Nomad_vet up the Amazon

World Rabies Day 2008 in Sikkim

nomad_vet — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 04:41:00 GMT

World Rabies Day in Sikkim....a party with hundreds of happy children.

The Sikkim Anti-Rabies & Animal Health (SARAH) programme celebrated WRD with a street party & awareness campaign at 'Friend's Corner' at the busy Sunday Lal market in Gangtok. This was an opportunity to tell people how to prevent rabies & what to do if you are bitten by a dog. Raising awareness is so important in India as up to 30,000 people are estimated to die from rabies every year.

There was a drawing competition, an essay writing competition, balloons, sweets & birthday cake in honour of Brigitte Bardot (major sponsor of SARAH) who celebrated her birthday on the same day. Every child that entered the competition got a small prize & sweets so you can imagine how popular it was, and the ensuring chaos as every child tried to jump the queue to get to their prize first.

Never work with children or animals...wise words indeed. But this WRD we worked with both, also providing a free rabies vaccination & deworming camp for pets. A wonderful busy crazy noisy, & at time riotous day...enjoyed by all.

Vets Beyonds Borders do a Leopard Caesarian in India

nomad_vet — Sat, 3 May 2008 15:49:00 GMT

The SARAH (Sikkim Anti Rabies & Animal Health) Programme in India usually focuses its attention on cats & dogs but when we were asked for assistance by the Himalayan Zoo veterinarian Dr Madan K.S.Shanker we were eager to help.

‘Julie’ a 5 year old leopard had been in labour for 24 hours & hadn’t produced a cub. Dr Madan was very concerned that she had an obstructive dytocia & asked SARAH staff & Vets Beyond Borders veterinary volunteers to take a look.

Examining a sick leopard is not an easy task & ‘Julie’ required chemical immobilisation via a dart before we could safely handle her. Dr Madan is highly skilled in this procedure & he darted her quickly & efficiently. Clinical examination confirmed that a cub was stuck & that the pelvic canal was too narrow to allow the natural birthing process to be completed. Julie would require caesarian surgery.

Quickly the team leapt into action, ‘Julie’ was anethetised, iv fluids started, & an endotracheal tube was placed into her airway so that anaesthesia could be maintained on the gaseous anaesthetic machine. Volunteer veterinary surgeons began operating & removed the sole cub which was female but sadly deceased.

After surgery ‘Julie’ was wrapped in bubble wrap & placed into her cage with blankets & hot water bottles as Sikkim becomes quite chilly in the afternoon. After a few days she had recovered from the experience & is back to eating several kilograms of meat per day. Soon she will rejoin her fretting mate ‘Tinku’ & maybe next year they will successfully increase their family.

For more information about Vet Beyond Borders & the SARAH project in Sikkim please see: www.vetsbeyondborders.org/vbb.projects/sikkim.project or www.fondationbrigittebardot.fr/site/fbb_a.php?Id=327&IdPere=0

Rehab in Gangtok

nomad_vet — Sat, 3 May 2008 15:33:00 GMT

It’s a joke now that any veterinary volunteer who comes to help the SARAH (Sikkim Anti Rabies & Animal Health) Programme in Gangtok will also have to volunteer to piggyback me around. Since rupturing my achilles tendon playing cricket 6 weeks ago & deciding it was a good plan to do my rehab in the mountainous state of Sikkim (where every path seems to be a slippery hill), I have been carried, piggybacked & dragged up stairs, driveways & hills. I’ve also taken a couple of tumbles down the same stairs in the most unglorified manner with my 1940’s style wooden crutches clattering to the stairwell.

Quite amusingly I have been photographed by a multitude of Bengali tourists in MG Marg in Gangtok. A novelty to see a foreigner with a lower limb plaster cast & natural curiousity means that I am bombarded with questions. I delight in telling all that cricket was my down fall.

Cricket is synonymous with being Australian given the large number of pensioned aussie cricketers who are now playing in India with the IPL. Even so most locals are a little surprised that aussie women too play cricket, even if badly in my case. My orthopaedic surgeon too confessed that he had never seen a ruptured achilles in a female or actually known of any women to play cricket.

India on crutches

nomad_vet — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 06:00:00 GMT

Popped my achilles tendon while playing a game of cricket in Gangtok. Oz vs India - very competitive & controversial. I whacked the ball, snap went my achilles like a rubber band. It felt like I had broken a heel off my shoe & my foot was flopping about. The great thing is that I still managed to score a run…by hopping on my good leg to the other wicket…then the pain overrode the adrenalin.

I can’t recommend crutches in India, & especially not Gangtok. Do you know how many stairs, hills & holes there are. And try going to a squat toilet with a plaster cast on one leg….just try it!! All I can comment is…. wet trousers. And don’t slip & break the other leg.

Have managed to clamber in & out of bicycle rickshaws, & be carried up multiple flights of stairs. I actually hopped on one leg (is that a pleonasm?) up the steps onto my Jet Airways flight to Delhi. Quite disturbingly during the flight I thought my leg was going to explode due to a tight plaster cast.

Folks in India appear to be immune to disability…after all everywhere you look there’s someone with a disability. Not too much sympathy given out here. Unlike home where everyone opens the door & carries the bag of the crutches cripple….in India people seem to prefer to stare in wonder!

Next stop, Delhi for surgery. Five star hospital & specialist surgeon. There’s worse things in life than 5 days in a comfy bed, 7 meals a day & internet on tap. Despite the leg looking like it belongs to the bride of Frankenstein I’m in high spirits & looking forward to rehab back in Gangtok & getting back to the task of helping the street dogs.

