or pull back otherwise they will do it more often as it will become a game for them. It was borderline to hurting me but not excruciating. The one time I tried to retreive my arm he would squeeze tighter with its jaw and keep it more firmly place with its huge claws. He showed no interest in other toys, just my arm (because Sarah spoils him rotten and always plays with him and lets him chew on hers, but he is super gentle with her because she´s worked with him for 2 months so she´s passed the ´test´with flying colours by now). He did bruise me internally and I felt it even more the day after but I have survived. I just took a photo of my forearm with teeth marks and scratches for the record. His teeth have been filed, thank God, so they are not super sharp, otherwise I could have got into trouble. It did cross my mind that its jaw are meant to crush bones and that he could have easily done that to my arm, had he so chosen, but then I also tried to remember that he had never ever done that before and so it´d be really bad luck if I were its first victim.

As I said the other day, most people have got accidents here. I saw a guy with a leg in plaster today, and yesterday there was another guy who needed 3 stitches on his ear because another puma had ´attacked´him. As he was the new guy on the block / trek, the more experienced volunteer had warned him that Sishiou (the redder puma) was going to put him to the test too, as a ´rite de passage´type of thing. So, the new guy was kind of prepared. The puma took him to a dead end trek and they just knew it was an ´ambush´... so the chap was expecting Sishiou to pounce, however, because it had rained all night, the poor guy slipped on the mud first and his face hit the ground quite hard which startled the cat so that he went for his face instead of his legs (to bring him down). The cat managed to chew some of his ear off and so understandably the poor chap was pretty shaken and asked to work with a more predictable cat next time.

When I hear stories like this, it makes our Quirqui quite a pussy cat. He is unable to pounce due to his arthritis and he is real gentle 99% of the time. Most people like to walk past its ´house´just to greet him, pat him on the head, or offer their forearm for him to chew on for a minute or two. Everybody loves him. He is SO beautiful too.... I haven´t seen the others, but I heard they are a bit smaller and redder (because they come from different parts of Bolivia). But Quirqui is quite big, Sarah laid down next to him today and his body, with back legs outstretched was as long as hers. He is as big as a lionness I´d say. Same type of body and muscles.

On the one day I worked on my own with him I could tell he missed Sarah. He was like calling out for her, which I thought was quite sweet. And today when she came back, he was extra cuddly with her... like lying next to her, nose to nose, and putting his two paws around her neck, it was just priceless. I took some great photos. She said he had never behaved like this before so I guess it was a case of ´you don´t know what you´ve got until you´ve lost it´.

Sarah had first worked in Monkey Park but within 20 mins one tried to chew off her thumb so she gave up. It was such a vicious attack that 2 months on, her thumb nail is still cracked in two. She told me that another girl got jumped on and a monkey bit her bottom lip so hard that half of it fell off. They didn´t stitch her up but I can imagine she´d look slightly disfigured now. Lip texture is not something that´s found anywhere else on the human body for a graft. So, for all of these reasons, I am really wary of monkeys. We see plenty around (3 types) Q´s house and I even bought a water pistol today to try and protect myself. Some love it, some hate it. Most of them like to wait along the path to hike a free ride on someone´s rucksack but I never let them do that to me... I´d be worried that they´d bite my ears off. I just do not trust them at all. There have been more injuries caused by monkeys than with any other animal.

The job I have is totally boring... Quirqui is beautiful to look at but doing this 7 hours a day is pushing it. I´m ready to go home... 5 days early. Sorry to disappoint. I really feel they do not know what to do with me here. It is obvious that Sarah is doing a great job and does not need any help (she has been doing fine for 2 months without me), so it´s a shame that I cannot be more useful really. It´s hard to find a happy medium here. It´s either so active that you risk getting injured, or so boring that you keep looking at your watch.

There are few animals that pass the ´Quirqui´s house´ too which helps me be distracted. We have lots of tortoises and I like to give them water from its bowl - they always appreciate it. They have some humming birds and amazing butterflies. The big blue morphos and one that is yellow underneath and purple on top.

Sarah told me that once she saw a vivid red snake coming down from a tree, crossing over her hamac to the other tree. Thankfully she wasn´t reading in the hamac at the time. Quirqui just sat up and stared but didn´t move. She was trying to get him to chase it (he is SO inactive it´s untrue) but he wouldn´t. So maybe he could tell it was a poisonous snake !? He once had a frog that was trying to escape from another type of snake... the poor frog ended up straight in front of its nose instead (it must have looked back instead of forward !?). Oops. Another case of sealed fate I guess.

