India part 1: The Visa

I got my Lonely Planet book of India for Christmas and have been looking at planning my holidays as they were due to be before I started teaching. Obviously as India is very big, I couldn't go too far south so had a look around the east and north of Delhi. I was a bit dismayed to find out that once I get to the north and in the mountains, even though there seem to be some interesting places to visit, the journey times are insane. It would take about 14 hours to travel 100km! I don't think it would take much longer to walk that distance...

But first of all, I needed to have my visa, of course.

I applied for it in the first week of December and it took them till after I came back from Porto until they told me they needed my passport, not just a photocopy of it and some normal photos, not printed out ones. So I had to go to the office on the 20^th. This was after I spent $9.95 getting two portrait photos from Jessops (go somewhere else if you have to get these). I handed all my stuff in and the woman said it should be back to me by the Friday or next Tuesday. I thought that was fine.

I waited and by the following Thursday, still nothing had arrived. I had to phone them even though it costs 95p a minute... They said I needed to submit my passport and photos... No, that was before went to the office. I've been there, now... Basically, they had done nothing with my stuff and if I hadn't contacted them, they wouldn't do anything at all...

I told them I was due to fly the next Tuesday and at the moment, due to their utter incompetence, this was looking very unlikely. I asked if it would be delivered before then, he said it might be. That doesn't help, does it? So I told him to mark it as urgent and to notify me whenever they had some information about the process.

I got an email on Friday saying they needed my references. I'd told him about that on the phone already but hey, it's fun talking to the dead sometimes...

So I emailed that information and am now waiting for it to arrive. It's not going to be here before I had to go so the only thing I could do was change my flight. Luckily, that was easy enough but it cost another £90. I have set it to Sunday the 8^th, five days later and it had better get here in the next week.

Of course, I'm not happy about any of this and if you need to apply for an Indian visa, do it as early as you can depending on your latest date for leaving India. The office workers are dreadful and you will need to keep asking them, even if it is only one or two days later than you were told. Otherwise, you may never get it. So, just to mention the institution by name for search engine results – Indian Visa Application Centre, UK – a very poor service.

I'll have to rethink where I am going to travel to now, with only five days available to me instead of ten.

More notes about Ecuador - part 2

This is my last post about Ecuador as I am now getting prepared to go to India and start my movement in England after that (see Our Own Future). There are just a couple of other things to tell you about regarding life in Ecuador, the first one them being:

Young mothers - It is very common indeed to see teenager mothers. In fact, on a number of occasions I have seen women who look no older than 20 who already have 3 children with them. However, from what I have seen and heard, unlike in the west, it is not seen so much as a problem as part of the culture. They start families young and that's just how it is. I'm sure they don't have children to get more money from the state as that is not really how things work there. It's just how life is and people get on with it.

Energy problems - I don't know enough about this in detail but briefly, Ecuador is trying to reduce its imported energy sources and use more hydroelectricity. There are problems of corruption and bureaucracy that make the transition very slow so in the meantime, it is quite common for there to be power cuts. These are actually planned more than spontaneous as there is sometimes not enough electricity available. During my time at the reserve, it happened quite a few times that we would have no electricity during the day until 5pm but they put it back on before it gets dark. We were usually working when this happened so it didn't always affect us. At other times, it did because it would go off at the weekends when we were there or in the evenings. But we learnt to deal with it, for what else can you do? We kept a supply of candles for these regular events and spent the evening in the common room, talking or playing cards or the guitar.

Anyway, this, along with many other experiences of living in a poorer country, makes you realise that some problems that we get in the western countries are usually quite trivial by comparison. It's now about 3 weeks until I go to India and I am expecting things to be more extreme there. I am not really thinking about it as I don't know exactly what to expect but I'm sure it's going to be another eye-opening experience. :)

Domination in Ecuador (a card game!)

Near the end of my time at the reserve, we'd been playing dfferent card games like Golf, President and so on and I wanted to see if I could come up with a new game. Golf is one where you have to get the lowest score over 18 rounds (and I usually came last in it...) so I wanted to make up a strategy game that was like Risk.
I got a basic idea and tried it with Kas and Jeanette and they helped me develop it. We got it to this and I think it works pretty well. So here are the full instructions if you want to try it.

Domination

3-5 players, all cards including jokers.

This is a cumulative points scoring game that takes place over a number of rounds e.g. 10 or until one player reaches, say, 100 points. It is inspired by the board game “Risk” where players attack each other to increase their units.

To begin with, each player is dealt three cards, face up. They will use these to start collecting cards in the same suits that they now have. If they are dealt more than one of the same suit, they are placed on top of the other so that everyone can see how many there are of that suit. The cards are then taken in turn from the remainder of the face-down pack, one card per player at a time. If the player takes a card that is of a suit that they are collecting, they will want to add it to their pile. No player can have more than three piles (of three different suits) but they may only collect cards of two suits if it is not worth their while starting a third one. The card are taken in turn until all they have all gone, which means the end of the round.

There are cards that have special powers, which are as follows:

King or Ace means the player can take any two cards (in total) from any of the other players.

Queen means the player can take two more cards from the face-down pile.

Joker means the player can take any complete pile from any other player. This is when the game gets really ruthless!

Jack can be placed on the same suit if the player is collecting it to protect all the cards that are underneath (e.g. if it is the jack of hearts and the player is collecting hearts). It should be placed perpendicular to make it clear that the cards are protected. Therefore, if another player wants to take the hearts but there is a Jack protecting some of them, only those on top of the Jack can be taken.

These power cards can also be added to the suits if required but they only have their power one time, so if another player takes someone's King, it doesn't have the power a second time.

If a player takes a card they don't want, they put it face up in the middle and only the next player can take it if they want. No other player can take the card in question when it is their turn.

If any of the power cards are dealt at the beginning, they have to be used as described above, in order of the players' turns.

Once all the face-down cards have been taken, points are awarded as follows:

The player with the most cards of each suit wins that suit and is given points to match the number of cards in that suit. So if they have 6 hearts, they get six points.

If two players have an equal highest number of one suit, they draw it and are given two points each.

Before beginning the next round, the outright suit winners get to keep three cards of that suit to start their next game at a (possible) advantage (as long as they are not stolen by another player!)