Volunteering at Animal Care Samos, Greece

nomad_vet — Fri, 4 May 2007 06:43:00 GMT

Animal Care Samos - www.animalcaresamos.com

After a tiring flight from London to Frankfurt to Athens to Samos I was overjoyed to finally arrive, & to find Joeri waiting for me at the Samos airport. And he was very enthusiastic about getting straight to work sterilising those shelter dogs. After a welcoming breakfast we were off to the shelter to meet the 100 dogs. I was amazed how well the dogs are socialised. There were several groups of around 20 dogs living together & they all seemed to be very content with their packs. Little fluffies, & new dogs were living happily in smaller groups. And wow, how much do these dogs poop....KILOS of it. After 36 hrs hours without sleep I was much happier picking up dog poo than doing any surgery, but how do Joeri & Farida do this every day, 7 days a week AND stay so bloody cheerful. That's dedication to the animals for you!!

The surgery at Animal Care Samos is a credit to Joeri's hard work & determination. There's 2 surgery tables, lots of space, power, water, good light, air con & 2 sterilisers. Its definitely the best set up surgery I've come across while volunteering. It's even better than some I have seen in private vet practice. I couldn't wait to get started.

A minor glitch with anaesthetics, & Joeri was off to an obliging local doc to get a script for injectable valium. I'm a big fan of xylazine sedation, followed by iv valium/ketamine for the dog GA - its safe, a good quick recovery, & cheap 'n' cheerful to boot. Farida & I got to work. She became vet nurse extraordinaire....placing iv butterfly catheters, administering the anaesthetic, intubating the dogs, clipping (with a razor blade when the clippers went kaput), scrubbing, & castrating the cats. Meanwhile I enjoyed the Samos sunshine, nibbling sesame & pistachio snacks, sipping chocolate milk.... its the vets life!! The spay hooks were located & I was a happy aussie. There's nothing like doing a bit of surgery while listening to local Samos radio. I got to catch up on all the 80s classics...its amazing in how many countries I have heard Men at Work's 'Down Under'. Poor Farida, sometimes I just have to sing along.

In 9 days with a few late nights & lots of jokes we:

- neutered 50 animals (25 dogs & 25 cats)

- removed large mammary tumours from 2 dogs,

- sterilised & removed a large vaginal tumour & a polyp from Chihuahua X. The owner, an elderly Greek man, was so delighted he gave a monetary donation, a bag of oranges, a bottle of ouzo, a bottle of wine & an invitation for free coffee at a local cafe!!

- stitched up a large non healing wound on a pet cat (who sadly tested FIV+), & sutured a laceration on a dog from the shelter.

- helped a pet cocker spaniel that had been shaking his head & crying in pain for 1 month who was found to have a perforated eardrum & 3 grass seeds deep in his ear (there's ALWAYS more than 1 seed isn't there!). We had to improvise to make the right tool & Farida got to hear the full extent of my vulgar vocabulary while we were having a frustrating time getting those little grass seeds out.

- amputated the forelimb of Belgian shepherd 'Chris' who was non weight bearing on a chronic non healing fracture of the elbow. This was my 1st scapula removal & big thanks to Aoife who emailed me the surgical 'recipe'. It was a bit hairy using a huge amount of iv anaesthetics (a combo of valium, xylazine, ketamine & butorphanol). I felt like a butcher, & wasn't this supposed to be a 'quick and easy' surgery! That night Farida & I were up through the night making sure Chris had enough pain relief on board. Poor Chris looked pretty bad the next day, & very very pale....he had bled a LOT during the surgery (Ehrlichia??). Incredibly we found a blood collection bag & filter infusion set hidden away in one of the drawers, & a beautiful big donor dog 'Spot'. Spot's blood was 'topS' & had Chris up and bouncing off the walls, and eating his tucker in no time. The good news is that Chris is doing well. Last report Farida had him clothed in cool T-shirts (to stop him licking the incision site) & he was getting loads of TLC by staying in her bedroom. He is an adorable dog, & I hope someone wonderful adopts him.

- repaired a diaphragmatic hernia in a dyspnoeic 5mth old cat 'Biscuit' who had been run over by a car & had also fractured her pelvis. What improvisation girls! We made an ET tube out of a bit of drip tubing & copper wire. Farida had to exhale into the tube every 8 seconds & respirate the cat, while I tried to find the bits of the diaphragm & then suture it all back together again QUICKLY. Luckily, Biscuit still had a couple of those 9 lives left & despite looking like she wasn't going to recover consciousness through the night (damn xylazine/ketamine GA), she went on to make an uneventful recovery. She returned to a very pleased Stavros the local 'cat man'.

- went to midnight mass for Easter Sunday & lit our candles from the eternal travelling orthodox flame. Fortunately none of the local Greek beauty queens, with their hair teased high by abundant squirts of volatile hairspray, caught fire while we were crowded together with our blazing candles in the church. Good luck follows if you take the lit candle home with you, & I saw people driving home with the candle in one hand & steering wheel in the other! Afterwards we went to a traditional Greek feast of sweet bread, red hard boiled eggs, & sheep's intestines soup. Yet again glad to be vegetarian.

- drank at least several Zorba beers, & some Samos sweet wine. Passed on the ouzo though....bad memories of teenage binging.

- ate very delicious vegetarian food - thanks to Farida & Joeri's excellent cooking.

- supped in several excellent restaurants...yum love Greek food....feta, olives, pastries, Greek salads, marinated mushrooms, & veg pitas (souvlakis with chips replacing the meat),

- and still had a bit of time left to explore the scenic island.

