30 OCT - 17 NOV
Santa Maria is a small town, in fact, it's a small village located about 8kms down the road from Parque Ambue Ari. Of an evening it became our one and only saviour, a refuge from the park, a place to relax and obtain a cold beer. Essentially it was our local hang out, one that allowed us to complain away the ills of the day and recalibrate the mind in order to mentally and physically prepare for the following day, which would usually kick-off with a 6am wake up call. The 'rules of the park' were such that each volunteer was required to be in camp by 7am at which time they would undertake their 'weekly' task. This could involve one of a number of activities such as feeding one of the many species of birds in the avairy or one of the other 'minor' variety of animals. The weekly task was also to be quickly followed by an assigned daily task, to be completed between the 7am-8am timeslot, and it was one that could range from cleaning the lavatories (long drops), getting breakfast ready for the masses (usually between 40-50 people) or sweeping the patio (a revered area of glorified dirt and rocks infront of the common room). Once completed then it would be time for breakfast and our most favoured time of day, 'annuncios'. Loved the 'ole annuncios! They were delivered each day by Zach, a typical Australian with the standard type of drawl that had me wishing at times that we, Australians as a collective unit, could at least upgrade our accents to something a little more dignified and that had with a little more class. Some sections of the 'global villages' say that it's part of our charm but really, when you get to a place where you think is the middle of nowhere and the first voice you hear is that of an Australian saying, 'G'day mate, how 'ya goin', alright?' - seriously, the accent gets on your nerves. Well, to qualify that, it's probably not so much the accent as for the fact that Australians are anywhere that you can think of on this planet, literally anywhere! When I was in Estonia they had a saying in the hostels that went like this, 'Germans are everywhere and Australians are anywhere!'. Randomly think of any remote place you can, travel there and I'll make you a bet that when you arrive there will be an Australian opening up a local brew and they'll greet you with a 'Hey mate, wanna drink?'. As a person that likes to travel and as an Australian I have to say that this unique trait can sometimes be more than a little annoying.
Our standard days in Ambue Ari more often than not involved long stints out in the sun, walking cats, doing construction or sitting back in hammocks watching monkeys escape into their Amazonian hideouts (yeah ok, so I had it easy).What this also often meant however was that that getting sold on the idea of an 8km journey down to Santa Maria each evening was rather easy. The nightly ritual kind of went like this, 'Hey, are you going down to Santa Maria tonight?'
...'Well, I wasn't going to but now that you've put up such a persuasive argument, how could I refuse?'. Also, the fact that the 'park rules' stipulated that alcohol was not allowed on the property and that a lack of electricity meant that the standard temperature of any cold drink that you could find in the park was about 30 degrees meant that Santa Maria was the ONLY place to go after getting beaten down by the steamy climate.
Now I have to say that I had quite a few issues with the way the park was run and my stay there in general was less than ordinary but with that said there were also a couple of standout moments that I'll carry with me for a few years to come. I recall one night whilst a group of us were heading out of the bar attempting to make our way home from Santa Maria we were stuck for a ride.Not an uncommon event considering that the local bus that travelled the line passed somewhere in the vicinity of every three hours or so. On this evening there were probably 10-12 of us waiting up on 'highway 1' hoping that a good samaritan would come along and allow us to jump a ride back to our base. Watching a small flicker of light from several kms down the road grow larger and become a beacon of temporary hope, a prospective saviour of enduring boredom, we jumped out in front of the vehicle as it confronted outskirts Santa Maria and managed on this occassion to hail ourselves down a dual carriage cattle truck.Realising our opportunity, the 'United Nations of volunteers' clambered aboard our Bolivian vessel of austerety and prepared ourselves to sail across the 8km Amazonian sea of darkness to our abode.Now imagine this, there we were, twelve of us sitting about 3-4 metres above the ground on large wooden pailings that acted as the cattle fence on each respective carriage. Arched down the middle of the carriage from the back to the front was a large metal bar which provided us with support and was little bit of safety assurance from the truck's often wayward movement. As the truck drove off into the darkness pulling anywhere between 70-90kms an hour, there we were atop the cattle express, 6-8cms of wood to support our rear ends and with only a metal bar to hang onto in order to provide stability. If there had been a need for the truck to stop suddenly for any reason then it would have been a 'midnight carnage affair' and the local papers would have been reporting a major international incident. Not that I really thought of that at the time, what really captured my imagination on the journey were the small blueish coloured lightning strikes occuring on either side of the road amongst the tall trees and dense vegetation. Hurtling along the desolate road these captivating streaks of light were the only things that could be seen, brought to you directly by the luminescent abdomens of the fireflys that made this area their home. Sometimes its the very small things that manage to capture the imagination.
