22/09/11

Last day in Kenya! I got up super early and went to the beach to watch the sunrise

It was pretty cloudy but still mighty impressive. Havn't got to leave here until mid-day so I'll spend the morning lingering around I guess! Then a short trip to Ethiopia followed by a 5 hour wait in an Ethiopian airport and then back to England! Loved every minute of being here, it's a remarkable place filled with the happiest people I've ever met. I wouldn't say the trip's been life-changing but it's certainly been life-enhancing. I can't wait to go somewhere else!

21/09/11

Today was my last day working here :( As a treat I got to clean up monkey poo all morning! Actually, my real treat was helping to change the bandages on the injured monkeys, they are so damn cute! Anyway, after that a bit of packing and off to bed for the last time!

19, 20/09/11

Two 9am bridge surveys to start my final week here-the joy! The plus side is being able to spend the rest of the time on the beach. I've also managed to work my way through about 7 books since I've been here, really glad past volunteers have left their reading material behind!

18/09/11

Well, to make up for yesterday being so fun-filled today was rather dull! Every sunday two volunteers have to take care of the animals and as I've no sundays left it was my turn! It meant I couldn't leave the Trust much which was a shame because a lot of the volunteers went to Mombassa for the day :( Ah well, I've driven through it enough times! We're going out for dinner to Swahili Pot tonight, an African Restaurant. I've only tried a couple of African dishes so far and as yet nothing has been all that amazing but I'll let you know!

17/09/11

Went on safari today, it was epic! The park is 3 hours from here so it was a 5am pick-up and we drove through Mombassa. We got to the park around 8.30 and straight away were up close and personal with all the animals. We drove around until 12 then went for lunch, nothing fancy (more rice!!!!!)
After lunch we drove round some more until about 3 then headed back towards Mombassa but on the back roads, through the villages which was both interesting and bumpy. We passed through Shimba Hills which is a forest whereas Tsavo East where we'd been all day was a savannha so we got to see lots! A couple of piccies to rub it in:

Yeah, it really was awesome. Nothing but savannha as far as the eye can see. Did see a couple of Wharthogs but they scampered off before I could get a picture :(

16/09/11

Today I was back on animal care (more cleaning up the poo!) although it was made a lot trickier today by the huge troop of baboons loitering in the garden. Not that I'm complaining but they do make life a little tricky. One woman walked outside with a piece of watermelon in her hand and got charged at by a female. It's best to just leave them to it and come back to whatever you were doing later. It's mating season for them right now so the females have really huge pink bums and the males have their woo-woos out all the time. Did get some more nice pictures though:

Without a doubt my favourite holiday snap!



We had a blow-darting competition this afternoon. Using the blow pipe you have to aim for a target of a monkey. Sadly none of my darts stayed in but it wasn't for lack of trying! I had a go with the rifle and that was no better!



And finally this evening we went to a small village where one of the part time staff members lives. It's only a ten minute drive away but it's so completely different to the 5* hotels on the road around here. He showed us around, took us to see the village witch-doctor who was curing a woman of tummy ache. Then we watched their tribal dances and they did an acrobatic display that would've won Britain's Got Talent hands down! I have it all on film, I'll upload them when I'm home. I did get some pictures aswell though:

I tried some of the stuff he was making her eat, fairly sure it was ground up roots.

What a mzungu!

Happy campers!



So, that was a very good day! Tomorrow myself and Maddie (girl on the far left above) are off on Safari! Can't wait! We're getting collected at 5am because the park is 3 hours away but should be worth it for the amound of wildlife there. I'll let you know how it goes!

13,14,15/09/11

This week the work was much the same as last week; I had two bridge surveys and one day was cutting plastic insulation for the overhead electricity cables so the monkeys don't get electricuted. I also had a couple of hours out de-snaring, and I found my first snare! A very proud moment for me!

Last night we had a barbeque after work, the owners got some meat (goat!) and some beers in and all the volunteers and staff got involved. Afterwards we had a few games of beer pong followed by a couple of rounds of Kings, needless to say it was fun!