I had a fantastic time in Samos. Farida & Joeri are two incredibly dedicated people devoting their lives to improving animal welfare. They are very friendly & welcomed me into their home. I truly feel new inspiration after spending time at Animal Care Samos, & I know that everyone that visits will be so glad they did. Samos is a beautiful island; rolling green hills, olive groves, narrow cobble stoned streets, ancient churches, sunshine, blue skies. What a great place to be a volunteer!

Visit, volunteer......you won't regret it!!

Lets all go....

nomad_vet — Wed, 10 Jan 2007 19:03:00 GMT

Cant wait to speak english....& have real conversations again. You would imagine my spanish would be awesome after 9 mths but far too much work & not enough study means, my spanish is still rubbish. MY GOD yesterday I found out that i have been making a rather embarassing mistake for at least several mths. For some reason my brain thinks the word for 'to leave' is 'exitar', but it actually is 'salir'. Well fine, we all make mistakes but what 'exitar' actually means is to mastubate, or to have an orgasm. So when I say 'ok lets leave', or 'i want to leave', I've actually been saying in spanish lets all go & masturbate!!! AND its taken my friend (who has been quietly pissing herself laughing 2 mths to tell me). She just tells people, aaahhh don't worry about her she just can't speak spanish very well. I'm gonna kill her i swear.

La Bocana

nomad_vet — Sun, 17 Dec 2006 19:14:00 GMT

You've got to visit La Bocana. It's this crazy little Peruvian village perched on the sand dunes next to the Pacific ocean, several hours south of Mancora. The whole places looks like it has been blown in with the plastic bag garbage, & one more puff of wind will send the village plunging into the sea.

Yet people CHOOSE to live in this village without mod cons such as electricity, water, sewerage, telephone, transport, preferring instead their goats & donkeys, the pounding of the sea & that ever present wind. Pueblo Nuevo is only an hour away by horse & cart, & the locals there are bemused as to why anyone would WANT to live in La Bocana. They laugh & chastise their backyard neighbours.

We had to bargain hard to get a car to take us to La Bocana. Volunteer Charly eventually convinces a friend to take us in his decrepid wreck of a car, manufactured before brand names existed. One beat up jeep but better than walking. Still cost 20 soles!

I love driving throught the chakras (farmland) to get to La Bocana. Horses pulling ploughs to cultivate the fields for maize...no tractors here! Farmers bent over digging up camote (sweet potato) to sell for 5 soles ($2 oz) a sack. Back breaking work for a pittance. The farmers grumble & moan about the prices to anyone that will listen. Curse the new government, curse the old government!!

Of course, when we get to La Bocana none of the 'officials' or 'professors' that had begged us to come & PLEASE treat the animals are there. A fairly typical occurrence in Peru....god forbid that anyone ever turns up on time, or are where they have arranged to be.

Our jovial taxi driver knocks on doors until that illusive key is founds so that we have a site to set up our mobile clinic. Its hot, dusty, & dirty but we get to work creating a usable space.

A scruffy collection of kids respond to the announcement over the PA system (something that all Peruvian villages have) & run forth dragging reluctant half starved mangy dogs on pieces of string. Doesn't anyone go to school?? Cats are carried in arms, their tails fluffing up at the site of so many canine foe, & the occasional cat makes a break for it, scratching its owner as it streaks out the door. Kids scream & run after the now terrified cat as it darts for home. Chaos it is, no matter how hard I try to maintain order.

Some of the kids that bring their dogs are so young they don't even know their own names, or the dogs... And of course, they have no idea that we are injecting the dog to treat worms, mange, or ticks. But they still come.

And what a bonus when I split open a watermelon & everyone gets a juicy sweet slice.

It is wonderful that the kids care enough for their animals to bring them to us for treatment. Every minute of our time is about educating the kids, "be kind to animals, have respect for animals". Some of the kids are very violent towards their pets, kicking, punching, yelling if they don't behave. I wonder if they get the same treatment from their parents at home. Education really is the way forward.

Soon the donkeys & horses turn up for vaccination against tetanus & rabies, & de worming. Some of these creatures are in pitiful conditon & I pray that the dewormer helps. The odd horse is wild & dangerous, & Cesar needs to apply a lip twitch to divert its attention, as I quickly inject the vaccination into its neck muscle.

At the end of the day; 25 horses/donkeys, & 55 cats/dogs have been treated, & we arrange to go back in 2 weeks to surgically sterilise animals.

Many kids just hang out with Maria Luisa, Cesar & I all day...chatting, laughing, helping. They take Maria & I for a walk down their beach, clutching our hands & pulling us to walk faster, filling my pockets to overflowing with sea shells & other precious treasures.

We find 3 dead & decaying sea lions corpses on the beach. Most likely slaughtered by fisherman because they believe that the sea lions are responsible for declining catches of fish...."its called OVER FISHING you idiots". It makes me feel so so sad, but our director Rosemary Gordon's words ring in my ears yet again..."its all about educating the kids Beth, only through education will the people change". I knows she's right but sometimes I feel like I am beating my head against a brick wall...thud, thud, thud...

Fortunately tomorrow is another new day.

