Parque Machia -- Week Two

I can’t even believe that two weeks have passed since I've been here. The days go by so quickly. When you don’t have a day off, it feels like you just live in the park with the monkeys and once in a while you get to go back to your bed to sleep for a few hours. Sort of the same feeling with lobster fishing, you just live on the boat with the lobsters and bait, then you get to hangout on land and sleep for a little bit. So anyway, today is my first day off, although I'm fairly sick. I didn't go to work yesterday either because I ate some bad food and ended up puking throughout the night, but the puke was so acidic that it drastically burned my esophagus and it instantly swelled up and I couldn´t sallow, and if I did attempt to sallow it was the most excruciating pain and would drop me to my knees, my mouth was producing heaps of saliva that I had to keep spitting out. I was actually quite scared during the night because I thought I was having some allergic reaction to something I ate and thought my throat was going to close completely. So, once the morning came I went to the local hospital, they told me what had happened and the pain was from layers of skin in my throat being burned off and bloody from the acid I puked up. They gave me two injection, one in the arm and another in my arse (the second ass shot of my travels, I'm gunna see how many I can collect before I leave South America), and some anti-inflammatory pills. Spent the whole day in bed. I'm doing alright now but my throat still hurts a wee bit.

So, the only problem as of now is that some of the other volunteers have these strange power complexes, and will tell you every single thing you are doing that they think is wrong, even if it doesn't make any difference for the monkeys, if it's not the way they do it they get all bent outta shape. And everyone contradicts everyone else, but oh well, that's just human nature for ya. But other than that I'm doing pretty well. I can now identify all 29 monkeys at just a glance. Some seem like my best friends and others are like spoiled little brats with some serious attitude problems. One little bastard monkey named Mickey bit me a few times the other day, broke the skin but nothing serious; he's the son of the alpha female so he thinks he can get away with anything, and still breast feeds even though he's years past the age where he should have stopped. They're just like humans; they can be so different personality wise. Another monkey named Octavio is the sweetest little guy ever, if you walk up to him and pull out the bottom of your shirt he'll instantly climb right up under it, wrap his arms around you and make these delightful happy noises, just his little black head will be poking out the top of yer shirt to look around and see what's happening. And if you're lucky you might just get a little stinky surprise before he decides to hop out. When the sun is setting low behind distant mountains, illuminating bugs of microscopic dimensions, the jungle breaths and undulates like the ocean, continuously feathering and flowing in and out as it's done for millions of years. I sit with its fusing heat holding close my furry friends, singing Dylan songs into their little human-like ears as the sun kisses forth its own calming tune. And the monkeys never complain when I'm off key or fudge a line or two. I'm planning on leaving to Argentina in two weeks, but I might stay here longer, but we'll cross that dresser when we see her. Until my next day off in two weeks..........