Review: Conservation in Peru by Thijs K

After two flights I arrived in Puerto Maldonado where I was picked up by Fernando Rosemberg (the founder and owner of Taricaya). He gave me a quick, but thorough introduction to Taricaya and made sure that I had all the supplies I needed before heading out to Taricaya.

The first boat ride to Taricaya is a magical one, so I made sure to look around to see the jungle around me.

When we arrived to Taricaya itself I met Rachel (the park manager of Taricaya). She introduced me to my roommates for the next two months. My roommates then showed me around the room which was very basic, but is has everything you need, a toilet, a shower, a sink, enough shelf space for three people and of course beds supplied with mosquito net.

Do keep in mind that you will have to bring your own towel! 

After my room tour I was giving a park tour by my roommates. They showed me all the animals, told me their names, explained the general rules, got me some boots and introduced me to the other people in the park. They also told me that the only water that is drinkable is the water from the dining room.

The first week was magical, but also very tiring since I had to adjust to the time difference of 6 hours, to the heat, the mosquitos, the water quality and to speaking English the entire time.

I learned a lot the first week, I went up to the canopy on my first day to spot birds and while doing so I learned names, calls, where to look, what some bird behavior means.

Besides that I went into the jungle and a few things about that were not as expected…first of all I expected there to be loads of snakes, well maybe there are, but you don’t see ‘em! And second of all, spiders really like making their webs on the walking routes, so make sure you do not walk in front or get yourself a nice jungle hat!

During the project, we had several main activities that had to be done. Of those a few were essential and had to be done on a regular, or daily, basis.

Project activities included:

• Animal feeding (twice a day)
• Rescue Center Management (RCM: deep cleaning cages twice a week)
• Fruit picking (once a week)
• Checking the pitfall traps (twice a week)
• Cleaning the animal kitchen (every Wednesday). 

Besides the essential activities, we also had a lot of other activities that had to be done on a regular basis:

• Checking camera traps (usually once or twice a week)
• Clearing trails (once a week), Bird banding (once every two weeks)
• Canopy watch (once a week)
• GPS walk (once or twice a week)
• Cage enrichment (twice a week)
• General maintenance
• Cleaning

And besides those activities, we had a few leisure activities for fun like:

• Swimming in the creek
• Floating down the river in a small boat
• Fishing
• Mountain biking (though that was being set up)
• Night walks
• Caiman spotting
• Butterfly spotting
• Bat spotting
• Volleyball
• Relaxing in the hammocks.

Each day consisted of two or three activities. On RCM days (Monday & Thursday) there was a third activity called “prepare food” where you had to get up early to prepare food for the animals, so people could focus on cleaning during the morning.

My typical daily schedule looked like this:

• 8 am - 11 am: Complete morning activities.
• 12 pm - 2 pm: Eat lunch and enjoy a siesta.
• 2.30 pm - 4.30 pm: Complete afternoon activities, which were usually the less essential ones
• 5.00 pm - 6.30 pm: Rest and relax.
• 7 pm: Eat dinner.

Meals in Taricaya mostly consisted of rice, beans, pasta, some veggies and the occasional meat and pancakes. However if you really wanted fish then you were free to go out with some worms or some leftover meat to catch some in the creek!

In my free time I usually hung around the hammocks with my fellow volunteers to have a chat, play some cards, jam with a guitar, catch up on my messages or had a walk around the park. You were not allowed to go out into the jungle on your own, since a lot can happen in the jungle, so you are always required to go with at least three people. 

When we did have the people required to go into the jungle, we did because my goal in Taricaya was to walk at least every trail in Taricaya once and I almost succeeded at that! The problem was though that some trails hadn’t been cleared in months, because of a lack of sufficient volunteers due to Covid.

But I managed to walk all trails except two, so I am very pleased. My favorite trails to walk were the Bushmaster trail, since it takes you deep into Taricaya and the Alex trail since it required you to walk through five swamps to reach the end of it. Believe me walking through a swamp is something else!

I really enjoyed doing that! One time I was walking through a swamp with a couple of other volunteers when one of us spotted two wild howler monkeys. After walking around in the swamp a bit in order to get a better look at them they decided to climb down to get a better look of us as well. So at one point I would’ve been able to stretch out my arm and touch a wild howler monkey. It really was an amazing experience!

On the weekends we had the option to go into town to Puerto Maldonado. Apart for my first and last weekend I have gone every weekend in order to get a clean bed, eat whatever I want, get some supplies and also to go to an occasional party with some of the volunteers and staff members.

This really is a nice change from Taricaya, but to be honest after the weekend was over I was very happy to go back to Taricaya again, since it felt like home.