According to Save the Chimpanzees, a 28-year-old chimpanzee has seen the sky for the first time at a Florida sanctuary after being caged for the rest of his life.

Save the Chimpanzees, the world’s largest chimpanzee sanctuary, shows a female chimpanzee, Vanilla, in complete amazement, “looking in awe at the vast sky above for the first time in her life.” released a video. according to to the organization’s website. In her video, Vanilla was hesitant to step outside of her cage, but when an alpha male named Dwight greeted her in his embrace, she took her first step to freedom. I stepped out. (Related: Adorable video of chimpanzee face-to-face with newborn)

The chimpanzee was a survivor of a now-closed New York laboratory where chimpanzees were kept in tiny cages. according to To CBS News.

“She had never been outside the enclosures of the lab cages and garages she was deported to in California,” Save the Chimpanzee said, the paper said.

CBS noted that Vanilla was previously transported to a California reserve where she lived “in cages with chain-link fences with little grass and little nutrition.” Last year, she and several other chimpanzees were transferred to Air Force Island’s Late Family, one of Save the Chimpanzee’s largest family groups.

“Vanilla is very well established,” the group said in a statement, according to CBS News. “When she’s not exploring the island with her friends, she’s usually seen sitting on a three-story climbing platform looking out at new worlds.”