Oh, and I also find wildlife in my room at night. Big juicy cockroaches. Usually one per night. Either behind my curtains or on the walls. I guess they come in from under my front door as there is a big gap underneath. They don´t bother me as much as ants (they too can give you vicious bites) or mosquitoes - you can tell how long someone has been here just by looking at the state of their hands. If it´s flawless, they have just arrived, if it´s covered with white spots and sores then they have been here a while.

The guys who work with the mad pumas, the ones that run up and down steep treks, come back completely drenched inside out. They can turn their boots over and water comes out. You assume they have gone for a dip in the river but no: it´s pure sweat. So much so that it causes them all sorts of open sores on their feet... the skin cracks between toes and all. The things one does for love... boy. This is when I know I am getting too old for this... because I´m not willing to suffer anymore - not within reasons anyway. Today was SO hot, I was sweating doing nothing, so I can only imagine how tough it would have been for anyone walking the hectic cats.

To help pass time I went to the market (15 mins walk) and got our puma some baby toys. A bright pink ball on a string, and another set of 3 balls together with little bells inside so that it could intrigue him. Did I mention that Quirqui has got cataracts !? I noticed this the moment I first set my eyes on him. So, I figured that if my visually impaired people can see bright colours a lot better, surely so could it. My theory proved correct. He is far more interested in the new bright toy than the older, browner ones (that probably blend too much with the soil around him). I conducted an eye test on him (same as you´d do with babies, who cannot talk) and gathered enough info to work out what kind of colours would most appeal to him.

Everything around his ´house´ smells of urine though, we are trying hard to disinfect it all but the smell tends to linger in the air and just reminds me of my incontinent clients! But otherwise, work truly feels like miles away... This is such a complete break from life in London, I feel totally refreshed already (mentally anyway). I think a week would have been enough, in hindsight. A girl who works with the other ocelot (one of the many volunteers who comes back for 4 months every year) had promised to take me to see Tigre, the killing-machine (she has to kill 3 animals per day for her to feel she´s had a good day) but she didn´t show up. Pity.l I also tried to go and see the baby puma as he´s just starting to walk and looks so cute and funny, but never got to see it as it wasn´t in the garden every time I showed up. I was SO frustrated. I heard he´s full of spots on his coat and looks adorable. But I did see some tucans and macaws on the way, via the aviary (where volunteers can get injured too... birds will chew off their shoulders or other body parts!).

The day before, Sarah and I tried to keep busy by making a swimming pool for Quirqui. When he was a bit younger and fitter he could walk to the river and enjoyed it, but now all he can manage is 20 yards, tops. So Sarah had dug a nice big pond enough for him to lie down in it on a hot day and layered it with a plastic lino. We then collected some flat stones to put at the bottom and filled it up with several buckets of water. But so far he has shown zero interest in it. He won´t even put a paw in it. I have tried to make him wet by pouring water on him and he seems to enjoy it but not enough to want a good soak, which is really frustrating for all parties. It was hard work to bring all the rocks from one end of the park to another, but at least it gave us some exercise. I feel I´m getting fatter already just after 3 days of inaction.

Vanessa has been working with another girl for 3 days now, so the ´theory´that Millie walks better alone is a lot bull··· I think. There´s something fishy. Maybe Vanessa felt I just couldn´t keep up. Which is true, but I wish she´d told me to my face. But I´m too old to bother making a fuss about it. Besides, when I see them come back looking shattered I feel I´ve had a really easy day in comparison (though a bit TOO easy in fact).

I also heard that Quirqui is the only puma at the park that purrs. The others don´t seem to do that, so it´s nice to help us monitor his mood. He had such a rough life before he came to the park, it´s lovely to be able to make his last few years so much nicer. He seems to be incredibly forgiving. He is also easy enough to ´read´. The odd groan, the very end of the tail moving, and you usually know when he wants to be left alone.

Amazingly, I still sleep 10 hours a day though I really am not doing much exercise at all. I guess it´s all this fresh air. When I get back to my lovely hotel (set in the middle of the jungle with a kind of botanical garden around the lodge) I like to change into a skirt and wash my hair and condition it and just feel like a ´lady´ again. At the park you are either caked with mud or sweat, neither of which are particularly appealing.

At the moment they have about 60 volunteers and people come over every single day to ask for work. They have all googled ´voluntary work with animals in South America´ and the park came up top of the list it seems. We had 2 more people from Finland, some from the USA, another one from Denmark tomorrow... The French volunteers are pretty much the only ones who haven´t spoken ONE word to me. They talk to Quirqui or Sarah but they completely blank me out. Fine by me. I don´t particularly want to know them either as they all chain smoke. I guess I took the novelty out. Or maybe they are annoyed because my English is better than theirs... but then their Spanish is better than mine. I hardly get the chance to use my Spanish so when I do it really sucks... I make so many mistakes. I am useless. I have no idea how people can understand me.