Players who drew a suit get to keep one card each from that suit.

They should only keep cards with numbers on to give them the chance to use the power cards in full in the next round.

All the other cards are put back into the pack and shuffled, then each player gets three more cards to start the next round, therefore those who dominated by winning a suit start with an advantage.

If a player now has cards of all four suits, when it is their turn to pick up a card, they will discard the one card that they don't want.

Each subsequent round happens in this way until it reaches the number of rounds or points set.

Due to the attacks on other players, there is a lot of strategy involved in deciding whether to take someone else's cards.

Notes about Ecuador - part 1

I wanted to give you more insights into life in Ecuador. On this blog, I have had to keep things short to make the posts readable but there are certainly some interesting things about life in this country that are worth sharing.

Toilets – It is standard that the toilet is only to receive the organic material that they are made for. The toilet paper does not go into the toilet, nor do any other things. You have to put your used paper into the bin. In the beginning of course, this is hard to get used to and it seems strange and unpleasant. The reason for this is that the pipes that go from the toilet are too narrow for too much to pass through them so paper causes blockages. As with anything, you can adapt to this and after a couple of weeks it becomes the norm for foreigners as well. :)

Taxis – There are millions of them! Or is seems like that. Even in small places, if you are near a road, you will see a taxi on it. Being a poor country, they are pretty cheap to use but the tip is to ask how much it will cost before you get in because of the obvious exploitation of tourists that can occur. The funny thing about taxis is that, whereas in the UK, I've found out it is now illegal to flag a taxi in the street, the taxis in Ecuador call you. :) It is because of the competition but you will hear the horns beep pretty much whenever a taxi goes past you, alerting you of its service. (Going back to the illegal in the UK thing, I will exercise Gandhi's 'passive resistance' tactic. If I need a taxi and I see one, I will call for it. If the police want to arrest me, go for it. If they try to fine me, I won't pay. Let's use reasoning here... I just want to take a taxi. End of story.)

Children – Probably the most distressing thing I saw in Ecuador was the amount of young children who work in the streets selling sweets, cigarettes, etc. At night, they go around the bars and busy areas and some of them are as young as five. Their parents make them do this to get money for their alcohol or drugs and even though the kids seem and confident about what they do, of course this is something that really shouldn't happen. I gave a dollar to a girl aged about 5 who was trying to sell roses in Guayaquil. She was so desperate to sell them that she tried to stop one man from walking past her. And she was so pretty that it almost made me cry. I just called her over and told her I didn't want a flower, but this dollar was for her.

Houses – A lot of the poor people's houses always look unfinished. They are small buildings made from concrete blocks that have been fixed together but they rarely have windows, and the tops of the walls are not cut to join the sloping roof so there are gaps between them. It looks like they must be cold or crawling with insects but I heard that some people leave them like this because they don't have to pay tax on an unfinished house. ;) Good thinking...

Avoiding being mugged - I managed to escape this completely and didn't have any problems from anyone in this respect. I heard quite a few stories of cameras and bags being stolen but Dan, one of the volunteers had a good idea for when you are out in the evening. Apart from only taking minimal things with you, keep paper money in your sock and small change in your pocket. That way, muggers would see that you do have some money but they wouldn't be able to get much, even if you have $20 in your sock. I did this but fortunately didn't have to deal with the issue.

My other tips for avoiding being mugged is to show confidence - don't look down when passing someone who look suspicious, look ahead or around like you have no troubles in the world. 

I'll put some more things on when I remember what I wanted to share with you! ;)

Leaving Ecuador

I went over to German's café and he made dinner for us. His girlfriend came along later and then we went to a bar owned by a friend of his. It wasn't open to the public that day but a few of us sat round a camp fire outside it, talked and sang Ecuadorian songs. They also took turns playing the guitar, even though none of them could play it at all. It made it all very funny to listen to.

The next morning, it was time to leave so I had breakfast and went to Quito. I had plenty of time to make it to the airport so tried taking a trolley-bus there as it was much cheaper than a taxi. However, it took forever so I got off about half way and took a taxi the rest of the way. I dreaded going through immigration and so on because of the potential payments I expected to pay. The lowest amount I'd heard one has to pay to leave the country was $35. I had about $100 with me just in case but when I when through check-in without any problem, I went to immigration and the woman looked through my passport, stamped it and let me through. I didn't pay anything which was a nice surprise.
I waited for the plane while reading Mein Kampf and my name was called out at the desk. I didn't know what could be wrong and a few of us had to have our luggage checked. I had nothing that I shouldn't have so stayed calm and the policeman had a quick look and said it was fine. He said it was just routine to check some bags.
We had to fly to Guayaquil first and some passengers left or got on but we had to wait for over an hour to leave again. My connection time in Madrid was less than 3 hours if we got there on time and this wasn't looking likely. However, I could only hope the pilot picked up some speed. I read some more and they turned the lights out at 12.30am. I managed to sleep quite well and apart from a few changes of position, I slept through till breakfast at 7.45am, or now 1.45pm - Madrid time. That was good as there was only an hour and a half left so I didn't have to suffer on either long flight. Expect when we landed, I was struggling for time. When I finally got my bag then found the check-in desk, the woman said it was too late to get on the flight at 16.50. I went to the information and managed to get on a flight two hours later which wasn't too bad. It got into Heathrow at 8pm and I got back to Wolverhampton at 1.03am. It was later than hoped but at least I didn't have to stay somewhere overnight.
The next day, I woke up at 2pm! Partly due to the time difference and partly due to not having slept much over the last week.
I'll also post some other notes about Ecuador over the next week or so.

The final few days

Currently, I'm sitting in my hostel room in Baños, which is my favourite place in Ecuador. I'll come back to this later as I will report my travels from Friday evening.
I went to the Ali Baba café in Guayaquil, which was very basic. They had hardly anything vegetarian and I had a plate of hummus-type sauce with slices of thin pita bread. It wasn't enough for dinner so I had some pureed corn with cheese which was nicer. It came to $9 which was far too much for what I had so I wouldn't recommend the place to anybody. I went back to Las Peñas by the river in the evening which was quite nice. I just had one drink there and walked around a bit then went back to El Colonial which was livelier than the night before.
Guayaquil was nothing special from what I saw of it but I didn't expect that much as people had said it was nothing more than a big city.
The next day was my trip to Cuenca and I arrived after 4 hours, which wasn't bad. I found a cheap hostel in the centre and went up to a viewpoint where you can see the whole city.