Goat a'la BBQ. It was really good!



I managed to get a couple of photos of Betsy, the hand-reared Colobus, but she's a bit mental and doesn't sit still long!

And lastly a picture from Sunday when 3 of us went snorkeling:

12/09/11

Today's a bit rubbish! I forgot I'm supposed to take my malaria pills with food and so have felt really sich all day as a result of taking them on an empty stomach. I managed to clean out the rehabilitation cages although the smell and scrubbing the poo did test my acid reflux! I've taken the afternoon off to relax. The plan was to play beer pong after dinner but not sure that's such a good idea anymore. The little girl Vervet is still here, now they think her shoulder might be broken so want to keep her here for a couple of weeks until she can use it again, fingers crossed her mother recognises her when she's released. One of the other Vervets, a male with a broken arm, bit my finger this morning. It's my first monkey bite and hurts as much as I have been told it does! Otherwise all is good!

11/09/11

Today three of us (myself, Maddie from Reading and Mona from Germany) went on a snorkeling trip to Wasini Island. It's near the coast of Tanzania, about an hours drive and another hour out on the boat. We snorkled along the coral reef with Parrot Fish, Angel Fish, lots of other bright and colourful fish I don't know the names of and a sea turtle. It swam with us for ages and came up for air a couple of times then swam around some more, it was really beautiful. From the boat we saw dolphins leap out of the water a couple of times. They were really far away which is a shame but at least we saw them! In the afternoon we went for lunch on Wasini Island, it has just over 1000 inhabitants and a very posh hotel for the tourists. Starter was crab which is served with a mallet-that was fun! Then a whole grilled white snapper-yum! After lunch we went for a tour of the village, it's small and basic but everyone there is very friendly. The kids follow you around and try and sell you shells or ask you for sweets. Again, I've got a lot of pictures but not enough internet credit to put them online!

I've seen the news about the Somali Pirattes, don't worry, they are a really really long way from here, I'm safe and sound!

10/10/11

Saturday means back to the spa for a well-earned relaxation day! Before we left the wild troop of baboons were in the garden and I managed to get some really good pictures, it takes a lot of money to put pictures on here so I'll put them on Facebook later. Apart from that it was a very lovely lazy day :)

09/09/11

So today, friday, was a really interesting day for me. Someone from one of the hotels called The Trust and said there was a baby Vervet monkey that looked like it had a broken arm so we went to collect it and bring it back here. It turns out it's a little girl, and a very cute one. She's very tiny, weighs less than a bag of sugar, only just off her mother. Today I was on animal care duty again so I fed and cleaned all the monkeys in the morning and in the afternoon got to go with a couple of the volunteers (one's a vet in Portugal) to the local hospital to take an x-ray of the little girls arm. There are a lot of vet clinics here but none have x-ray machines so you give the radiographer a couple of hundred shillings and he'll take the picture for you. They think she has a dislocated shoulder so we're going to call around some people here and see if any one has ever popped a monkey shoulder back in.

When we got back from the hospial she needed her bandage changed (she has a nasty cut on her arm aswell). So while I held her still Marta, the vet, changed the bandags and gave her a couple of shots. It was really amazing getting to be so close with her, literally holding her body still, holding her head and letting her squeeze my finger when she got injected. I'll try and get a picture of her tomorrow.

Tonight we're going to Club Tropicana (can you believe Wham! arn't known around here????) It's regae night, we'll see how that goes down! Tomorrow is another chill day at the spa and 3 of us have booked to go snorkeling, hopefully with dolphins, on sunday-a good weekend ahead!

08/09/11

Another day on the bridge surveys today! For the second day running I saw monkeys on the bridge for the first half an hour then not a single one for 5 and a half hours-they're tormenting us!
The shift was 6am-midday so in the afternoon a few of us thought we'd go to the beach for a swim. Then it started raining-Kenyan style! When it rains here it really pours, so we went swimming anyway! The water felt all the warmer although it's already bath temperature. Had to wade a fair way out to get out of the seaweed (stupid stuff) then it was all clear and lovely.

