Let's recap. We arrived at AmaZOOnico Sunday at noon, shadowed two tours on Monday, shadowed one tour on Tuesday, practiced tour guiding after work on Wednesday, and were given the go on Thursday for our first tour. Here's the low down on how it went.
We met our family of 5 at the reception area and learned they were Ecuadorian. What??? No pressure for two very Canadian, English speaking people. We were assured an English tour would be great, so we started our welcome and introductions, naturally laying on the charm. The parents seemed to be interested, the teenage kids, not so much. Hum, just like school at home ;)
First stop - the tortoises and turtles. We played "find the first tortoise", shared some interesting facts, and answered a few questions. There is no way they thought this was our first tour. We were definitely killing it!
Second stop - the empty anaconda enclosure, empty for cleaning, not because of an escape. We shared "Esmeralda's" back story, and were quick to notice the youngest daughter, who was about 11, had started to cry. What to do when someone starts crying had not been covered in the training. Go figure. Usually at school when a student cries, we grab the kleenex box and offer one. Seeing as we're in the Amazon RAIN forest with no dry tissue (or dry anything else) anywhere, we made a quick decision. Just ignore it - seemed smart!
Third stop - the scarlet macaws. By now, tears were streaming down our crier's face. Maybe it was the fact that the snake never learned to hunt or that the birds both had broken wings that was causing the tears. Regardless, it was too obvious to be ignored. We asked the dad if there was anything we could do. He assured us the tears had nothing to do with us or the tour. Alright then. We carried on, even if it was a lie.
Our next stops included the tapirs, the caiman, the coatis, the peccaries, and the tayras. Only the dad seemed really interested, but at least the crying had stopped. At this point we needed a lucky break, something super cool or exciting to increase the positive vibes. And like a gift from the heavens (or trees), out popped Kiwi, the male Wooly monkey.
Everyone loves Kiwi. He is a good looking, robust male with a ton of personality, and for being only 3 feet tall, he certainly steals the show. He swings in the trees, walks along the top of a rope and sometimes just poses! We were sharing cool facts about the Woolies, and failed to notice that the crier had slipped over to get a closer look at the tayra. Tayras are closely related to weasels, and are known for being very vicious. Just as we turned our heads we noticed the crier was about to stick her fingers into the cage, and "pet" the tayra. Oh shit. Trying not to yell as that would surely inspire more tears, we both gave a firm "stop", doing our best not to freak her, or her parents, out. It was a VERY close call, but no one was bitten, no fingers were lost, and no rabies shots were needed. Thank goodness!
Over the course of the tour, which you will remember was delivered in English to a mostly Spanish speaking family, we discovered that the girl couldn't understand English at all and dad was quietly translating some of our information. I guess he forgot the part where Gayle explicitly said, DO NOT interact with the animals.
It took a few more stops for our heart rates to settle, but we wrapped up the tour successfully with a couple of spider monkey sightings and a strong finish with the toucans. We wrapped things up with a thank you for coming, buy a drink in the reception and a locally made souvenir from the gift shop.
All things considered, our first tour WAS eventful. We're pretty sure that would have been our last if the girl had actually been bitten.