Last week at Santa Martha Rescue center

For the weekend we went to Quito and spent Saturday night with other volunteers from Santa Martha. Sunday we went to the middle of the earth. There are no photos, since we didn´t bring the battery. We did some experiments related to the differences in gravity and the direction water spins when it´s drained. Brian got a certificate for balancing an egg on a nail on the equator.

Our last week at Santa Martha involved a lot of chopping down trees for the stairs and the aviary. The aviary was finished by the end of the week and animals were moved from the vet clinic to the new spaces. Some parts of building the aviary were a bit sketchy because it was high up and the ladders weren´t very high. There was a new employee this week that helped out with the construction. Paulien chopped down a big tree and it took 9 people to carry half of the tree!

Often we have to be in the cages for cleaning. Some animals like to crawl on you and some of the birds poop on you. Brian was enjoying a parrot on him until it started biting his ear and pooing on him.

Note for the kinkajou photos that the adult kinkajou is sticking out his tongue and the baby is all bandaged up (was put in vet clinic because the adult kinkajous were attacking it).

Some of the animals are tame. One of the galapagos turtles and one of the pumas, for example. The turtles that weren´t tame hissed when you come close when they are eating. The bears look sweet and kind, but since they can be released and are really strong we couldn´t play with them when they stuck their paws out of the cage.

To make life a bit easier for volunteers we spent some of the donation money on things like a mini-oven and cleaning/kitchen materials. Fortuntately, the owner bought our house a new fridge to replace an old fridge (like a cupboard) that only fit food for one day. So our second week was one in ´luxury´.

Our final night concluded with a bonfire and some marshmellows.