A good day :)

07/09/11

Today was my first day doing bridge surveys. You sit under one of the Colabradges for 6 hours and count the number of cars that go past and the number of monkeys that cross the road. I'm sure it has some scientific value, all I know is you sit by the side of the road for 6 hours counting cars! Luckily there were a troop of Vervet monkeys playing next to us which kept us entertained for a while!

I'm not sure why but the male's private parts are bright blue, very striking!

Myself and Mona, a volunteer from Germany.



After doing this for 6 hours we came back for dinner and spent the evening playing cards, it's awfully relaxing around here!

It's all good at the cottage, we've got a couple from South Africa just arrived and a girl from Kenya. The food is lovely, we have a very good chef! Although it's mostly rice with something else the something else is always nice. And we eat a lot of fruit and veg so feeling nice and healthy!

06/09/11

Today I spent the morning at The Trust making a Colobridge- literally a bridge for Colobus monkeys. They are really clumsy on the ground, they can't walk in a straight line, so they get hit by cars a lot. That's why The Trust was started up in the first place. Anyway, it was really getting to actually make the bridges. There was about 8 of us on it and this is the finished result:

It's about 60 metres long and will go over a section of Diani highway. After that we did some tree nursery work. The Trust plants a variety of trees that either monkeys eat or sleep in because there's so few left. It wasn't all that exciting, just taking baby trees and putting them in bigger pots!

After lunch I got to go de-snaring and that really is fun. We go out into the forests and look for traps and snares laid by the poachers. They are really simple things, just pieces of string and rope but they are very hard to spot in the trees and bushes. We found four which was pretty good going. I'm glad I didn't do it last week, they found a suni antelope, dead in a snare. Anyway, it was very fun and we found a massive monator lizzard, it was about 4 feet long.

Lizard!

This is called a spikey something. It's native to Kenya.

Mwitu, one of the workers at The Trust who took us desnaring, and his very casual use of a machette!

That night was pub quiz at one of the bars so most of us went along. We came last but the questions were very much aimed at the older generation and our average age is about 23! Anyway, the bar it was in was brilliant. I didn't take my camera but I'm sure we'll go back so I'll take pictures next time. We stayed there and danced the night away in true British Tourist fashion!



05/09/11

So today was awesome! It was my first day working with the monkeys! I was on 'animal care' which is basically cleaning them out and feeding them. There are 7 Vervets, 2 Sykes, 1 baboon, 1 bush baby and 3 vervets in quarenteen so it's a pretty big job but it was amazing!!!! They don't throw poo at you like everyone would lead you to believe but they are very messy! Apparently I'm the first volunteer to ever comment on the odour...not sure I believe that! The job is made a lot more fun by all the wild monkeys that try to help (and steal the hose pipe and the food!)

Not only this but I got my luggage back!!!! And that means piccys!!! It took aaaaaages on the phone and so many people just hung up on me- eventually I asked one of the Kenyans to call for me and they had the whole conversation in Swahili and low and behold they had my luggage!

To celebrate a few of us went to a local bar and had a few well deserved bevvies!

So heres a catch up of what you've not seen so far...

Mount Kilimanjaro

Diani Highway

The amazing spa!

And the equally amazing food at the spa!

The Vervet monkey that tried to steal luch. We had to spray him with suntan lotion to make him leave.

The garden of The Colobus Trust

And a garden critter.

The Colobus Cottage where I am living

This is where all the orphaned/injured/rejected monkeys come until they can be re-released.

No caption necessary.

Jay-Jay.

Good stuff!

04/09/11

Day three and not a whole lot to report! Sundays only 2 volunteers have to work, just feeding the monkeys during the day so I had nothing to do. I spent a lot of time reading (I can't believe this whole time I though Frodo was The Lord Of The Ring, how stupid was I?!?)