Cuenca turned out to be much nicer. The colonial architecture gives it such a better feeling. It's like being in a different country (due to the Spanish history of it). I walked round the streets a lot and saw some parks and squares. It is undoubtedly one of the best places in Ecuador in terms of towns or cities.
I had dinner in an Indian restaurant, which was said to be more Arabic (according to the menu). The food was ok, but at least there were plenty of vegetarian options.
The next day was more sight-seeing and I took many photos.

I'm glad I spent two days here as there is so much to see. I found a very attractive restaurant which lots of pictures and objects decorating it and again they had many veggie things. I ate a patacón which is one variety of banana, fried, with beans and vegetables on top. I also found out that restaurants can't serve alcohol on Sundays due to the law yet bars can. Not much logic to that, in my opinion...
The next morning, I had breakfast in a nice café along the street from te hostel then took the bus to Riobamba. Even though, on the map, it doesn't look much further than my last journey, as it it back through the mountains, it took 6 hours but I slept, listened to music and read so it wasn't too bad.
I took a taxi to a hostel and the driver was a very friendly man, in his 50s. We chatted about my time in Ecuador and his son who lives in the states. It was genuinely nice to talk with him as he stopped to pick up his friend on the way!
The hostel again had plenty of rooms and was only $12. I had the quietest night of my time in this country. It was weird not to hear birds and insects or traffic and people on the street for the first time but at least I slept well!
However, I did have a walk around the centre a bit and felt quite comfortable here. It's not a great place to see but it is quite big and there's lots of activity around.

I went to El Rey de Burrito (Burrito King) and had a lovely veggie burrito gratin and a beer for $8.
As it was Monday, there wasn't anything to do at night so I just went back after walking past the empty bars.
In the morning, I planned to get a better look at the city but it was very disappointing. I saw a park that was in very bad condition and another one was closed so I just decided to go on my way to Baños.

And how good it felt to be back here! I love this village of 25,000 so much. I found a room at Hostel Transilvania again ($7.50 a night including breakfast) which was a great start. Then I heard music outside so went out to find a school children's procession going on. This was really nice. Different classes were doing different dances around the streets and I fell in love with the place even more!

I went to the handcrafts passage to buy some gifts and ate at a place that is ranked number one in the village. Agai, lots of veggie food and it was very good. The owner also paints and has lots of his works in the restaurant. I had to buy a small one to take back as a memory (the fourth from the left on the top row).

As there are thermal baths here and I'd never been to one before, I felt I had to go to one. It was a great experience in water that was something like 37ºC. After a few minutes in it, I kept going into the cold bath then back into the hot one which gave a burning sensation at first but it was interesting to do.

Afterwards, I felt so relaxed that I had to sit down for some minutes before I could get dried off and dressed!
I went back to the hostel to try to get some energy back before going out. Again, it was very quiet and I just had one beer at Mokambo before heading back.
I had breakfast for free then went out on a hike up a hill to see the view. It was said to be a 2 hour walk but I got to the top in 20 minutes. From there I saw the whole of the village and the surrounding mountains which was fantastic.

I then went to the other side of the river and walked some more, taking lots of beautiful photos.
After taking a shower, I went back to Meeting Point café which was closed. That was a shame as I enjoyed it last time. I looked through the window and German, the owner, saw me and let me in. He was re-doing the inside and said I could eat there and help him with some ideas, which I was glad to do. We chatted and tried some things out which he liked. I felt I knew him as a friend and his girlfriend came in to join us. He invited me to his flat which he is planning to turn into a hostel and we went to find somewhere to watch Bacelona play AC Milan in the Champion's League. They had it on in Mokambo so we watched it there. This was the first time this season I'd seen Barça play so the day was just getting better. Especially when they won 3-2!
I bought a few more gifts afterwards, including some things that German (pronounced like 'Hermán') was planning to sell in the café. He invited me to have dinner with him at his café later and I will go there after writing this.
This is the last time I will write from here and I have had a wonderful last few days in Ecuador. Tomorrow, I will go to Quito after breakfast. My flight is at 18.50, our time and I am due to land in Madrid the next day at 14.00 (13.00, UK time). I hope it's not late as my connecting flight is about 4 hours after I land.
I will send a message to you, Mom, when I get to Madrid as my phone should work again when I'm back in Europe.
I'll add some extra notes about the country when I get back to England and then it will be time to get ready to go to India (after I visit Portugal first!)
Hasta Luego!

Week 12 - 14 November

So this is it, my final week working at La Hesperia. When I think back to things I did and the people I worked with when I started, it seems really long ago! It has been an intense period, even though we've mainly worked 4 days a week. I've also been around to lots of other places in Ecuador and feel that I've used my time well.
I decided to pay for the food myself on the Saturday, for my goodbye meal and a treat to the others. I made three big pizzas, each one different and they went down well. I thought there may not be enough for the eight people present but when it got to the third pizza, everyone was already full so we saved most of it for lunch the next day. Rosie also made another great fruit pie and a cake so again, we had tons of good food. The others liked my pizzas as well so I felt happy with my plan.

I didn't do any work on Sunday but wanted to get my clothes washed. I certainly won't miss hand-washing clothes with cold water...
On Monday, I was expecting to be helping to build the roof for the biodigestor but they hadn't got the materials so instead, with Kasrah, dug some new beds in the garden and moved the path around them.

In the afternoon, I made some bread and helped Kasrah with the coffee, which he was interested in doing. To be fair, I didn't need to do anything more than explain to him how to do it and we just hung around the outdoor kitchen and observed the caterpillars that were finding a space to settle down in to turn into a chrysalis. There were many around, all at different stages so that was nice to look at and talk about.

On Tuesday morning, I wanted to make the 'dulce de leche' which is a sweet spread that we have at breakfast. It is made from about 5kg of sugar and 8 litres of milk which boils down to make a very thick sticky marmalade-type thing but the cook said I didn't need to keep stirring it and she would do it. So I went back to finish toasting the coffee and grinding it. I also prepared my room as two more volunteers were due to arrive today. I set it out nicely but they didn't appear. They'd had problerms with their flights and would come next Monday. Never mind, at least I got to have the room to myself until I left!
I had a lot of wood bits left over in the common room from all the things I'd been making and didn't want to leave the mess so we had a camp fire that evening. It was nice to see my new bench being used and for the first time, we sat around it, ate my nachos and played songs on the guitar.

