This is it, the last shoot. Time has flown like you wouldn’t believe. I can still remember the first shoot in Malawi back in March!! Painfully remember Marc, Nathan and myself fretting about storylines, the pressure of working with a first time presenter and here we are ten months down the line, 5 programmes already edited and at Sky waiting for broadcast and all I can say is what an experience! It has got better and better the more time has gone by.

We have seen some amazing animals, people and places.

Wow!

Let’s hope this is a good one!

Happy New Year!! The last two weeks have gone with a blur but Christmas for the Gambles was a total winner. Noah was on form, presents galore and it was the fantastic glut of food, drink and great company that you can’t possibly go wrong with. I scored some serious points on the karma front – at least three church attendances – possibly four – so I am feeling pure and spiritually sound. I even gave away my Nintendo DS lite to a small orphan – I say mine, it was a freebie to PetAir – but that isn’t the point, I’m hoping it still counts in Gods eyes. I love the Christmas services, although I do feel a bit sorry for all the regular church goers who have their congregation invaded by the people like me who are trying to make up for lost time towards the end of the year. Obviously you get double points for Christmas services so the Church becomes a hub of the community.

Noah simply loved the melee of cribs, animals and race around with all the village children wanting to be shepherds. The vicars and priests also really got into the community feel of things, rebelling against health and safety and dishing out about 50 Christingle candles to all the children under 5 – definitely added some spice to things. I caused a little consternation amongst a couple of the elderly ladies in the congregation as I was clutching a basket containing Noah’s small stuffed bunny rabbit and teddy bear. Noah was of course nowhere to be seen with Cordelia in hot pursuit, so as I stood there holding the basket, a very nice elderly lady asked me what I was I doing clutching a couple of animal toys. I tried to laugh it off by explaining as a vet I felt very uneasy about leaving home without any animals, it may have been a passable joke had Nigel, the Thatcher, not joined in and told the lady he felt the same about being away from his job and pulled a large clump of straw from his pocket. It was definitely time for another mince pie.

Mad Uncle Eddy was also on form. Having been the lead singer in a Glaswegian rock band, and still sporting a totally shaved head and large anarchy tattoo on his upper right bicep, he was a bastion of Hark the Herald Angels sing, in what was a resounding finale to the Christmas Day service. I think I had the edge on him during Silent Night and the impromptu Away in the Manager that the organist sprang on everyone – having once played Joseph in a church navity as a child, I was totally in the zone for it, but he edged ahead with Come all Ye Faithful and left me for dust towards the end. Never disappoints does Mad Uncle Eddy – he got Noah a toy electric guitar for Christmas – brilliant – makes a heck of racket though.

Anyway, reliably back up to my fighting weight of a 100kg, I left home at 3am this morning and am currently enjoying 15hours of Iberia economy on my way to Costa Rica. The plane was made in about 1940 – I have a useful ashtray on my seat, about 3cm of leg room and it is a packed flight. It is also exceptionally bumpy and we’ve been told the flight will take two hours longer than normal due to extreme winds. No entertainment system so TV is a no go. Love it – as is Adam who hasn’t made his feelings known to the cabin crew no more than two or three times so far. Good to be open about things on your mind. Marc is sleeping and snuggled up to a couple of elderly Japanese tourists who seem to fussing around with his blanket – best leave them to it. Great news for Chris, who is pinned beside me and has taken the place of Nathan for this last shoot of the series (big shoes to fill there buddy), and it means we can chat solidly. Good discussions to date – are ogres stronger than dwarves, who would you rather have help you out in a fight (against a Barbarian horde) a Samuri or a Ninja, if Chris rates himself as a 2 on a scale of nimbleness of 1-10 – how nimble is an elf and when did banana exports being in Costa Rica (1880). You can see it is a long flight.

We’re all in good spirits, geared up for the final mission. Can’t wait to get there, get a touch of kip and then hit the zone for some 2010 hardcore healing.

So this is my first ever overseas shoot, and the last shoot of the series for the rest of the crew. I shall be taking the role of Nathan, I agree with Luke, big shoes to fill! He’s given me a good brief of what I shall be doing so I’m all set and raring to go. I’m all a tad excited to experience working and exploring a country such as Costa Rica. Still unsure of what to expect and what I’m going to see, making it truly an adventure.

Getting onto the plane to depart from London, Luke seemed eager to sit next to me, of course I was only happy to oblige. I had only met Mr. Gamble in person a very brief couple of times in the production office, so the long flight ahead seemed a good opportunity for me to get to know the vet. Some, lets say interesting conversations and facts were exchanged, a fountain of knowledge he would have me believe….

I don’t think any of us were deeply impressed with the flight. I had my suspicions about the airline, and they were well surpassed. A 17 hour flight with near enough no service and serious lack of on board entertainment…. need I say more. Although a somewhat uncomfortable start, I wasn’t going to let that deflate my excitement for the next 10 days of adventures!

