Second stop - Ambue Ari

After the basics of Jacj Cuisi, Ambue Ari can only be described as "luxury." The water ran forcefully from every tap and didn't make you chronically ill without sterilisation. We were all very excited to see something that looked on the outset like a bed, in fact it was again a straw Mattress, but balanced on wood rather than concrete...what a novelty!

The atmosphere at Ambue was very different to JC. With around 50 other volunteers at the park, Ambue has more of a community feel than JC. Questies no longer ruled the roost and happily mingled into the Ambue family. Daily and weekly tasks were inflicted onto the Questies. Examples include "Pios," this required a minimum of three volunteers, one to carry the feed, the other two to defend against the "Angry Pio" using a weapon of choice, normally spades. Still worse jobs were assigned including "Banos" (a personal favourite) and "Breakfast Comedor" or more correctly termed "Washing up slave".

So, working with the animals. Being the cat park, most of us worked with one of the 25 cats at the park, either an ocelot, puma or jaguar. The cats were assigned based on temperament and personality, example, "Lazy Cat" was just spot on for "Meatball." Work with the cats normally involved spending a full day "walking" the cats. The word "walk" is debatable as the activity of the cats varied. Some volunteers chillaxed, spooning a puma all day, topping up the tan and powering their way through books.

However other volunteers found themselves wrapped round trees and dragged through bogs. Various bruises and cuts were shown off around camp, and exciting stories of the days "dirty" shenanigans were shared during the evenings banter sessions. The cats keep you on your toes, everyone was convinced theirs was the best. It´s impossible not to love the work you do with the animals, they´ve had hard lives and to help ease their previous suffering is very rewarding. Construction ploughs on. We have a happy workers in camp if people volunteer on construction. Any spare time, jam out in construction, help always required and appreciated.

So we come to the end of the three weeks at Ambue. The necklaces are given out, the bags are packed (just) and the dorm is clean (ish)...

And so the story ends.

Find out how you can be there next year - Gap Year Volunteering - Summer Volunteering