Every day at Ambue Ari

This entry, in all it´s rushed imperfection, is dedicated to the memory of my Grandma Jeanne, who died this morning; a fighter and a gentle spirit to the end. Je t´aime Grand-mère.

I´ve just arrived in Santa Cruz after a month at Ambue Ari wildlife sanctuary. I´m not made for the city; already I miss the sounds of macaws and howler monkeys through the walls of my room rather than cars and their blaring horns. The mattress here is hard and lumpy too, but not because it´s made of straw. I feel like a fish out of water... kind of like that catfish I saw swimming across the patio when it rained yesterday at Ambue Ari, just barely able to breathe. But you can get used to almost anything...
It´s amazing how quickly the exceptional becomes normal.

Every day at Ambue Ari I would go out and spend 6 hours of quality time with a puma named Wayra. Feeding her, walking with her, swimming with her, giving her neck rubs, napping near her, having her lick my hands affectionately, playing with her, swimming with her and even feeling her her teeth and claws on my skin once.  At home I would be in awe just to see a puma up close... heck, I have pulled ticks out of Wayra´s neck and ears! I hate ticks! I don´t even pull them out of my self! (I had two.) Back at camp for lunch I would ask my friends how their jaguars and ocelots were doing. "Yuma almost caught a tejon(coati) on our walk today!" "Meh, Amira´s in heat, so she was really lazy. It was pretty boring." "Sayan hasn´t had a shit in 6 days! Zandro doubled his laxatives..."

Right now it feels like that is real life and this is the abnormal. But it is more real, in a way...

Every day at Ambue Ari I woke up and worked for a purpose. No wondering what the point of doing what you´re doing is. No superficiality, floating through towns and activities like a spectre, trying to take all the new-ness in. Your mind doesn´t block the jungle out in that way that I´ve struggled with during seeing things like Machu Picchu; it gets into you and you only realize after the fact how far in. At least for me.

I got a piercing from my cat partner, Angela, in my left ear this morning before I left the park. We did it in the vet clinic... the same place they keep Sayan´s laxatives and cut Bora Bora worms out of volunteers arms. (Life is funny, I think.) It will remind me of the Parque for as long as I have it and, though I didn´t realize it at seven o´clock this morning, as the needle slid through my cartilege, it will also remind me of my sweet Grandma Jeanne-Marie. The jewellry is a ring. A never-ending circle reminding me that everything is connected. That as some things end: my time at the park, Grandma Jeanne´s life, others are beginning.
A New Day.
Ambue Ari.