Hot Hot Hot

With spiders as cute as this who could have arachnophobia?

A spider monkey having an "ooh oooh ooh" moment

It's hot! So hot that today I actually made the things inside my backpack wet from the sweat on my back. Disgusting. Speaking of disgusting one of the monkeys in the monkey psych ward yesterday decided that it would be nice to sit on my shoulders and lick the inside of my ears - eeeewwww! I have to say that now they are very clean but really... these monkeys have no shame.

So things are ticking along here in the jungle at Inti. Us volunteers really must make for a strange sight, every morning a motley crew of gringos gather in a street side cafe wearing sweaty ill fitting clothes covered in mud, monkey poo, cat wee, often shredded to pieces. Most people are nursing some kind of injury from twisted ankles and bung knees to bite marks (monkey people) or long bloodied scratches and chunks of flesh missing(cat people).

But despite this really unattractive look romance is blossoming in the heat of the Bolivian jungle. It seems that I now have a rival for Eds affection. She is quite a brazen hussy too, sitting in his lap at lunchtimes one arm draped around his shoulder, the other playing with his hair. Her name is Tomasita and she is the matriach of the Spider Monkey clan - she's pretty cute too, I don't know if I can compete. The only consolation is that at least her legs are hairier than mine.

However today I had my revenge, on my way home from Ricos cage I spied a big black spider monkey making a run for it towards the river with a long leash trailing behind him. He had done a runner from his keeper so I chased him and caught the rope, Mr Spider monkey then came marching over going "ooh ooh ooh" in my face and I start to freak out but then he just climbed up and sat on my head (they are HEAVY). His name is Tunari and he is one the big males in the park - once he had done with sitting on my head he then hopped down, took my hand in his, curled his tail around my arm and we had a nice romantic stroll along the river. I think I'm in love.

Not so much in love with Rico today, he growled and tantrumed all over the trail today in between jumping up and trying to attack me. I discovered I can push him off but still - he is so ungrateful....I ever bought a new padlock for his cage the other day. Typical bloody cat.