1st day at the refuge

Last night, the hotel I am staying at had a "Raligitano night", It's really Raleigh playing the guitar. The staff who was so friendly to me the first night was playing, so I went. Or more like, I had to eat dinner and I wanted to try the local beer (Imperial) and I figured why not listen to some good music. He did play some good music, I won't deny I had a good time. It was a good turn out for his first time at the place. The owner, JT and his son, Luke were there too. Luke is this rambunctious toddler who tends to do what he wants. I think he is hilarious and he has already given me a scare when he ran towards the road for some coconut. But last night, Luke brought his machete, "Macheche". Macheche is made it out of wood, but in the hands of a toddler during an open mic can cause as much terror as a steel sharp machete int he hands of a maniac. As he was throwing around his Macheche, and Raleigh was trying to sing "Sexy bitch", I couldn't help but laugh at the scene I was witnessing. I came all the way from Philadelphia, escaped a snow storm and inevitable double shifts as a hostess, to see a young toddler screaming in Spanglish and throwing his wooden machete at the ground as a grown man tried his hardest to sing acoustically a club song . It isn't what you expect everyday. I surely never expected it.
The restaurant in the hotel has good meals, and therefore I had no problem eating there. I am a little concern at the lack of Costa Rican food in my diet at the moment, but I am in no hurry to stuff rice and beans down my throat. Maybe tomorrow for lunch after I find myself a surf school...

The next morning (this morning), I woke up bright and early at six. It wasn't just my body's reaction to the one hour time change, but also, the fact that I had found the other volunteer in the hotel and she had promised to take me to the refuge at 7am. I couldn't be late on my first day. This particular lady is a Dutch nurse who has been here for two months. She cares for the baby sloths in the nursery and bikes at a reasonable speed. I followed her after I managed to gather the donations that I had brought over (which I couldn't fit all in my backpack). The bike ride is maybe 25 mns at the most on a very flat road. The only real danger are the occasional car that is confused about which side to drive on and the casual stray dog that looks confused on the road. Once I arrived, I parked my bike and entered the residency. This sanctuary is nothing short of paradise within paradise. Even in the rain, I could frolic between Tucans, Lola the parrot and Chai the deer (without counting the baby monkeys that demanded to climb on your shoulders).
I was given a very very quick and brief tour of the sanctuary while everyone was getting the place ready for the first visitors. Cages had to be clean and animals had to bed fed. Among the chaos, I am not sure I learned anything valuable, but I was promised a free tour, and therefore, I took the chance and started working. First, I racked leaves. My second task, given to me by our Costa Rican gardener Jimmy (yes here too the gardeners are from Central America), was to kill every spider I saw and to clean the cobwebs. I stood there as I watched him kill three. He kept putting them in his hands to prove to me they didn't bite and then threw them under his boot. I squirmed while holding my broom and waited for Jessa, my partner for the day. She was not pleased with the news. For the first five minutes, we cleaned cobwebs, then we encountered our first spider. This was no baby spider that we see in North America. This was a palm size (this description might be exaggerated by my imagination) black and yellow spider that inhabited a web made out of silk that the almighty scientists are working with to create bullet proof vests. Paul (the woman who tried to explain to me what the refuge was all about) came around, and I explained to her our task. Since we had been standing there trying to build up the courage to bring this spider down and squish it, Jessa had gotten her broom stuck and was standing still so the spider wouldn't move, while I was on the other side trying to figure out if I would actually be able to squish it once it is on the ground. Paul laughed and told us to wait for one second. She came back with Kyle, a very quiet man who looks like he could either 16 or 40. He grabbed my broom, scooped up the spider and brought it outside. I ran to Jessa's side and we had a shiver going down our spine, while Jimmy was watching all of this smiling. The monster came up behind us and tickled our neck, to get a reaction out of us. Well, we both screamed and swatted at our neck as Kyle was on his way back. The dream team was completed, Kyle would catch the spiders and release them, while we would just take care of empty cobwebs. This plan worked for the rest of the day, until the tour started. I screamed for Kyle, and he came running with his broom and marveled at the giant creature in front of his eyes. - We did commit some abortions as we found spider-egg-pockets on the monkey dorms.- That was the end of my experience with the spider hunting.

The tour had started and I was trying not to show my excitement, all the while checking that I didn't smell like sweat, monkey poop and sloths. I didn't, at least not against the other volunteers. There are many different types of animals at the refuge. The refuge is actually were the owners live. It used to be their garden, until the people of Puerto Viejo, Cahuita, Cocles and Manzanillo found out two biologists from Spain had settled there. One night, a woman dropped off a sick baby jaguar, and as Encar tried to save the baby jaguar, an idea came to her mind. Since so many locals came to them with sick animals, they might as well start to accept injured animals and rehabilitate them. The baby jaguar didn't make it, but throughout the years they had many more animals, some who survived and some who didn't. The ocelot I was so excited to work with died two nights ago of a seizure. It had epilepsy and didn't survive this one particular strong seizure. The only remaining big cat is a Marguay:

This is not the one from the center. The one we have is only approachable by Encar and Sandro (the owners). This Marguay was found around this size (in the video above) at the border of Panama and Costa Rica. Some man was trying to sell it on the black market for 20,000$. The little kitten Marguay, a carnivorous animal, was fed only coffee and bread for months. As you can imagine, it is not fond of humans, especially males. It is also a little shorter than a typical Marguay, but it is such a tiny difference that it doesn't matter. They tried to release it once, and it ate the neighbor's chickens, causing a huge scene in the village. Sandro had to buy new chickens and I don't think the neighbors are friends with the refuge anymore. The second time he was released, he came back with scratches on his face. Encar and Sandro suspect that he was too young to be released and got into a fight and lost.

Most of the animals that were turned over to the refuge were once pets and therefore are either aggressive or too friendly towards humans. It is evident when an animal was a pet. Chai, our white tail deer comes up to you and acts like a dog, licking you for your salty skin and demanding scratched behind the ear. While Lola, our parrot has learned to mimick a baby howler monkey's cry to get attention, and uses it to play tricks on us. She laughs this deep maniacal laughter when her trick works. The most recent dump was this woman who drive from San Jose (remember how it is a four hour drive?) to drop off a baby howler monkey whose mother was shot. Encar is now its mother, and whenever she walked by he cries for her.
There is no feeling like having a baby monkey (whatever it be spider monkey or howler monkey) cuddle into your neck asking for milk at the end of a spider-killing day. I will tell you that much.

On a side note, I did give some of the donations to the center. The vet grabbed the syringes, the coagulating solutions, the Front line and the goat milk and went "So precious. So, so, so precious." I explain to her that this wasn't only from me, but also from my friends, and my mother's friends. She only had one response "You have good friends. Generous friends. Good people." If only she knows that Sunday will be another gift giving day. Anyway, I had to get my picture taken. So after 6 hours of hard labor, my photo is on the web with everyone's donations.

After the bike ride home, I went directly to the beach. This is no Ocean City beach. Those waves hit you hard. I didn't expect it at first, and goodness I swallowed salty water. But the whole experience washed off the crass and sweat of the day. It was refreshing and I wished I could transport people down here, rather than come back up north.

Alright, it is time for a non-Costa Rican dinner!
Ciao, amigos!