Beast of Burden

HI! Another awesome day here in our little middle of nowhere wildlife haven...
After finishing the bears this morning we cleaned the tiger pool-- we do one pool a day so everyone gets done once a week. But today, Mieow was being quite a pain in the ass- he would NOT get into his enclosure, in fact he wouldn't even get out of the pool for 45 minutes. Very annoying but also kind of funny. Every toy(branch, tire, rope) they used to try and lure him out he eventually got a hold of and took into the pool with him. Eventually got the kitty locked up though. :)
Me and a girl named Camille had enrichments today after lunch, which is also something each animal gets once a week. The idea is to figure out something to make their lives locked up more interesting- we do everything from cutting down ant nests for the bears to freezing coconut milk with things inside for the monkeys. Today we had the hornbill, the pigs, the tiger, the mongoose, the croc and the iguana(totally out of place by the way- he's from the south american pet trade). So, most of our enrichments failed- the croc("dundee") barely even woke up when we had fish dangling right above him. But we found some bamboo halves and stuffed it with cat food to give to the mongeese and it was a total hit! Only one mongoose("monty") actually lives here but there is a tunnel leading out of the cage and he's got a wild wife and kids ;) so we feed them too. Monty is way too tame to leave his lovely hotel.
SOOO, the best part of today, hence the title, is I GOT TO SWIM WITH AN ELEPHANT!! I know they are big and scary(and heavy, thank you matt for pointing that out) but these are pretty tame and they listen to their mahouts pretty well. So we hitched a ride when they were on the way to the lake- I walked through the forest and then down into the water on one, where they completely submerge themselves! It's a totally weird feeling but also really really cool. I'd reccommend it to anyone. Ok, I've written enough for today- gotta get to the store before I'm due back at the center for dinner. Lata!