Comunidad Inti Wara Yassi

After landing in La Paz, Bolivia, my plan was to head straight to Inti Wara Yassi, an organisation that we had heard about through other travellers that look after wild animals that have been taken and sold on the black market. In many cases they try to rehabilitate the animals and re-release them into the wild, however with many of the large cats it is very difficult so the focus is turned to simply giving the animals the most normal and enjoyable life possible while in captivity.

Parque Ambue Ari, where I planned to volunteer, is located in the lowlands of the Bolivian jungle, about 6 hrs drive from Santa Cruz, so after landing in La Paz, I headed straight to the bus station (after a couple of quick photos of the city from El Alto) and got immediately on an overnight bus to Santa Cruz. I spent 1 night in Santa Cruz and jumped on a bus to Ascencion de Guarayos, about 45mins from the park and then took a taxi from there.

One thing I noted in Bolivia, unlike many other countries, is that almost the entire population is made up of indigenous people. There are very few Spanish looking people. In fact the only other ¨white¨ people I saw were Mennonites at the Santa Cruz bus station. The Mennonites are a religious group originally from Germany (I think) and were very conspicuous in that the men apparently have a choice of clothing that consists of a large cowboy style hat, a shirt and either green or blue overalls and the women look wear very old fashioned clothing. Some of the men reminded me of some stereotypical Southern hick farmer from the USA. Apparently they are somewhat similar to the Amish in the US, generally shunning technology and living and farming the land in small communities.

Anyway, I reached the park to find that they were fairly low on volunteers. This was lucky for me as people who only stay 2 weeks generally don´t get to work with the big cats, but I was charged with looking after the quarantine area in the morning and the 3 pumas that are the namesakes of the park, Inti, Wara and Yassi, in the afternoon with 2 other guys.

The first week was tougher than I expected. When I first arrived it was stiflingly hot and the mosquitoes were worse than anything I could ever have imagined. Then towards the end of the week it rained solidly for about 3 days. This meant there were less mosquitoes, but I was constantly wet and often cold. The low point was a few days into my time when I caught a fever, but luckily it cleared up the next day and considering another guy had scored himself some serious puncture wounds from being jumped by one of the pumas, I counted myself lucky.

Despite the difficulties, I was loving working with the animals. Working in quarantine involved taking care of some parrots, tortoises, a small cat (a Geoffrey´s cat I think) named Mariano and a Cappucin monkey named Martina. Martina in particular was a lot of fun once she had begun to trust me and she would happily sit on my shoulder or lap and groom me or catch the mosquitoes that were always hanging around.

The highlight of my days was definitely looking after ¨Las Chicas,¨ Inti, Wara and Yassi in the afternoon. Most days we´d take 1 cat each and take them for a walk through the jungle. I had a few surreal moment when I realised that I was wading through waste deep brown water in the middle of the Bolivian jungle and tethered to a Puma with no other person in sight or within earshot (we would call to each other regularly to check were the others were)... certainly an experience I´ll never forget.

Las Chicas themselves were very affectionate as far as wild cats go. Yassi in particular would constantly be rubbing her head against yours and demanding love & attention. Wara was more stand-offish while in the cage, but was very affectionate when out on her walks. She was also the best looking of the cats as far as I was concerned with amazing blue eyes and a lovely orange coloured coat. Inti was definitely the most independant of the 3 and socialised less with both the other 2 cats and with us, but was still lovely to work with. Despite all of this there were still several times when 1 of them would get in a bad mood and scare the crap out of you with a nasty hiss in your direction... it was good to be reminded every now and again that these are wild cats and not your household tabby.

The second week at the park the conditions seemed to be a lot milder and the mosquitoes not quite as bad (or maybe I just got more used to them) and I really enjoyed my time there. Despite that, I was ready to leave after the 2 weeks. It was a fantastic experience, but not something I feel that I could do for a long time. You have to have SO much love and respect for these animals to work here as so often they can be really difficult to work with and you just have to be so patient with them. I have a great respect for those that volunteer at the park for a long time. I certainly don´t have it in me to do that.

I met some fantastic people and some amazing animals at Ambue Ari and had some great times. It´s definitely an experience I will not forget in a hurry!