Escaped Monkeys,Baby Turtles, and saving a puppies life.

Holidays are supposed to be times to slow down and relax… at least I think they are.

So far my holiday has consisted of capturing a wayward monkey ( twice) 5 bus rides, over a 30+ hour period, getting a Visa renewal,watching some baby turtles swim away into the sea and saving the life of a puppy.

Wayward Monkey.

At Tzanka there is a Nocturnal Mono,(Night Monkey).  He escaped from his enclosure the Saturday/ Sunday when I was going to leave.  I am not sure why,but I seemed to be the only person how could catch him.  This consisted of having food in one hand while grabbing him with the other.  The reason I even tried this, is I brought back from Canada a pair of leather work glove.  The Monkey wasn’t happy with me grabbing him and used his teeth, but I knew that my hand was safe.

On Sunday I travelled to Machella in order to be at the Visa office for Monday morning.  The 11:30PM bus arrives about 5 AM, the office opened at 8:30 and by 10:00 I was on my way to San Clemete Via Guayaquil, Portoviejo.  I was exteremely lucky with connections and arrived just at sunset ( 6:30ish)

Baby Turtles

I am staying with my friend Gerri in an amazing Beachfront apartment in San Clemente.  We were just about to start cooking dinner when her roommate told us that the Turtles were hatching….  This blog explains the story better than I can. tortuga birth announcement/

Puppies

Gerri is watching over a couple of young puppies ( rescues from the streets) for the upstairs neighbor.  We were all just getting settled in for the night when their was a massive scream from a dog in pain, which set off all the dogs in the neighbourhood.  Gerri realized that the scream was coming from the apartment with the puppies.

We rushed upstairs to find the dogs intertwined with one screaming in pain, while the other could barely breathe.  I dived to the floor, as Gerri turned on the lights, to see what was happening.  The collar of one dog was warpped tightly around the lower jaw of the second screaming dog. The dog (zoey) was having trouble breathing while the second dog (bella) was in pain but could not free herself.  The more she tried the tighter the collar became.

I sent Gerri for a knife, while I tried to: unwrap the collar, calm the dogs down, and try to think of a quick way to get the collar off.  Luckly there was a quick release clasp that I was able to find and seperate the two animals. If I had had to use the knife,no matter how sharp, I doubt if I could have cut through in time.

It took about half an hour for the howls from the neighborhood dogs to stop and to get the puppies calmed down.  There doesn’t seem to be any lasting effects from the misadventure of the puppies.

I am hoping that the rest of my time on the coast does not include adrenaline rushes like this.