Motoring home 'Parque style'
By the time our stay at the park had ended it seemed that Santa Maria had a lot to answer for. It was virtually the only place that we could go in order to get away from the park albeit with the very same people that we had worked with during the day and hence I'd say that it had a lot to do with the high incidence of 'musical beds' that was taking place on most nights and it also had to do with a moderately embarrasing/amusing episode that I had one evening after the park Halloween party.
The Halloween Party - cause of all things stupid!
I don't know what I was trying to explain to Dina but I think she was thinking 'What the f**k has he taken!?'
No wonder I lost my way home!
Seriously, do I have teeth missing here?
Savouring the opportunity to have several drinks and take advantage of the only half day free that we had in the week (we worked 6.5 out of the 7 days), I along with many others decided to tie one on in order to celebrate Halloween (although we never really needed a reason to drink). Calling it quits somewhere around 2:30am I was fortunate enough to catch one of the local line buses that happened to be passing as I made my way out of one of the two locals we frequented. Now the 10 min ride down the road was uneventful but when we got to the park I immediately realised the error of my ways. The park was electricity free, which equalled no light. Thanks also to the density of vegetation the entirety of this place was also pitch black. Fortunately I had made my way back to home base with two other revellers who had brought toches, unfortunately our barracks, or rather the one that I'd been assigned was 300mtrs down the road from the main camp. Immediately realising my predicament I asked around for a light and was kindly handed a Bolivian lighter. Now if you know anything about Bolivian lighters you know that they aren't built to last....very long...at all. Flicking my only source of light as I walked down the road I must have looked like I was some type of maniac at a Bryan Adams concert. Surprisingly I managed to find the start of the trail from the main road that led to our digs - and then - it was lights out. The crappy piece of Bolivian ingenuity literally crumbled in my hands! I had absolutely nothing! It was pitch black, I was standing on a road in the middle of the jungle with nobody around me, relatively smashed and desperately wanting to crash out for the night. Using my amazing powers of reasoning I decided to ditch my currently inoperative sense of sight and closed my eyes hoping that my other senses would be heightened and that I'd be able to feel my way along the trail, straight into the comfort of my straw matress bed...FAT FREAKIN' CHANCE. On my first attempt I must have made it 10mtrs before crashing into vines, thick undergrowth and all things jungle like. Actually it was this first attempt that sobered me up rather quickly as it took a few mins to get my bearings and find the trail again and in those mins I thought I really would be spending a night out in the jungle amongst the tarantulas, snakes and all possible things nocturnal. Making my way back to the road I attempted to mentally visualise the path and then when I was satisfied with the route that I'd mapped out I renewed my assault on the trail. Unfortunately I failed yet again! Walking back to the road yet again I prepared myself for one of two options. Wait for someone from our barracks to make their return, which I think at this point in time was only Dina and really,who knew when the hell she'd be back, or, there was the option of waiting alongside the road until dawn. Both those options quite frankly were crap, especially knowing that a bed was only 50mtrs away. I decided to give it another crack. Walking deeper into the jungle than my previous two attempts I thought on this occassion I might just have passed through the eye of the needle, that was until a copped a mouthful of leaves. It was then that it dawned on me. Whilst I was probably only 15mtrs away from the front door I was also effectively lost. Those fateful and familiar words of Axl Rose quickly entered my mind, 'Do you know where you are? You're in the jungle baby...you're gonna die'! So, what are you suppose when you're lost in the jungle at 3am? Well, there's only one logical thing to do...and out it came, 'Help....Heeelp, I'm lost!'....'Can someone help me please!'. Calling out into the pitch black at 3am, waking up your neighbours. How do you think that would go down as a way of winning friends and influencing people? Thankfully it was one of the permanent Bolivian staff, Jaime, that jumped out of bed and kindly scouted me out with a torch. The big smile on his face just screamed out 'You're such a dumbass!'. I knew he was right but I was also tanked and at that point could only be greatful for his rescue.