Pacaya Samiria National Park

nomad_vet — Sat, 14 Oct 2006 05:45:00 GMT

I've just had a great week. I went to the Pacaya Samiria reserve in the amazon jungle. I think it's the biggest national park in Peru. It was incredible! We travelled by canoe for 5 days & slept out in the jungle...on the HARD ground under mosquito nets. The guides caught loads of fish, including piranha, & my pal Peter feasted on fresh fish every meal. He was sick of them by the end though, & I was so sick of my tucker...eggs - I ate 14 during that 5 days, yee gads my cholesterol!!! I am never eating another egg in my life I swear. We saw loads of birds & wildlife, & caught caiman (crocodiles) by hand at night - I didn't! And we got to release 500 baby river tortoises in a project there organised by the rangers. It was cool & I totally recommend it. Being out there in the wilds of the jungle was like....wow, nothing else matters in the whole world.

Aguaje - is it really worth the effort?

nomad_vet — Sat, 14 Oct 2006 04:55:00 GMT

After 5 minutes of trying to flick the red-brown reptilian like peel from an aguaje fruit, a peruvian woman frustrated with my ineptitude grabs it & descales it rapidly with her thumbnail. I am grateful but secretly hope that she has washed her hands today. And underneath is an inedible giant seed thinly covered with 3mm of bright orange flesh. Using my teeth I scrape the vaguely tangy butterish but stringy flesh from the seed. The taste does nothing for me but the palm fruit is incredibly popular amongst jungle folk in Iquitos & all along the Amazon River. Aguaje has inspired favourite treats such as aguaje flavoured yogurt treats & icecream - aguaje, milk & LOTS of sugar. I'm not a convert & I puzzle over why a fruit that gets orange goop under your fingernails & clearly requires more caloric energy to peel than it provides, is so popular. Local lore says that aguaje is rich in female hormones (oestrogens) & has caused the female population of Iquitos to outnumber men 5 times to 1. If a pregnant woman eats this fruit her unborn child will surely be a girl. Men are warned that occasional tasting of aguaje is ok, but over indulgence will result in the sprouting of breasts!

The Great Amazon River Raft Race

nomad_vet — Mon, 2 Oct 2006 03:46:00 GMT

What an incredible adventure! Rafting down the Amazon River on a flimsy bamboo raft held together with jungle vine & a few prayers. It’s the ‘Great Amazon River Raft Race’ - the world's longest. Sure I knew that competing would be tough & rafting 142 kms from Nauta to Iquitos is not a walk in the park but I didn’t expect it to be the most excruciating physical challenge of my life.

Imagine a river as wide as a lake, hot sun, humidity, & 4 chicas that had been training on beers & papas fritas…ok so maybe we could have taken pre-race preparation a little more seriously. Day 1 can only be described as torturous & very very long. The heat was relentless, & Irish lass Aoife & I had been out very late the night rocking the bootie in a local discoteca. We were feeling pretty damn crook. Janey had at least slept but had lost her bottle of electrolyte solution at the start line, & suffered from heat exhaustion, vomiting off the side of the raft. After rowing for a grueling 7 hours with little food except a few peanuts, & no finish line in sight, we were finished. I lay slumped across a bamboo pole trying to take a power nap, the others drooped in blue plastic chairs, which we had ‘vined’ to the raft for added comfort. The ‘Blue Princess’ could go no further. When were the coast guards going to pick us up? The raft floated aimlessly in the current & around a bend we went. Suddenly we saw Mecca, nirvana, heaven…our mothership ‘Miron2’ & end point in the distance. ‘C’mon gals lets synchronise, row, row’. Drawing on every last reserve we did it. Day 1 over.

Day 2 would prove to be even harder. 9 sweat filled hours to row 60 km with blistered hands & sun burnt feet, faces & lips. Anyone experienced sunburnt lips before? They swell up like balloons. Not pretty. At least we now had sandwiches to fuel our engines. Over the course of the day we only stopped for 15 minutes to rest, rowing like machines, we powered it home to finish 2^nd out of the now 5 international teams. I rowed so hard that when I stood up for the 1st time at the end of the day, I staggered & fell down on the raft. Trying to walk I staggered & stumbled like a drunk & had to sit down again for 5 minutes to get my senses together. A weird sensation to feel so weak. Poor Aoife also stumbling slipped on the river bank & fell on her butt in the mud….mud mixed with shit which we could see flowing in brown rivers from Tamishaku village straight into the river. Nice place to park the rafts. Yuk!

To bed at 8pm again! Too exhausted to socialise & only desiring rest. Not that sleeping is easy when 40 people are sardined together in hammocks in a boat that is legally allowed to carry 18.

Day 3 – whole body pain, heat, blisters, sunburn, swollen fingers that can’t grasp, & only 3 international teams still in the race. I can’t describe how determined we were to finish the race. Constantly needing inspiration we would spur each other on with shouts of ‘synchronise’, ‘power row’, & occasional bouts of hysterical laughter. Somehow we kept going way way beyond the pain barrier. As a cruel joke the finish line was 1km UP the Nanay river. The river was so narrow & the current so strong (had to be a 1^st time for a super strong current) that we moved forward inch by inch against the rapids. If anyone stopped rowing, the raft would plunge in the opposite direction. Who the hell put the finish line there?? And why….trying to break our spirits, our already broken bodies, or maybe just to put another blister on the blister.

The all girl vet team came 2^nd. Yippee! We didn’t win the prize money which we had planned to donate to Amazon cares (www.amazoncares.org) to save more doggies, but we did complete the toughest raft race ever as a team & it feels so good to know that we are 4 tough gals.