On Wednesday, Kasrah asked if I wanted to take the mula down for one last time. I didn't really but the other jobs were clearing weeds with the machete again so I decided to do it! It went fine and the milk man arrived as soon as I reached the bottom. As I was walking down, I thought about how much better it would be to improve the road. It's horrible to drive and walk on so on the way back up, I cleared away some loose stones to try to do a bit at least.
I had another hour left so I also got the hoe and levelled the path betwen the house and the kitchen again. Even though I was leaving tomorrow, I thought if I'm going to leave something behind, it's best to leave a legacy. I got the worst parts done and was pleased with my work.
Kaz and I worked in the garden in the afternoon, transplanting onions into the new beds we'd dug and we had a good chat. It's a shame we've only known each other a week, he's a good friend and I'd like to hang out with him more. He's going to England around the time I come back from India so maybe we can meet up then.
We had a good game of football for my last one and Kaz is actually really good. He's fast and has lots of good moves. A lot of people played and we enjoyed our game.
People asked me if I would miss it here but I told them to be honest, I felt I had done my bit and it was fine to finish. Plus I have lots of other plans so am looking forward to going onto those.
I had planned my trip and decided not to go to Quevedo as it was only 5 hours from Santo Domingo to Guayaquil so would go straight there. In the evening, in the common room, we were playing the guitar and Kaz started improvising a song about me as Madaleine played a tune. It was both funny and really nice and I recorded it on video.

I had got my things packed read to leave after breakfast on Thursday. I said my goodbyes to everyone and left my rucksack to be taken down by the director's husband. When I got to the bottom, however, it wasn't there! Luckily, two of the workers were down there and one of them phoned for me. I had to wait for 15 minutes until someone else came along with it in his car. I crossed the road and got straight onto a bus, took some money out and got my ticket to Guayaquil.
The journey was ok but there was a traffic jam near the end so it actually took about 6 hours. I hadn't booked anywhere to stay but as it is low season, thought I should be fine. I took a taxi to one mentioned in the Lonely Planet and got a room in Hostel Suites Madrid in the centre. It was $20 a night but with a private bathroom so it was ok.
It was really hot there and went out to find Ali Baba's restaurant which had veggie food. I walked along the road and thought I had gone the wrong way and ended up at the river. But there was a pizza place so ate there. Walking back, I consulted the map and found I had actually gone the right way but obviously missed it so I'll go there tonight.
After eating, I went down to the river where the bars are but it was really quiet and hardly any were open. For the biggest city in Ecuador (3 million), it felt very strange. I walked around a lot and went in one called El Colonial. There was a guy playing live music and some people in there so at least there was some entertainment. When I bought a second beer, it went really quiet all of a sudden. The police came in and I wondered what was going on. It seemed to be just that they were checking that it closed at midnight, which all bars do here. Very odd again. There was nothing else to do so I just went back to the hostel.
I thought that this city was actually quite boring but there were places to see so after breakfast, I went to a high point by the river, up 444 stairs and there was a good view.

I saw there were also lots of small bars so I'll check it out tonight. I then walked through the park by the river and had lunch there. It was very nice and I took things very leisurely. I also wanted to find the place where there are iguanas. I expected it to be in some enclosed area but they are actually in an open park in the city, which was strange. I loved seeing them though. There were about 50, either walking around on the ground or lying on branches in trees. I asked a security guard about them and he said they generally stay inside but have been known to get run over when they wander out. They've been in here for about 15 years and generally get on fine with the people around. They don't mind the pigeons, either...

I went back to the hostel and slept a bit as I woke up at 7 again, wrote this blog and I'll go out to eat soon and move onto Cuenca tomorrow, which should be something special.

Week 11 - 7 November

So I've just finished my last full week here in Ecuador. By that, I mean I will work until next Wednesday and leave early on Thursday so I can spend a week travelling around the country a bit more. I will be going to Guayaquil, the biggest city, and Cuenca, a UNESCO heritage city. I'll also stop off in 3 other places and it will be like an anti-clockwise circuit of the country.
This week, it has been yet more back-aching work! We cleared the medicianl garden of its weeds, which took two mornings. There are plenty of interesting plants growing here and we had a talk about what they are used for. Of course, I would have to see scientific results to know if they actually do - they are influenced by shamanic medicine here.
It was said to have Gaz leave us as things got a lot quieter without him. We used to play cards a lot in the common room and just chat and so on. But we got two more volunteers this week, a young American girl on Monday and a Canadian guy on Thursday, who actually lifted the mood here noticeably. He had been in the Amazon with the natives and told us a story of him having a ritual where he ended up being stranded while under the influence of hallucinogenic plants. He thought he had been gone for a day but it turned out to be three days! It sounded scary but it must have been rather interesting...
Regarding the other work, the biodigestor that we were digging had to be altered to put slopes at each end for the pipes to fit into. We had already dug a one metre cubed pit for the end result and then after I had made the slopes the best I could, found out we had to remove the one slope.... and fill in the metre cubed pit as the end container would now be inside the main trench. Honestly, it's like having to do things just to do something. It is actually the company's first biodigestor but we wish they would get the plans straight with us so we don't have to kill ourselves doing things that don't need doing.

 (Me and Rosie after digging the slope back out)
After we filled the hole in, it was topped with some good clay soil and it became too full, so just for fun, I decided to sculpt it into a pyramid. Maybe in a few years, they can fool archaeologists about ancient ruins... ;)

One of the Ecuadorians also found a snake while we were working that afternoon.

We actually got to do some tree planting again this week and it was easier as we went back to the field where we had cleared the trees the week before. We planted some more canelo and hijua trees in the lines where there were spaces. We didn't have to hack through a forest so we got 46 trees planted that morning, between 4 of us.