What I was hoping NOT to run into!
Me being 'AWESOME' - I know, it's really not hard for me!
It was only the next morning that I actually started to put together how crappy and badly run the park was. After a park 'sanctioned' night out we were still required to make it to daily and weekly tasks at 7am the next morning, set kindly on the only half day off per week that we had. Somewhat fortuitously I managed to roll out of the comfort of my straw matress bed for the the 7am start but Dina stuck to her hungover guns and stole a few additional hours in order to make up for the hours she traded against the evening before. This unfortunately did not sit well with the 'Parque elders'. After being called into the office for administrative purposes on this morning Dina was then given a somewhat sanctimonious 'lecture' regarding her duties and obligations in the park - the line that I'll always remember from this conversation, one that stands out for its sheer insensitivity and stupidity was this, 'I don't care if you're vomiting out of your nose, you still need to get out of bed and make it for your tasks each day!'. Excuse me but what kind of retard delivers a line like that, straight faced and means it? In fact it was also this same dumb ass girl that laid down the law regarding how the park should be portrayed online in terms of the photos we 'should' be posting, i.e., no photos of cats jumping, none of them hissing or being aggressive in any manner. Apparently photos like these would only show the park in a poor light and would damage its reputation! Oh really!? So essentially you don't want people to know that the park is dangerous, that you can in fact be attacked at any point and be injured quit significantly and seriously. In addition the website doesn't mention anything about its lack of medical facilities, that the only person that can really assist you is a veterinarian that will simply place iodine and a band aid on the most serious of injuries, that the park has no form of transport at its immediate disposal and that for serious injuries you'd need to endure a 5hr journey to Santa Cruz.
Fight night at the park - I wondered how I earnt the nickname 'Balboa'??
Whoa, I swear I left my car keys here - no more pina coladas for me!!
In short, in my opinion, the park acted in a manner that was both negligent and fraudulent, something that I advised them of when I let them know that I'd be leaving earlier than the original one months stay that I signed on for - the immediate response being 'well, I won't be giving you a refund'...really? After having advised you of how shonky I believe your dealings to be, howI think your organisations totally misrepresents what and how they do it, your leading concern is standing firm on not returning $60 USD to me? Seriously?
The 'Monkey trail' - the route that I took to 'work' each afternoon
Parque central
The end of my stay at the park quite fortunately came earlier than expected and it did do in slightlymade parque friends (Nick and Jade) had also decided that they'd enough of this little farce in the jungle and plotted their escape. Advising the parque representatives of their desire to leave two weeks earlier than scheduled the none too surprising response was 'ok but you need to pay for the remaining two weeks that you said you'd stay'. Also none too surprisingly the response from Nick was something roughly equivalent to 'You're dreaming!'. After what I was told was quite a heated argument and what involved tears from the dumbass volunteer that I mentioned earlier, Nick was directed to leave the park the very next day. Now without going into the specifics of how disgraceful and unprofessional I thought the actions of the park were, Dina made the call that in act of solidarity that we should make our 'escape from Alcatraz' at the same time. This was a no-brainer for me. My time at the park had been the only low point on my trip thus far and leaving in order to get back on the road was something that I'd been considering for nearly two weeks. My bags were packed in melodramtic circumstances. Approximately 5 days before our readjusted date of departure, our newly under 10 mins and a few hours later D and I were on the floata heading for Ascension de Guarayos and beyond that the rest of my South American excursion.