It also feels GOOD to stop rowing, to bathe, sleep in a bed, eat good food, & the endorphins whizzing about my veins…wow! I might even take up sport if it always feels this good when you stop. I just wish my body would stop rocking from side to side.

www.iquitostimes.com/raft-race-2006-results.htm

Moviestar in Iquitos

nomad_vet — Mon, 11 Sep 2006 02:30:00 GMT

I've just had the most bizarre experience ever. A vet pal of mine Sheradan Harvey is here to volunteer in Iquitos for a month, & her friend Jeremiah Alley decided to come down to Peru to film a pilot documentary about vets helping animals around the world. So for the last 10 days Sheradan & I have been prancing about in front of the cameras trying to look like movie stars. Afraid I failed badly, but Sheradan did actually look relaxed & beautiful, well except for that time when she was really ill & the film crew ran after her as she was racing to the toilet to vomit! Poor kid! Nothing is sacred if it makes for entertaining tv.

We had some crazy experiences with the film crew. They came to Belen market & helped catch stray dogs for the mobile neuter clinic, & they got some awesome footage of Ricardo fearlessly catching stray dogs. Poor Sheradan was feeling sick BEFORE we walked through the meat market at Belen (our neuter clinic is above the meat market), but the smell of dead & rotting animals & the sight of various body parts was enough to turn her stomach inside out. She lost her breakfast & any inclination to ever eat meat again.

We took the crew out to INRENA (government holding facility for confiscated wildlife) & saw the horrible conditions including an ocelot that had been in captivity for 4 years & in a cage the size of a small dog crate for the last 2 years. This cage had NEVER been cleaned & this poor creature couldn't walk or barely even turn around. Good news though, the excellent guys at ZooPeru (www.zooperu.com) designed a cage 200 TIMES bigger & we all pitched in with some donations & got to work building an awesome spacious cage in the jungle. Volunteer horticulturist Al from San Diego Zoo created a mini jungle for the ocelot to prowl about in. The ocelot's reaction was heartwarming when we put him in his new cage, he explored, he sniffed, he WALKED for the 1st time in 4 years. Then when he found his water bowl which had been dug into the ground, he drank for 5 full minutes. After using his paw to flick out several leaves that had fallen into the water he lowered himself down & he squeezed his whole body into that water bowl & lay contentedly in his new swimming pool.

Animal charities always need funds but if anyone reads this & is in the position to donate money, please consider ZooPeru as this organisation really needs financial help to get wildlife out of horrendous conditions, & hopefully one day back into the wild where they belong.

Beachbums

nomad_vet — Mon, 21 Aug 2006 21:43:00 GMT

It doesn't matter that it's chilly & winter in Chiclayo, las chicas are heading out to flash hairy, white legs & check out the surf at Pimentel beach. Robin, Pam, Mindy & I flag down one of the many dented yellow daewoo taxis that do the rounds in Chiclayo. A bargain...just 10 soles for the 9km trip. Being the only one who can sling together a few spanish words in a sentence, I become 'Bob' co-driver. This has the added advantage that I get to wear the only seat belt. In this case not such an advantage as the belt is permanently fused at the buckle & I have to climb through it to get in my seat. Seat belts are not worn to prevent physical injury but to prevent financial injury - the police are eager to give out 80 sole traffic fines.

Pimentel beach is beautiful - a huge expanse of clean whitish sand, and a 300 metre rickety old pier with an antiquated railway track running along its border (clearly no longer in use). We amble 3/4 of the length of the pier only to be stopped at a large wooden fence. An old guy guards the entry though an doorway, & we are asked to pay 1 sole each to enter. Pay for what?, I wonder. The old fellow with ticket book in hand is keen to bargain & offers '4 for the price of 3' but I can't see an amusement park or cafe at the end of the pier, in fact all I see is a treacherously loose boardwalk...maybe the money is for insurance or to pay for sea rescue when we fall through the boards. We pass on the adventure.

Surf is up & local kids are body boarding on 6 foot long woven bamboo rafts. Shaped like a kayak chopped in half along its middle, the kids are able to fling the rafts too & fro. Looks like fun but way, way too cold for me to dip my body in this part of the Pacific.

Beers & cerviche (fish cooked in lemon) at the beachfront La Amiga restaurant serenaded by a classical singer thumping out a few tunes on his guitar. A mighty fine afternoon!

Homeward bound in a mini bus collectivo for 1 sole. 'Chiclayo, Chiclayo, Chiclayo' yells the conductor an uncountable number of times out the window...how many times does he say that word in a day? The van speeds round and round the deserted streets of Pimentel hunting for potential passengers. Anyone walking on the street is wooed & convinced to visit Chiclayo NOW. Imagine a bus driver that doesn't resent stopping or waiting for a passenger, & one that will actually slam on the brakes to stop for someone, & will throw the bus into reverse gear so that he can pick up just one more passenger / squeeze them into an already overcrowded bus.

Pickpocketed by grandma

nomad_vet — Sun, 20 Aug 2006 20:57:00 GMT

There goes my street credibility - a wrinkly old peruvian grandma steals my purse, my 10 soles ($4 aussie) & my pride. Third time lucky for the thieves - 1st failed attempt by street kids in Santa Marta, Colombia; take 2 at Belen market in Iquitos and I outsmart the 20 yr old lads; but grandma in Mercado Modelo in Chiclayo with her slick team proves that a life of crime does pay.

True I didn't even feel a thing or see grandma's arthritic hand dive into my right front trouser pocket. Amusingly 2 'lucky' charms that I have just bought at the market were sitting on top of my busted up old wallet - grandma doesn´t take them...lucky for me!