Before I can practice as a vet in Costa Rica and work with the charities here, I have to undergo a mandatory training programme on advanced spay and neuter techniques. It’s a bit like resitting my finals again – 11 years later – and I need to get my stripes so the Costa Rican veterinary authorities can be sure I am up to the job. Bit of a trek to get to the training centre but it should be really interesting as apparently they practice a very different technique to the one I am used to – so fingers crossed I pass the exam! The training programme is being run at a big shelter at the top of an inactive volcano – amazing drive but the road is ‘extreme’ (as Simon would say) and the car took a heck of a battering on the way up. Great views and look forward to what’s in store tomorrow. I’m being trained up by the head vet of the McKee foundation so no messing about there and the spotlight will be on. Apparently this vet can spay 100 dogs a day (which is a lot) and he averages four minutes an operation from opening incision to final suture. If it is true, he will beat my Indian friend who currently holds the record at seven minutes 17 seconds and even more impressive is that this vet apparently has no assistants during the operation.

After our gruelling 17 hour or so flight from London, we finally made it to Costa Rica. Despite the bumpy ride, the lack of in-flight entertainment and not so great service, we all felt relieved and happy to be in San Jose, ready for the last adventure of them all. We have no idea what we are up against.

We stayed in some roadside hotel before making our way up the mountain, past Heredia to a dog sanctuary where Luke was to get his stripes before being able to operate in the country. I have to say some of the scenery was breathtaking.

We have all woken up with bed sores and stiff backs. The four of us had to share two rooms with bunkbeds. Ermmm!! I can’t remember the last time I slept in one of those. Not that I am one to complain all the time, but it wasn’t fun, they were damp and hard as nails. I had to get up in the middle of the night and sleep on the couch in the living room which was slightly softer.

I was glad when the day was over, Luke got his stripes and we headed off down south to Manuel Antonio, which lies on the Pacific Ocean near Queso. It was s great drive as Marc playing cracking tunes on his ipod all the way down there. The vibe is good. I think its going to be a cracking trip!

I should explain that the McKee Foundation was set up by Christine Crawford – a very charismatic and determined lady who has driven forward the idea of controlling the street dogs of Costa Rica. The Foundation has a no shelter philosophy and whilst I can’t quite agree with this, having visited so many great shelters that do amazing work and met so many incredible people that run them, I do believe in having a strong focus of community outreach and trying to encourage community responsibility for street animals. There is no denying that the Foundation has made a massive impact here and I am sure will continue to do so. Christine really has done wonders.

The thing that allows community outreach to be so effective in Costa Rica is having a great team running the programmes here. They have a strong emphasis on education, marketing and public relations as well as ensuring very fast surgeons are on the spay neuter team and to that end, the technique Christine and Dr Rivas have developed is focused on spaying bitches in less that 10minutes whilst the ‘owners’ wait. It is a very economic procedure – short cuts have to be taken for cost reasons – it isn’t very sterile for example – but the speed and non invasiveness of the procedure is undeniably impressive. The incision is typically 1cm in length, sterile cable ties are used for tying off the vessels and only one stitch is used in the muscle and one stitch in the skin. Before the skeptics kick off – Dr Rivas has been doing this for ten years and the follow ups on the communities where he and his crack team of vets have visited have shown a complication rate of 1 in 1000. I am sure that 1 in 1000 complications (post op infections for example) is the same sort of rate for private UK practice and Dr Riveras does indeed take about 5 minutes in a straight forward bitch.

I have never been a massive fan of worrying hugely about speed as long as the bitch is good and the surgery is safe, but faster surgery does mean quicker recovery and less risk of infection. All the bitches get pain relief and antibiotic and I was definitely impressed. You need a spay hook for the technique and it is midline, but if it goes well – it is brilliant. As with all fast spay techniques, if you drop a ligature (or cable tie!) you’re in trouble and the anaesthetic protocol of zoletil, acp, ketamine and atropine gives you about 15minutes at the outside – but we got through about 15 surgeries in about 2 hours – and it was an eye opener as they do all the prep, saving, premed etc themselves. There are some good tips I picked up and it is fascinating to learn these different techniques.

Great news is that I passed the exam – had my training, did a couple of spays using the McKee technique and I’m now able to work as a vet with the charities out here. End of the day we polished off a quick 250km drive to our next destination on the Pacific coast to help a charity called Kids Saving the Rainforest… gets a bit hotter down south so whilst people may be braving the freezing weather in the UK spare a thought for the film crew, working hard at 30 degrees heat in tropical lush rainforest by the unspoilt beaches of the pacific. It’s tough.

