While traveling through Perú we stumbled on a small monkey sanctuary in the Amazon jungle and instantly fell in love with everything about it. Owned and run by a local Peruvian, his family, and locals from nearby villages – they give their heart and soul into caring for orphaned monkeys rescued from the illegal animal trade.
We have never stopped supporting and volunteering with them. Since 2016 we have lived in the jungle for over 2 years surrounded by nothing but rainforest and the furry inhabitants. It is the most unique working environment we’ve ever found.
Before the island had solar and Starlink, the only connectivity to be found was a walk into the jungle and setting up a hammock between trees to get the best cellphone signal, and keeping the laptops away from the curious baby monkeys!
Anyone who has spoken to us for a minute or two about travel will know how special “the island” is to us. We have spent the last 9 years on various projects, some of which we’ve listed below:
- Built a new website, designed by Bradley Pratt.
- Set up an online donation store for one off and branded merchandise (which we designed)
- Built a volunteer sign up process to cut out a lot of admin.
- Raised money to purchase more land for the island.
- Created information boards about the species of monkeys found on the island.
- Donated Starlink and pay for this each month.
- Donated solar panels and batteries so they could reduce reliance on generators and gasoline.
- Raised money to build several new buildings and a water tower.
We continue to support the island with whatever we can, and are back to see them as much as possible (7 times so far!). It’s fair to say they have become our Peruvian family.
Visit the website and learn more about our BE Kind project if you’d like to help with this or any other projects we donate our time and money to.
The image of us below shows us hand feeding a baby spider monkey that was bought to the island after her mother was killed in the jungle. ‘Emita’ lived in our bedroom for 3 months and was hand fed every 3 hours, night and day, until she was strong enough to join the other monkeys outside. Monkeys are NOT pets. Never take photos with monkeys on leashes while you travel, don’t perpetuate their suffering, let them live free!