The whole situation came to pass in a busy part of the fruit & veg market. A guys cuts me off & jams my path so that I can't move forward or back. Grandma shunts my friend Robin into me. I crush someone's foot (maybe grandmas)with my boot, and just like that they are gone, as is my wallet perhaps with a 3rd perpetrator. I don't even realise for a split second & by then the wee scoundrels have fled (hopefully one limping), impossible to give chase, their faces unrecognisable in a sea of Peruvians.

The moral - don't take anything you care about losing to crowded markets. Dr Dave learn't the same lesson the previous day. He was 'crowded' by 4 thugs & a valuable camera was stolen from his chest pocket - he didn't feel it either.

The lesson - if you are being shunted, pushed or jammed in a market or busy street in Peru, you are probably being robbed.

The revenge - an extremely ugly plastic purse has been purchased, & contains a few low value centimo coins, & a hand written note translating loosely to: "get a job you son of a bitch". An aussie pal Aden had a similiar 'decoy wallet' stolen from him 3 times in Peru much to his delight. I can't wait for this sweet, sweet revenge...pick my pocket now grannie!

Jungle to desert to Colan beach

nomad_vet — Tue, 8 Aug 2006 19:54:00 GMT

I'm in the desert, toes dipping in the Pacific ocean. I'm in Colan, Nth Peru. How cool to wake up sweltering in the balmy heat of amazonian city Iquitos, jump on a couple of planes, & fall asleep next to the sea, being lulled to sleep by the sounds of waves tumbling on the shore...sure beats listening to the whining of motortaxis or dogs.

But I'm not just in Colan to relax by the glorious beach. I´m here to help the animal shelter 'Asociacion Humanitaria San Francisco de Asis'. Wonderful Rosemary Gordon started this organisation 8 years ago to help the many suffering animals of north Peru. Christened the 'angel of Peru' Rosa has selflessly devoted all her time, money & energy to this pursuit.

Straight to work I visit the tiny house 15kms away in Paita where volunteers Marina Luisa & her mum collect dogs to be surgically sterilised. Paita is a dusty dirty city, & although it is Peru's 2nd largest port, its days of colonial glory are long passed - there is little reason for tourists to visit now. And like every one of Peru's poor cities there are dogs everywhere.

The surgical facilites in Paits are VERY basic but the team are just so keen to be able to help the dogs...important criteria for a successful spey progam! Dogs are collected in the morning & transported to Maria's house in plastic dog carry cages strapped to the back of motocycle taxis. I give Peruvian vet Victor Diaz a crash course in surgical sterility, & train him in good old aussie spey techniques...a small incision & use of a spey hook (or in spanish 'gancho') to minimise surgery time & complications. A few changes to the anaesthetic regime & the dogs sleep well through the surgery & wake up happy afterwards...patient comfort is certainly our aim.

Victor has a ball learning the many different ways to do surgery. I also show him the joy of doing flank speys in cats and dogs & he wants to try it all. He is especially impressed by the ´pressure cooker´ that I have purchased for 'cooking' the instruments. An old fashioned way to sterilise the instruments but the best we have available at this stage. My vet pal Caroline McCutcheon in Australia has an autoclave to donate to us....anyone coming to Peru??

Over the next few days Victor & I pack up all our veterinary gear & travel roadshow style (in collectivos, buses, & mototaxis) to 3 vets clinics in Piura to teach other vets & vet students the joys of surgery. It is a resounding success & I am overwhelmed by how enthusiastic the vets & students are. In Peru the university facilites are extremely poor & unfortunately many budding vets lack even very basic training in areas of surgery & sterility.

At the 1st vet clinic I show the university surgery professor my speying techniques. Together we spey an older bitch & find she has a large tumour the size of a grapefruit on her spleen. We remove the spleen & potentially save her life. These types of tumours often grow very large & ultimately rupture, with the animal bleeding to death. This is the 1st time the professor & students have seen a splenic tumour removed so it is a fantastic learning experience for all, and our patient is doing well too.

A great week - 5 vets & 9 final year vet students all receive surgical training. And all (their friends too!) are very keen to learn more. Plans are in progress for a return visit to nth Peru, with perhaps a visit to the university to present a lecture & practical classes. A huge thanks to 'Humane Society International' for paying my airfare so that I could travel to Piura to help train these enthusiastic young vets.

For more information about charity 'Asociacion Humanitaria San Francisco de Asis' see: http://ahsfa.org/

Back to Lima

nomad_vet — Sun, 6 Aug 2006 21:19:00 GMT

I have 1/2 a day to explore Lima before I fly to Piura in the afternoon. I figure I may as well take the cheap (& safe)Urbanito bus service into central Lima. Good plan, but the bus service from the airport no longer exists, so the only option is an expensive taxi - 35 soles ($15). I could bargain with one of the cheaper cabs outside the airport but apparently they can be dangerous & have been known to hijack their passengers, rob them at gunpoint, dump them in the slums minus money & sometimes minus clothes. Sure, it sounds like an urban myth on par with waking up with 1 kidney missing...sold off for a transplant! I have been told by several very sincere Peruvians that the kidney trade actually occurs in Lima & I should be careful...maybe that taxi driving over there is planning on robbing me AND cutting out my kidney. Slightly delirious after only 1 hours sleep I opt for the boring, safe & expensive taxi to central Lima.

My first plan is to visit the medical supply shops on Emancipacion street to buy an ambu bag for the chronic doggie diaphragmatic hernia waiting to be operated on in Iquitos. This simple item is not available in Iquitos, even in a children's hospital. Don't get sick in Iquitos! After visiting a lot of shops I find my ambu bag, but 'cuanto questa???'. Its sucks being a gringa & having to deal with inflated prices, after all the locals conclude I must be rich...haven't they checked out my scrappy backpacker clothes. At least I can afford to buy supplies (suture material, chlorhexidine) for the animal charity 'Association Humanitaria San Francisco de Asis' that I will visit next in Colan near Piura.

