A sudden change of plans

The last couple of weeks have been a little different than expected. I'll make a long story short. 15th of october Sandra traveled back to Norway from Brasilia. The reason for this was that during our stay in Kenya she found out that she was pregnant with her boyfriend from Norway, Ole Martin. Originally she wanted to finish the travel and make it all the way through South-America, but as her stomach kept growing the last weeks in Brasil she was feeling really sick. I also think that the thought of all the long bustrips through countries was unbearable.
So for the first time in an airport, we had two different planetickets. Sandra headed to Norway, and I headed to Bolivia.

I must admit the thought of traveling alone wasn't exactly what I had in plan. We had so many things we wanted to do together during our travel. But at the same time I didn't want to travel back to Norway yet. At least one of us should make it all the way to Peru.


I landed in Santa Cruz and spent a couple of nights there before I went to Samaipata with two girls from Germany and Australia. Samaipata is a small village in the mountains about three hours from Santa Cruz. Beautiful landskape and nature. Here are some of the pictures from when we did a hikingtrip in the Cloud Forestwith a charming old bolivian man as our guide through the mountains.

After Samaipata I headed towards Vila Tunari - a town between Santa Cruz and Cochabamba. Here I've been staying the last two weeks volunteering at Inti Wara Yassi - an organisation that works with animals. In Bolivia there are black markets full of wild animals being sold to hotels, circuses and private homes. In many cases the animals are endangered species. Inti Wara Yassi 's main aim is to rehabilitate and care for the animals they rescue. They have three different parks in Bolivia where the animals are kept until (or if) they are able to be released in their natural environnement.

I worked in Parque Machia, one of theese parks where the animals are kept. This park was the start of the projects in 1996, and it than had five monkeys. The park now houses around 700 animals of over 20 species, including monkeys, tayhorns, pumas, osolots, birds, etc. I was placed to work with the monkeys - capuchins and spidermonkeys. It was a very different experience and alot of hard work. The day started at 7 a.m.-7.30 a.m. and lasted until 6.30 p.m.-7 p.m. Alot of feeding, cleaning, picking branches, playing and sweating. But as you got to know the animals you could see how they really have their own personality. So even though we were covered in water, sweat and monkeypoo all day long - until the great cold shower in the evening that we all longed for - I really liked it there.

Here are some of the pictures from the two weeks in Parque Machia:

Daily schedule

We got pretty good at cleaning cages after a few days in monkey quarantine

Phil from England is having a rest after lunchtime-cleaning. Marucha the spidermonkey is also sleeping. Such a sweet couple.

Dinner for the monkeys: Vegetables

Monkey quarantine-crew: Or (Israel), Michelle (New Zealand), Lizzy (England), Karin (Holland), Phil (England), Amy (England), Janne (Norway) and Kirsten (Scotland)

All though we got good food when we were volunteering, there is something about the food in Bolivia that made me really sick. A couple of days with fever and too many visits to the toilet is something every traveler here in the area has experienced.