Great day! Kids Saving the Rainforest was a charity founded in 1999 by two girls who developed a passion for the rainforest and conserving the wildlife – within it at only eleven years of age. The project took off and has grown into a big non-profit organization that is multi faceted in its goals and aims. The approach is a holistic one, focused on overall sustainability and ecological diversity of the rainforest and all the fauna and flora within it. Jennifer and Chip (Jennifer is the Mother of one of the girls) are the custodians of the project and are overseeing its development and exponential growth. They employ a vet called Pia who heads up the animal side of things and oversees the rescue and rehabilitation of the wildlife, returning about 50 animals a year back into the rainforest. Jennifer and Chip exude a tireless energy in managing both their hotel business and the charity – which is clearly a complete passion for both of them.

Incredibly welcoming, my day was spent working with Pia to do some health checks on animals about to be released, learn about the animals at the centre and generally get an appreciation for the challenges they face. It was great fun and I don’t want to spoil exactly what we got up to as it will be a good part of the programme but Nathan would have been raw with envy as we got to grips with baby sloths – his favourite creatures – and they are completely adorable. Interesting facts are that the three toed sloths are endangered (two toed aren’t), they depend utterly on the sustainability of the rainforest for their survival, they live in the trees and only come down to the ground once a week to defaecate and urinate – around the base of the tree in which they live (the idea being they fertilise it). They even give birth up in the tree – hanging from the branches. The baby will cling to the Mother for about 4 months before being weaned and their hair grows away from the extremities rather than towards it (as in all other mammals) because they spend so much time hanging upside down it helps the water drain away when it rains! They can also delay implantation which means the gestation of a sloth can vary depending on availability for food 6-9 months being the average.

All sloths have three toes on their hind feet but two toed have only two toes on their front feet – three toed have three. Algae grown in their hair which helps camoflague them and they metabolise things at a very slow rate giving them their reputation for slothness. A bit undeserved as they seemed to be pretty active to me and the fact they don’t move fast and stay up in the tress is really a mechanism to avoid predation and allow them to blend in with the surrounding forest (jaguars, harpy eagles and man being the main predators).

Whilst we are on interesting facts – if you ever need to anaesthetize a raccoon – 12mg/kg Ketamine and 2mg/kg xylazine IM is a good dose rate.

Smooth drive down to our next destination and everyone is on a high after a great day and working with some really good people.

Filming a baby sloth being taught how to do its first ever poo is exhilarating enough, but when the person teaching it is Luke it makes for great TV!!

We had stayed the night at the Blue Monkey lodge in Manuel Antonio, about 10kms outside of the town of Queso. A lovely place with lots of character and great food!!

Refreshed from yesterday’s driving we headed off to Kids Saving The Rain forest, a small sanctuary helping poached and rescued sloths, monkeys, raccoons and birds.

Pia who is the resident vet at the sanctuary is adorable and was superb in front of camera. We did a great interview with her talking and showing us these two adorable baby sloths. One was a two toed sloth, it was tiny, not as hairy as the other more renowned three toed sloth, which was going through a bout of pneumonia,

Pia took the three toed sloth to do its weekly pee and poo by a little tree. She showed Luke how to perform the operation, which wasn’t as simple as just putting it there. It required dexterity and agility as the sloth grappled on to the hand while Pia maneuvered this way and then that way, doing a little dance, stimulating the sloths backside on the ground (I think) and just waiting for something to happen. It did, it peed. Unfortunately it didn’t do the number two, so she put it back in its little box and then took the two toed sloth, handed him to Luke and told him to have a go by the same tree.

Guffawing and abashed, Luke took to the challenge; went over to little tree, put the tiny little thing in his hand and did the merry little dance around the base of the tree, (I have just realized that what i have written can be seriously misconstrued!!!!)

To everyone’s delight the little sloth did a big poo, the size of a pebblestone, great stuff. Luke’s handy work did its magic. Pia was more ecstatic as it was the little sloths first time it had a done a poo at the sanctuary.

Chris is officially diseased – massive tick on his arm – much to his horror – and so we are now having to quarantine him. It was also one of those really nasty ones that buries incredibly deeply into your skin, sucking out your life force – or so I told him. I think he appreciated my candour.
Big day – we are near Guapil – that should make our location clearer. I have become an equine vet apparently and word has spread I am here to treat lots of horses. All good stuff. Went through a castration with a local farmer – they castrate the stallions here using ropes – enough said. Hopefully, given him a few tips and it went well. Big stallion and hardly broken, but the locals are natural horsemen and the horse was incredibly trusting. I knocked him down so everyone could see what I was doing and thankfully it went like clockwork.
Must go and have a good scrub because I’ve been standing near Chris and don’t want to catch anything.

This morning I woke up with just a hint of horror, as I was to discover something had set up camp on my arm. Looking at this black motionless thing buried into my arm, all my panicked efforts to get the thing off failed. Thankfully I was working on a programme following a vet, just slightly alarmed, I was straight to Luke for his professional diagnosis. Apparently it was the ‘nasty variety’ of a Tick….Luckily it did not qualify for the removal to be filmed for the show. I was pretty grossed out by the whole awakening this morning. Luke claims I am now diseased. Having visions of a spider-man like story evolving…. which clearly would be no were near as cool.