I have to do something touristy in Lima as 'all work & no play' makes Bethy a very dull girl. I opt to take a tour of the 'Catedral de Lima' built in 1555. A magnificent structure with all the usual ornate golden trimmings of a South American church. It has been destroyed by several earthquakes only to be rebuilt with more grandeur each time. The eventual home of Francisco Pizarro's beheaded corpse, it holds many gorey secrets, & hidden crypts...all which makes for a great tour. There are also several paintings & sculptures of Peru's favourite saint 'Santa Rosa'. A lover of pain & self flagellation, Santa Rosa is always depicted with a thorny crown & a stream of blood flowing down her forehead. I think I'll pass on becoming a saint in Peru.

Dodging turkey vultures

nomad_vet — Thu, 3 Aug 2006 22:42:00 GMT

Its a crazy thing, but all flights out of Iquitos are either VERY early in the morning or late at night. And by early I mean 4:30am which is truly a time when I should be either alseep or dancing, but definitely not waiting in an airport queue.

I do love the reason for this silly hour. The airport is next to the rubbish tip where a million scruffy turkey vultures poke about in Iquitos´ rubbish during the day. The great fear is that if planes fly in the daylight hours, a low flying vulture will be sucked into the engine & cause the plane to fall out of the sky. It has allegedly happened previously in Peru near the jungle town of Pucallpa....TANS flight 204 crashed in Aug 2005 killing 50 or so passengers. This wasn't the first TANS disaster & it was a very dodgy airline controlled by the Peruvian airforce...say no more! TANS has fortunately been grounded ever since.

So rubbish tips next to airports. What's the big deal, why hasn't someone suggested moving the rubbish tip somewhere else, & then there'd be no more turkey vultures, no more plane crashes, & we would all get to sleep in.

An oncilla in my bedrooom

nomad_vet — Wed, 19 Jul 2006 01:56:00 GMT

´Priscilla´ the oncilla (the tiger cat that we rescued from the hideous conditions at Inrena) is now ´Queen of the Casa´. She started off living in the bathroom at the vet clinic, but with escalating temperatures in Iquitos and a growing girls need for space, she now rules the upper floor of the vet clinic.

She runs amok! Her favourite pastime is sliding down the side of the giant bathtub, & then clambering up the other side. I´ve put some wooden boards leading up to the bath and over it to create an oncilla adventure playground.....she loves it! Almost as much fun as the jungle.

No different from your domestic moggy, Priscilla prefers to play with a screwed up piece of paper, rather than her expensive cat toys. And her favourite hobby of all is attacking my ankles biting hard and kicking hell out of them with her back feet. I am trying to discourage this habit as Priscilla has tiger teeth and it hurts. So now I run around the room with a rattling cat toy on a string and Priscilla attacks & ´kills´ it.

She´s a healthy girl and eating well - whole dead chickens (injected with a calcium & vitamin mix for healthy bones), & fish & other choice cuts of meat. She also loves ´whiskas´dry cat food....McDonalds for cats but it does ensure she is getting all the right vitamins & minerals. She has doubled in weight in 1 month....this girl is gonna have to go on a diet!

I love caring for Priscilla & getting to know the behaviour of a wild tiger cat but everyday I feel sad that she isn´t in the jungle where she belongs. She loves me too but given the choice she would rather be scrambling up a tree, stalking bugs, or belting up another oncilla. Sadly the first few times she saw her reflection in the bedroon wall mirror, she would run towards her ´friend´ and take a flying leap as if to rugby tackle her new pal....only to smack herself in the face in the mirror. Poor Priscilla queen of the jungle!

´Toby´ the hairless dog tries to leave Peru

nomad_vet — Fri, 7 Jul 2006 07:08:00 GMT

Oh my god! What a fiasco to export a dog out of Peru. Just ask Justin the vet student. I doubt he’ll ever want to hear to words ‘Peru’ and ‘dog’ mentioned in the same sentence again.

That poor bugger Justin has been stuck in customs at Lima airport for 10 hours today. Toby the other poor bugger has been stuck in a dog crate in the customs warehouse after surviving his first flight from Iquitos to Lima.

No kidding it has taken volunteer Justin two solid weeks, about 500 emails, who knows how many phonecalls, constant hounding (pardon the pun) of certain vets, and I reckon at least a couple of swear words to get the ‘right’ dog crate, and that bloody health certificate.

When I turned up to work this morning I breathed a sigh of relief, Justin & Toby were gone. They had obviously made it to the Iquitos airport for their 5am rendevous with customs. Later I met Justin’s pal Santiago & I quizzed him. “Justin gone? All go well? Toby on the plane?” Well, apparently everyone slept in by an hour and it was touch and go, but ultimately it was up, up and away, dodging turkey vultures along the way.

I was a little sad they had left but happy that Toby was off to his new life in Wisconsin. Saved from death on the Iquitos streets and now off to meet Justin’s friend Angela, and to a life of skipping through snow filled streets wearing designer coats and doggie boots.

All was well until at 5pm I heard a very sad faint voice on the phone, “Beth, they won’t let Toby leave Peru”. “What the ……!!! Why not?”

