Visiting the Guardaría

On our last day we managed to secure a visit to the Guardaría… and I’m really glad we made so much of an effort to make sure it happened, as even though the guardaría visit featured on the roster, it certainly wasn’t guaranteed to take place – it took persistence, as to make it happen you needed to keep reminding a member of staff to arrange it.

The Guardaría is bascially the monkey nursery area near Marcelo and Vicki’s house… however in reality it is way more.

When new monkeys arrive at La Senda Verde they spend time in the guardaría… the amount of time they spend here depends on the individual monkey – they are here for as long as they need to be! Here they start by receiving around the clock care, they are usually allocated a carer and are basically never alone. Then when they are ready they move to the next section – they still receive food and care and are constantly monitored, but they are encouraged to interact with the other monkeys in the guardaría. Only when staff are sure that the monkeys are ready, will they be released and start living with the rest of the free-ranging troop.

In addition to the newly arrived monkeys, there are other monkeys in the area – some have been sick and are there waiting to recover before they rejoin the wider monkey troop..

There are also some additional rescued native Bolivian species of monkeys that reside permanently in the guardaria.

We really enjoyed our visit to the guardaría – it was sooo worth the time we put in to chasing up staff to make it happen – the tour was in Spanish, but the guy doing it was really passionate and we learnt a lot… it was also really nice to see these additional monkey species 🙂