I didn't go on the hike again on Friday as I preferred to try to get back to making the soil table I had to stop last week, as I went to hospital with Gaz. The chainsaw was available but I expected something to go wrong. After cutting two pieces of wood, the petrol ran out and there was no more there. I doubt that I will get it finished so may have to leave the plans for it for someone else to build after I've gone. It's frustrating for me as, even though I will probably never use it if I get it finished, it's just the knowledge that I won't have completed a job that I thought of right at the beginning. But hey, that's life sometimes...
We didn't go away this weekend. for me, it's best to save some more before I travel and two of the volunteers were ill so we're going to make pizza for dinner today at the reserve.
The other thing worth showing you was the tarantula that had been exploring our bathrooms and was later found on the grass in front of our house.

It was a full sized one, though when I touched it with a stick, it didn't move so maybe it had already died.
So next time, you will hear from me after I have left La Hesperia. Hopefully, my travels will go without any bad incidents but of course, I will be careful and only take the minimum of things out with me.

Ps - Happy birthday Mom. Sorry I couldn't phone you but I was at the reserve all day Friday.

Week 10 - 31 October

Well, I suppose the easier weeks couldn't last forever... This week hasn't been especially bad but I've been suffering from a bad back again.
Before the working wekk started, as we didn't go away last weekend, we had Sunday free so I decided to make some more things! I made a bench to use by our camp fire, which I quite like.

After I finished this, I started work on another one but as I still didn't have the chainsaw, I started cutting the wood off another log with the machete. I was making good progress but once I'd cut down one end, I had to turn it upside down but it wouldn't stand up. so I used a piece of wood to support it and continued with the machete. Unfortunately, it slipped off the wood and as my left hand was also holding the wood, it moved to the right as the machete came down... I was wearing strong gloves but I knew it was bad. I tore off the glove and I had sliced down the outside of my thumb nail and it was bleeding. I ran to the sink for cold water and it didn't bleed a lot but it looked like it had cut deep into it. I put on some antiseptic lotion and obviously had to stop work for the day.
Luckily, as it healed over the week, it wasn't as bad as it looked and now it's very close to being fully healed so there's no problem with that.

(This is the meal we had last Saturday)

The work for this week has involved some macheteing weeds down again, which we did twice. Even though it is a boring job, it is necessary to help the rarer trees to grow better. I was also given the task of measuring the 'canelo' trees for their height and circumference as someone from the ministry of the environment was due to visit the field where these trees were growing.
Other things that gave me back ache were digging for new soil. We collect soil from the forest with lots of dead leaves as they contain nutrients which are used like compost. I did this a couple of times this week.
And still there was more digging! We went back to the biodigestor to dig the trench for where the resulting gas is to be collected. This had to be 1x1x1 metre and three of us just about got it finished in a morning.
There was still some delay with knowing if we were going to be working after Wednesday and in the end, we decided to stay as there would be too many people travelling on the Thursday to go for a long weekend break. We were pretty much left on our own but given some easy jobs to do. I had asked to use the chainsaw to make the table for the nursery to hold the soil which was to be used for planting new trees (to save the back ache of taking it from the ground). I also had to fix one of the steps up the house where the pieces of wood which hold it in place had broken. That didn't take long but I was waiting to find where the chainsaw was. In the meantime, Gaz had had another injury from playing football the day before and had twisted his knee. He was in a lot of pain and I made him a walking stick on Thursday morning. The others talked about the problem as he is due to fly on Sunday night and we didn't know exactly what the problem was. So we said he should go to hospital in Santo Domingo, which he agreed to. I went with him to translate, and Carmen drove us in her dad's car. We went to the public hospital and waited half an hour before he was seen. He needed an x-ray in case it was fractured but it showed nothing and the doctor said it was a general injury around the knee and needed to be immobilised. So went drove around the town to find a support and got one before driving back and arriving just before 7pm.
I meant that even though I had located the chainsaw at 11.30am, I had only cut two pieces of wood then had to abandon it to go with Gaz. Maybe I can continue next week. Incidentally, I had to use the big chainsaw which must weigh about 15kg and is hard work to use...

(This moth was in our bathroom - my thumb is right next to it...)

So, 5 of us left to go to Baños, a place I'd been to before briefly and liked a lot. Gaz's leg was still hurting but as he was leaving, had to go anyway. There was a lot of traffic on the way there so were expecting to have difficulty finding a room. However, there are tons of hostels here and after asking in about 5, we found one for $7 a night. We went up and waited for the man to prepare the beds. We closed the door of our room (me and Gaz) to then find out that the man didn't know where the key was. We had all our stuff locked in the room and couldn't get back in... He had to go and find all the keys he could, tried them all and none opened the door. We waited up there for two hours until he finally had to pick the lock. We said we'd leave all our stuf in Jeanette's room and leave our door unlocked. It was a pain having to waste our time for this but then went out, ate some good food, had a couple of drinks but we were all tired and got back to the hostel by 11pm.
Today (Saturday) is Gaz's last day with us and it will be a shame when he goes as I have had some good laughs with him but hopefully we'll stay in touch.

Week 9 - 24 October

First of all, as I didn't have a photo of the second set of steps we made, this is what they look like. I don't have a 'before' shot but they were not in a good state.

We had another relatively relaxed week this week. We started Monday with clearing some recently planted trees to make sure they have enough space from weeds to grow and that was about the most hard work we did. It wasn't any more demanding than any of that kind of work that we have done before.
We did some similar work in another area on Tuesday morning. It was quite reptitive and not very interesting but we did have a nice surprise towards the end of it. Ususally, when I know what job I will be doing, I think about whether it is worth taking my camera. For this, I didn't expect there would be anything special to see so I left it in my room. Then our leader called us over to see the monkeys. Finally, after 8 weeks, they made an appearance. They were small ones called Capuchins and I got a brief look at one or two, although we could see more movement in the trees. Here's a photo of one from the internet.