I went for a walk around the grounds and went to see the caged monkeys. There is a path that goes around the whole enclosure and I sat down to watch them. Then I realised I was totally surrounded by wild ones that come to the cage to steal the food. It was amazing, there were at least 20 of them and some really young ones and they didnt seem to mind at all that I was there they just went about their business- got lots of photos of them! Stilll havn't managed to get a picture of a baboon though!

The chef has sundays off so we all went out for dinner to a local Italian (I know, that was bizarre to me, too!) Had a seafood pizza and a Kenyan beer and now off to bed. Work starts at 8am!

03/09/11

As today is Saturday it's a day off for the volunteers. A couple of the girls have been here for a few months already (3 weeks is viewed as very little time to volunteer apparently!) so the five of us went to a spa they had been to before. It was an unbelievable 5 star resort, I can't really explain it but I'll put photos up when I can. We stayed there all day, had an amazing salad that almost got stolen by some Vervet monkeys. Apparently you're supposed to squirt them with water or catapult them with twigs to de-humanise them but they are just so ruddy cute I couldn't do it! Mummy, I fell asleep in the sun on my front and burnt my bum again, luckily not as bad this time!

We came home and had dinner and are now all chilling out. It's not particularly safe to go out in the dark so after about 7pm we stay at The Trust. There is a bush baby in an enclosure in the garden, it's unbeliveable adorable! It puts as much of itself throuh the bars for you to stroke as it can because it loves being petted. However, it makes the most outragous noises! There are a couple of wild ones that come to visit him and when the three of them get going it's awful, they sort of sound like babies crying-not nice!

The baboons in the garden are very large, I mean like the size of me! Aparently they like to come in the house, especially the kitchen and when they do you just have to leave them to it. The Colobus, Vervets and Sykes you can scare away but the Baboons are huge and mean! There is also a house cat called Nala who just meows at everyone and everything for no reason, not a big fan of her! There are geckos everywhere that are sort of translucent so you can's see them well on the white walls.

Tomorrow is another day off, going to try and get my luggage back!

02/09/11

Day one! Flew through the night from London to Adis Ababa. Then after a 3 hour wait there got another flight which I had no idea was having a quick stop in Kilimanjaro (apologies for the spelling!) Just before landing the captain came on the intercom and told us to look left and I saw the biggest mountain in the whole freakin' world! It looks bizarre, like it is sitting atop the clouds! After that it was straight to Mombassa.
I got picked up at the airport by a lovely chap. We drove through Mombasa and it was downright scary! I didn't see a single other white person and EVERYONE stared at me, it was pretty intense. We had to get a ferry over the river because they have no bridges and that too was an interesting experience. It's exactly like it is in the films, all shanty buildings and people wandering in the streets with huge packs on their heads.
It was a pretty long drive but eventually got to Diani and it was noticeably nicer right away. I asked the driver is Diani was safer than Mombasa and he said "Sure, sure; Hakuna Matata." I don't think I need to explain how happy this made me!

At The Trust I met everyone, the couple who run it are English, there are 7 Kenyan staff (cleaner, chef etc) and at the moment there are 7 volunteers. Myself and another English girl, 2 German girls and a girl from Portugal. There are 2 male volunteers from Kenya. It's basically a very large bungalow with a garden full of monkeys! At the moment they are hand raising a Colobus, the first time this has ever been done and she is just the cutest thing! I will put pictures of everything up when I have the cables that are in my suitcase! I also went down to the beach and it looks just like it does in the photos, it's breathtaking.

One of the volunteers went with me to the local supermarket so I could get some bits that I needed and this involved getting a taxi. They are basically minivans that drive up and down the road and you just jump in. There's normally at least 20 or so people in it, atleast double it's capacity and there's a few men who just hang on to the door frame. It's pretty intense and the smell is unbeliveable but it's an experience! Afterwards we had dinner, all read for a few hours and went to bed. Sara, you were right, I'm half way through Lord Of The Rings already!

A rollercoaster of a first day but absolutley priceless!