Despite the fact that Toby is CASTRATED, doesn’t have a pedigree, & his father could be a labrador for all we know, he needs to have a special certificate because he has been called a PERRO SIN PELO on his customs certificate. Some wee officious Peruvian Johhny (Juaney?) has invented a new regulation & all ‘perros sin pelo’ must be microchipped, have a special certificate, & someone has to decide if he is ‘small’, ‘medium’ or ‘large’…..well, derrrr, do we need a court of law to decide that. By the way this is the same country that freely exports its endangered wildlife without a care in the world, so go figure!

Of course, customs don´t want to actually look at Toby and he may well be ‘Toby’ the jaguar for all they care.

I tell Justin, “Just bribe the idiots. Tell them he’s a crossbreed. Put a cross on the certificate”. Apparently they were beyond reason.

What a predicament. Justin has a flight to the USA at midnight that can’t be changed. Toby is in the warehouse that closes in 30 minutes. No one can write the ‘special’ certificate until tomorrow….well, that’s just typical.

Ester and I call everyone we can think of in Lima. Finally a plan. Justin takes Toby to Ester’s cousin’s house for the night & he will return to the airport & catch his flight to the USA. Poor cousin gets the hideous job of organising more paperwork in the morning, and getting Toby onto his flight to Atlanta where he will spend the night in a boarding kennel, and then take another flight to Wisconsin. This is a work in progress & I pray it goes smoothly (ha, ha, come on this is Peru!) Tomorrow I may well be on a flight to save Toby for the 2nd time, and I promise I will TRY very hard not to kill anyone when I get there.

Any idea how much all this is costing Justin?? He’s a poor vet student with a VERY BIG HEART and now a big debt. Sorry Justin I wish I never said “Hey Toby’s a great dog. He had a crappy owner who threw him into the streets when he got sick. Why don’t you take him back to the good life in the states?” If only the world was filled with people like Justin….. I wouldn’t be back in the vet clinic at 1am removing a rubber band that has been maliciously placed around a kittens leg. The kitten’s leg is gangrenous & swollen, & tomorrow I may have to remove it too.

Rescue of an oncilla

nomad_vet — Thu, 6 Jul 2006 06:34:00 GMT

Wow, I got to treat an oncilla!! The oncilla or little tiger cat is one of the smallest cat species in South America. And this little guy is rare and classified cites 1. The species continued existence is considered threatened.

I encountered the oncilla when I visited the Irena centre with the guys from ‘Zoo Peru’. This place is where the Iquitos wildlife enforcement officers re-home wild animals that have been confiscated from animal traffickers. Sadly the conditions at Inrena are appalling, and this tiny 2 month old cat was lying in a pool of bloody diarrhoea and was without any food or water. Antony Taggart from ‘Zoo Peru’ was able to pull some strings and we rescued the oncilla and took her on a 40 minute motocarro ride back to the Amazon Cares vet clinic in town.

The poor creature was severely dehydrated and weak. She didn’t even resist when I shaved the fur from her left leg and placed an IV catheter so we could quickly give her intravenous fluids. I have to admit my hands were shaking when I put that catheter in, and her skin was as tough as an old tom cat so I’m surprised it went in first pop…a good vein day!

We all said our prayers that night - this little girl was one sick kitten. In fact, almost certainly she would have died if she had stayed at Inrena for another night.

Poor Priscilla…(what a brilliant name for an oncilla)…had a rough night. She had more diarrhoea and vomited up the small amount of raw chicken that she had eaten. But by the next morning her hydration had improved a little and she felt stronger, and she was able to bite and scratch and try to escape from her cage.

Priscilla is living temporarily in the clinic and is getting cheekier by the day. When I feed her she races up and gives me a friendly swipe with her paw, and then she wraps herself around my foot and gives my ankle a nip. Glad she isn’t going to get much bigger than 2.5kg!

Confiscated wildlife

nomad_vet — Sun, 2 Jul 2006 15:24:00 GMT

Filthy conditions, no food or water, an endangered oncilla near death...thats what I encountered on my visit to Inrena, the government animal holding centre in Iquitos.

Inrena is the official destination for animals that have been confiscated from animal traffickers and traders. Definitely a fate worse than death to be imprisoned at Inrena. A lucky few will leave to go to the local Qistococha zoo but most will stay until they die of disease or old age.There is no current program for the rehabilitation of these animals back into the jungle.

It is illegal to catch and sell wildlife but if you visit the Belen market in Iquitos you will always see a huge array of wildlife for sale: monkeys, snakes, parrots, sloths, you name it. Animals crammed into tiny dirty cages. Its not unusual to see birds, monkeys and tortoises all in together battling for space. Anacondas are commonly squashed into large coca-cola bottles. It is heartbreaking. Larger animals such as jaguars, giant otters or giant anteaters can all be purchased. Just ask a trader and any animal can be caught from the wild.

The government is too corrupt to care. Everyday endangered species are being flown out of Iquitos airport to destinations in the USA or Europe. These wild animals (that is the ones that don´t die along the way) will end up in zoos, private collections or perhaps their fate will be to be shot and killed in ´canned hunts´ in Texas.

Forged documents are easy to obtain. Pay a bribe and buy papers that declare that the animal was "captive bred" and it can be legally exported from Peru. Catching and exporting wild animals is a corrupt and evil billion dollar industry that will eventually result in the extinction of these incredible creatures. And when you consider that the future of animals that are actually confiscated by the police is to go to Inrena, the situation seems hopeless.

But there is hope!

Antony Taggart from Zoo Peru www.zooperu.com is the one person who can change all this. He is a man with a vision and that vision is to take over the running of Inrena and to improve the lives of its inmates and ultimately to start a rehabilitation program to get these animals back into the wild where the belong.