We had another volunteer arrive the day before so it only took 1 day for her to see monkeys. Not fair!
On Tuesday afternoon, Gaz and I were asked, as we had now got a reputation for being expert builders (maybe...), to rebuild a bench and its cover at a viewpoint a bit further along the trail where we had been that morning. We were told that one of the cover's posts had fallen so it wasn't much to do but when we got there, we found that practically all of it needed replacing as the wood was old and weak. It was raining, too, so we didn't had a very enjoyable time. After discovering the bad state it was in, we had to walk back to tell W that we needed new wood and then walk back again to get rid of the old stuff and wait for the wood to be cut. We left there having completed very little.
The part of the week that was the least physically demanding was when I was asked to help translate a document from Spanish to English. I had done part of it on Monday afternoon, which wasn't too much but there was a bigger one that needed doing, too. This was because the reserve was applying for an international grant and needed a big legal document in English. It wasn't so much that I was helping, but just doing the whole thing as Alex, being German, couldn't do it well enough into another language.
It was quite a dull process and very repetitive to start with but, even though I needed to use the dictionary from time to time, it was quite fulfilling to know that I could do it.
Wednesday morning was used to do more than half of this document and I finished it the following morning, finishing up as 6 pages in a Word document.
Gaz had contracted a cold this week and couldn't work that day so Neil came with me to try to do more work on the cover. Again, we couldn't do a great deal as two of the posts were too high for us to nail on the cross beam. We didn't bother going back to get a ladder as we didn't have time (a 2 hour session before football) so we put the cross beam on the two lower poles and I cut out pieces from the beams so the nails would pass through them when we went back tomorrow.

Gaz was better the next day so he came with me again and we found out, when he stood on the bench to lift the plastic cover up, that the end of it broke off. This was after discovering an ants' next the first time under the bamboo layer of the seat... So, not only did we need to do the cover, but the whole thing!
Anyway, we eventually got the plastic up and the cover finished but will probably come back to it next week, which I am quite looking forward to.

The Friday of this week was the hike but I had already decided not to do it as I wanted to do some more work! As you might have worked out by now, I have become quite passionate (obsessed? :-p) with making things so I asked the other volunteers if they wanted anything made for the bedrooms. I had a request to make a table for using a laptop on and so I got to work with the saw (the chainsaw had no oil :-(   ). I had also secretly made a boot-scraper-wooden-mat so we could clean our shoes and boots better instead of walking the dirt all over the house and put it in place while the others were on their hike. Once I get started on things and have enough material to use, there's pretty much no stopping me so I made three tables, one of which I kept for myself and one was to use in the common room. This is the one that I later put in my room.

That day, we also found some baby bats that had dropped out of their nest in our house walls. I found a new-born one that I tried to put back where its mother would find it but one that was flying around in Gaz's room didn't seem to see it so I don't think it would have much hope of surviving. It was about 3cm long and trying to crawl on the floor. I saw this bat on the wall above another doorway.

We just relaxed in the evening and played some Pictionary but I was tired after making the tables so went to bed at 10pm.

Just a few words about illnesses over here. I still haven't had anything in these first 9 weeks but people have had things like swelling from insect bites and parasites around the waist area. This happens from being in the forest and not having your shirt tucked in so flies can get in, go to this warm area and lay their eggs in your skin. They get quite itchy but can easily be killed off with warm, salty water and pulled out with tweezers.  They are tiny little things and don't cause any infections but obviously are not the kind of thing you want living inside you!
There are so many insects around here that you get used to them quickly. We must have seen many hundreds of types of moths, for example, and it seems to be rarer to see the same kind of moth twice! I definitely have a routine of putting my insect lotion on after washing, no matter how many times a day it is.

Next week is due to be a short week as Wednesday and Thursday are national holidays but we are waiting to hear what that will mean for us as the kitchen staff are due to be away. We have heard that we might only work until Wed but we'll have to see on Monday.

Week 8 - 17 October

I hadn't mentioned that since a lot of the volunteers left, there was more room in the house so I decided to change rooms. I took one that was at the back and it turned out to be nicer as it didn't get so much sunlight in the mornings but I needed to set my alarm as I slept through till breakfast time the first morning I was there.

We had a much quieter week this week and one that I felt to be the most satisfying so far. On Monday, we started by clearing the weeds in the nursery near our house and laid down banana leaves on the paths to help prevent new weeds from growing. We got it all finished in the morning and were pleased with the result.

We had had our own meeting to discuss the problems we had with the place: things like communication and organisation and met the director on Monday afternoon. We aimed to be as constructive as possible and although the discussions went on for 2 hours, we felt we handled it well and gave as many suggestions as we could. We saw that some of them were taken up during the week so hopefully, the overall atmosphere will be more relaxed.
On Tuesday, I asked if I could repair the steps that lead up to the volunteer house. It was accepted and I worked with Gaz to do it. This is how it looked before we started.

As well as being overgrown with weeds, the steps were not level and two of them were missing which made it an uncomfortable walk up and down. We put four new ones in and managed to complete it in 3 hours. We were very pleased with the result and the other volunteers, as well as the staff, showed their appreciation at our work, which as you know means the most to me. This is how they turned out.

The next afternoon, Walter asked us if we could repair the steps that lead down to the garden. This was very nice to hear and we were glad to accept the task. The director had seen our work and was impressed with it but we needed more time as all 13 steps needed replacing and they needed to be reset to better heights as these were even more tricky to navigate. As we had football at four o'clock, we only had 2 hours to make a start and we had to use all of Thursday to complete the job. Unfortunately, I forgot to take my camera with me to record the progress so I'll have to put a photo of them on next time but again, we were happy with our work. Lola, a volunteer who had been here before and came back for this week before she left to go back to Australia helped us to use some old tiles to make a mosaic along the sides of part of it. She had shown us her designs for her tattoos and other pictures so I could see she might like to be involved.
Alex, the assistant to the director celebrated her 21st birthday that day so we had a bit of a party at the house in the evening. It was the long weekend so we didn't have to worry about going to bed early.
After breakfast on Friday, we set off for Quito again as Alex wanted to celebrate properly there. We arrived in time for lunch, which we had for $1.50, including cheese soup and a drink, which was surprisingly cheap for the capital. We went out to a bar after dinner and met the guy who was in charge of the biodigestor which I previously mentioned. He invited us to his flat for a party and six of us went. We had also met up with Nils and Charlotte who had finished their time as volunteers a few weeks ago but had continued travelling. It was good to see them both again and Charlotte came with us. His flat was huge and looked almost like a palace. He taught some us how to dance salsa (although I declined as I didn't feel like it) and we played with his little dog, ate lots of snacks that his mother provided when she came back, drank quite a bit and stayed there till 3.30am.
We woke up at 8 and got some breakfast. As I hadn't been drunk, I felt fine and after drinking two cups of coffee, went to phone my dad as it was his 60th birthday. This was my only phone call since arriving in Ecuador and it was very nice to speak to my parents :)
After that, we went to watch the Liverpool match, as Gaz is a fan, in the Irish bar - Finn McCool's, and played some pool. After only sleeping for four hours, I went back to the hostel to try to sleep some more but I'd drunk 2 more coffees in the bar and felt awake again as soon as I got into bed. So after giving up trying, I came out and wrote this entry to my blog.
I expect to feel pretty tired again tonight...
EDIT: I actually managed to last the rest of the evening quite well. We ate in a vegetarian restaurant which was a nice change from rice and beans and went back to the Irish bar, chatted to some friends of friends and left at 11.
I forgot to add some news about my next trip to India. I have received an email to tell me that the Dalai Lama will be teaching the students at the start of the year so I won't be starting teaching until 16th January. This means that I will have more or less 2 weeks to see India, which is good as I expect to be too busy and isolated to travel while I am up in the north.

