Happy, a Coconut, and the Path of the Parrots

That Wednesday, two visitors arrived at Fundación Loros, eager to see up close the work being done here. Carlos climbed the palm, brought down the coconuts, and split them open with the ease of someone who has done it a hundred times. The woman received hers still fresh, green, and heavy, while Happy — the foundation's little beige dog — had already decided that the best place in the world was precisely that four-wheel-drive vehicle, right on top of her lap. And so the 'Camino hacia la Libertad' tour began: winding through the tropical vegetation that drapes the trails of our 520 hectares, with a warm breeze on the face and the sound of the wilderness all around. It is the same route we follow so that visitors can understand, firsthand, how we prepare the parrots to return to their wild lives. Happy stayed close the entire time, as she always does. The visitors left with hands still damp from coconut water, and with a different story about what freedom means in this corner of the Caribbean.