I continue to enjoy the local cuisine tremendously. Never feeling sick or whatever, touch wood. One day (to pass time!) I worked out that our lovely cook is paid 150 times less than I am, i.e. she has to work 150 hours to earn as much as I do in ONE. It is SO sick. Even the vets here only earn 30BS per day (1 dollars is 7BS) but if a cat or monkey rips off their rucksack and they need to buy another one, it will cost them 40BS and the park doesn´t buy it for them. Some people are seriously dedicated, I have to say.

Bolivia is the cheapest country in South America so our money lasts a loooong time. I think I only spent the equivalent of 10 dollars on all food and drinks in my first week. It could explain why so many people can afford to come back year after year. You work for 1 week in your home country and you can stay here for 3 months pretty much... What was expensive for me was the fee I paid to contribute to the park´s expenses, I was charged the equivalent of 600 dollars for 2 weeks which would be too much for most students but it seems that no one else has paid that at all. People just show up. Not that I mind as it´s for a good cause, but as usual, I seem to be ripped off wherever I go, hum. I just hope that the park did get the 600 dollars, and not just 10% (when I worked at the lion park in South Africa, the in-between agency kept 90% of the profit, sickening).

On Sarah´s day off my driver happened to have ´The Bible for children´on his dashboard. It was a lovely 450 page book, with about 3 sentences per page and a lovely painting illustrating each story. I asked if I could borrow it and it helped me kill 5 hours and brush up on my Spanish a bit. Everybody I have met here is Catholic, but I understand the elders still pray to Mother Nature.

When I got back that day, I went for a swim in the pool, 40 lengths... I had been sitting on my butt all day and felt I really needed to burn some calories. Whenever I get back, I have the house cat waiting for my return. I am used to waiting on Quirqui (I bring him his bowl of water, wherever he is, to save him walking as its legs are so bad) and this little cat must sense I am weak because he will not leave me. He is real pretty, all grey with just a white neck and white booties. Small body, probably just 6-8 months old. He meows all day long, as if he was starving. I share my breakfast with him (it will even eat bread it´s so hungry) and I put some hot milk on a saucepan too. Then at night I buy a sandwich and then I also buy meat for the cat. Then I cut it up for it, make it sit on a stool and hand feed it. The reason I make it perch on a stool is because there are 5 dogs in the hotel and they always steal its food - I reckon it´s why it looks so lean, the dogs look fine. The dogs are all pretty big (one is a German sheperd) always chase me when I come out of the pool and most people wouldn´t like it but after you´ve had your arm in a jaguar´s jaw, dogs look fairly harmless !! I usually turn round and pretend to chase them back and they look totally puzzled and stop barking. The little cat´s jaw look like child´s play in comparison. It is so happy on my lap in the evening, it tends to squeeze his paws and claws tighter but I hardly feel it. Certainly leaves no mark. And I know just where to scratch it for it to purr like crazy... In fact, I tend to do a little experiment, and scratch the grey and white cat and Quirqui in the same place (left and right of their neck, under their ears) and they pretty much react in the same way. Both very contented.

It was raining hard yesterday so I was really happy not to be on the treks if I´m honest. Just to walk to the toilets I almost slipped and twisted an ankle and that was fairly flat. Talking of which, we always have to keep the toilet doors locked because if not, the monkeys go in and steal the toilet paper. And I do not mean the clean toilet paper on the roll... oh no, the soiled toilet paper that goes in the bins (here you cannot flush toilet paper down the drain as it will block it). Then many get sick as they pick up on parasites and all sorts... no wonder. YUKKY.

Righteeo, I´d better sign off. My driver is coming in 10 mins and I want to proof read this quickly. We have a small party at my hotel tonight... I´m usually fast asleep by 9pm but I´ll try and be sociable and stay up a bit.

I´ll be finished in 3 days (my last day will be 24th, Thursday) and, as I said, I´m ready to go already. It´s sad, having booked this and looked forward to it for 18 months, but it´s not at all what I expected. However, I have taken some lovely shots and it has been a huge priviledge to work so closely with an ocelot and a puma. I will never look at them in the same light again. I am just a bit gutted there is no jaguar as it would have completed the picture nicely. Oh well...

I will try and log on again just before I leave for the UK... till then, take good care. OK !?