Week 7 - 10 October

I usually write these offline but as we're not going away for the weekend, I can write a part of this week's online. It's been another week of hard work! A lot of it has been digging which is helping me to gain the biggest muscles I've ever had! I won't take a photo of them because that would be a bit vain! :) But they look strange to me even, as I've always been slim. Anyway, the digging has been to prepare a big trench for a biodigestor. This is something that converts animal waste into biogas through fermentation. We dug one that is 10 metres long, 1m wide and 1m deep. It took us 2 days to do this and I was one who did most of the work. I didn't really mind as it's for a very good reason but it has left me with a bit of back ache but nothing serious. The other big project we worked one was one that wasn't anywhere near as big as it was seen to be.
We went back up to the second campsite to build a compost toilet. Again, this was done with no real plan but it is a triangular pyramid-shape, made from logs of wood and with palm leaves used to cover the sides.

We started work on it before lunch on Thursday and finished it by 3.30.

There was nothing else to do but all 7 volunteers went up and we stayed overnight, when we could have easily walked back before sunset.
However, we started a camp fire to make some tea and while that was going, I decided to make some benches from spare logs that were around. Otherwise, the bits of wood we used to sit on the last time were not comfortable enough or too low down. We managed to quickly make 2 long benches and I put a table together using an old plank of wood. It turned out to make the whole area nicer to be at and we stayed round for the rest of the evening.

We had kebabs for dinner (veggie ones for me) and I gave the others lots of lateral thinkers to solve. For those of you who don't know what they are, they are puzzles where you explain a situation and the others have to ask questions to work out what caused it. It kept people entertained for some time so I've had a look for some more online to take back with me.
For sleeping at the campsite, I had no sleeping bag this time - this was after I'd prepared myself better than the first time and remembered my jacket and took a towel to use as a pillow. Why wasn't there a sleeping bag? Because I hadn't asked for one, apparently. Not because the people organising it hadn't asked me. Luckily, Neil lent me his blanket and I slept in my clothes. It wasn't as bad as the last time and I got more sleep.
Oh yes, one interesting story that happened while we were round the campfire in the dark. We heard a noise behind us which was unquestionably an animal. Some of the others immediately turned round with their torches on and located it. All I saw was a white face low to the ground. And it was still coming towards us. It didn't take more than 5 seconds to work out it was actually a cow that had escaped from its field and come all the way up there. Well, that was a relief as we know there is a puma or pumas that live in the reserve. It makes me a bit nervous when, for example, walking to the toilet in the dark because every noise you hear makes you think it could be an animal.
I didn't want to go to bed until as late as possible because of the thought of not getting any sleep but after all the others had gone away, I didn't feel comfortable being outside on my own so only lasted another 5 minutes! :) But, you never know what could be out there...
The next morning, we had our hike which didn't go down well. We were tired, Gaz was injured again with a hurt coccyx and a possible broken toe but we did the hard descent that I did on the first one. With Neil and Rosie being in their 60s, they found it difficult too. The main complaint we had was that we hadn't been told it would be hard and long and we hadn't been asked if we wanted to do it. I didn't anyway after a tiring week but we stuck with it and the whole hike took 5 and a half hours. We were very glad to finally get back but all of us were exhausted and we've decided to raise a few questions about how things happen here as we're not too happy at the moment. We're going to be constructive and suggest how things could be organised better but there is a general feeling of discontent right now.
Anyway, today (Saturday) is Rosie's birthday and we're going to prepare another meal and just take it easy this weekend. Y, who has been here for just 2 weeks is leaving us tomorrow, meaning we'll be down to 5 volunteers and Alex, who is an assistant coordinator but sometimes works with us. With no-one else due to come till November, things are going to be pretty quiet round here for a while.

 (We saw this little fellow on the way down! Apparently, it is a poisonous one but he stayed there watching us without moving.)

Week 6 – 3 October

I should just mention the lack of mobile phone situation again in case I didn't mention it before. I would need to get an Ecuadorian to be with me to buy a phone and a sim card as foreigners are not allowed to buy the latter so this is not something I can really do.

During this week, I had some more hard work involving the machete, which tends to be the standard tool to do everything. The hoe is another that I used and it hurts your back from all the bending needed. G and I went to dig some water channels on a path going up a hill. It wasn't too bad though and we dug about 5. When we finished, I went to level out the path between the house and the kitchen area so we wouldn't be falling into holes when we walked on it in the dark.

On Tuesday, in the afternoon, four of us went down the road to harvest some coffee beans. In theory, this should have been nice easy work but heavy rain had started falling before we started and we got completely soaked as we pulled the trees over to get the beans. We got a good amount though (you need to pick them when they are red) but the best part was getting back and drying off.

The next day, some of us went back up the hill to a coffee tree field. We needed to clear the weeds from around the newly growing trees, which were still very small. They were in lines and we had to find the stick which showed where they were then clear around them to a radius of 50cm. This meant being there for 3 hours with the machete and as usual, it was tiring on the arms but we finished it just in time.

In the afternoon, we needed to change the area where we plant seeds as the structure which was intended to have a cover on it had trees growing through the middle so no roof could be put on. Us three guys had to collect new soil for the planting by hoeing and shovelling the nearby ground. After this, I was too tired to play football so just went for a lie down instead.

(These are the chairs I made the week before with the chainsaw)

On Thursday, we went tree planting and it was surprisingly quick and easy to do. I did the clearing with the machete and Ch and I were the second pair to finish, with our allocation of 15 tangaré trees done with plenty of time to spare. That afternoon, G and I chose to grind the coffee beans we'd picked. This is the first step in a long process. You need to get the skins off them which was easy enough with the big grinder then wash the beans to get any other bits off. It actually took us more than two hours just because it's a very laborious process washing them. They are then left out to dry for two weeks before the inside skins are put through another grinder so you get the actual brown seed left. These then need to be roasted for 3 hours, where the person has to constantly stir them in a pan. Then they are ground into coffee powder to give the final product. It's a lot of time and work just so we can drink coffee.

This week was also the week where 5 volunteers would be leaving; most of whom were good people to be here with. We went into Quito that evening as it was P's birthday as well. We stayed in a hostel in the Mariscal area which is where I stayed when I first arrived. We found a Thai restaurant and the food was excellent if not more expensive than we would normally want to pay. Some of us stayed out after that to go to some bars and we went to a club called 'No' which which a few doors away from the club called 'Yes'... We were given a free drink then went somewhere else which wasn't much good, so we went back to No, where we stayed for the rest of the evening. It was fun just dancing but I had to stay there till late to protect L and A from the lecherous men who would have accosted them, which they still tried to do anyway when I made it clear that they were with me.

I slept less than 5 hours that night as L got up early to go climbing and the other person who was in our room got up early, after which I couldn't sleep any more. We had breakfast in the hostel, which was a nice building with lots of rooms to get lost in as you walked through them. Some of us went to find the handcrafts market but, to be honest, it was the same as every market I've seen here: lots of touristy things that you get everywhere. We went to the Magic Bean café for lunch and I needed a double espresso to keep me awake. Normally, caffeine doesn't do anything for me but this did the trick as it was very strong. After lunch we said goodbye to four volunteers who were going off to travel more around South America. It was a shame to see them all go but it is expected of the group as people can choose when they want to come and go.

I went with 5 others to Otavalo in the afternoon. This is a reasonable sized town to the north of Quito where there is a large indigenous culture and it is strongly based on textiles.

When we got there, we didn't see a lot as we wanted to eat and then sleep. We tried to find a place we'd heard about but even the locals didn't seem to know of it so we went to the Green House, an organic restaurant. Not recommended. The food was actually good but we waited for well over an hour and when they brought everyone else's plates out, the waitress asked me what I'd ordered. I had to stay patient and I finally got my meal but by now, I was so hungry that I couldn't finish it.

On the Saturday, three of our group went to walk around the volcanic crater which they said was amazing. I wanted to have a more relaxing day so I saw the big market in the morning, and it certainly was big. Again, the usual kinds of things but more of a variety and it was nice enough just to see all the colours and shapes together.

In the afternoon, I had a walk out to the edge of town, hoping to see the mountains and lakes but I couldn't find a good place to see them so took some photos of the area and went back. I'd already booked a restaurant for dinner as I'd had a nice sandwich in a Mexican deli for lunch. The food was amazingly good.

Everyone loved it and we ate a huge amount with G and I both finishing with a mocachino ice-cream which, for me, was just a step too far but we went back to the hostel to relax and play some songs with the guitar there.

On Sunday, we had breakfast, G and I played some more pool and we went to a pie shop which sold lovely fruit pies. I had a strawberry one. We needed to get back to the reserve so we said goodbye to P and just about got back before it was dark. Even though I had been tired, it was a good weekend and nice to see a couple of places.

Week 5 – 26 September

Just a note about the weather here to start with: It's always warm here, sometimes hot in the mornings but recently, we have been getting rain in the afternoons and in the night. The rainy season isn't due to start till November but we have certainly had a good amount of rain. It's also interesting to see how quickly it gets dark. The sun sets at 6pm every day of the year and by 6.30 it is completely dark. This makes it feel like it's really late by 8 o'clock, although we tend to go to sleep earlyish anyway (about 9 or 10pm).

In terms of the work this week, it was a lot more relaxed. We repaired the kitchen roof which wasn't easy but we lifted those logs we'd carried back two weeks ago mainly by using ropes to lever them over the posts they were going to rest on. It wasn't as hard as it might sound but when we were carrying one, G slipped on the step and fell down with the heavy end of the log landing on him. It looked bad but he got a knock on his knee and a big bruise on his other leg. He recovered after a few days, fortunately.

I managed to get some time to use the chainsaw this week, too. I wanted to carve some logs to make seats for the common room and cut one into a Z-shape to make it lighter and in a taller one I cut out a section to give it a seat and a back-rest. It was hard work and took 45 minutes to do them both and my hands were tingling for about an hour afterwards due to the vibration of the chainsaw. We played football after that, which was a good fun game.

We did some other clearing of paths and weeding but the week went by quickly as we were not stressed out by hard work. There weren't many people going away for the weekend so I decided to stay at the reserve, too.

We had our hike on Friday and did one that I suggested as I had been along a path to collect natural paint which was almost terracotta coloured clay-like material. It was in a beautiful area with a river flowing through and lots of overhanging plants like in a cave. 

There was lots of lovely scenery to see and although there was a lot of uneven ground and climbing, we went in two waterfalls to bathe (even though it was freezing!). 

On the return stretch we had to scale a long path up a very steep hill. Most people found it hard work but I loved scrambling up it as fast as I could and I didn't lose my footing once. It was the hike that I have liked the most here.

I didn't go away for the weekend as most people were staying here. On Friday night, we played Pictionary that someone had left behind. It was a very good night and lots of fun, most of it based around our team winning easily. On Saturday, some of us went into Santo Domingo, the nearest big town to buy some things and use the internet. G bought a huge amount of food and rinks as he wanted to say thank you to all of us who looked after us when he was ill. He's a good cook and I helped him make the various things. I'd made omelettes for breakfast and he made dinner. It was thoroughly enjoyed by everyone and it turned out to be a very good weekend. We enjoyed each other's company and had a nice relaxing time. 

When the others had come back we played the second match of Pictionary. Our team won again, although we gave the others a five point advantage and finished when they had one point over us. :)