During the rest of the week, I dug up some more weeds then later planted some peanuts there. The reason for this is to give nitrogen to the soil. After the peanuts have grown, the soil is in better condition to plant other vegetables. I was surprised to find out that we don't work on any Friday. We have every second Friday off but for the others, we can either go for a hike or stay here working. Obviously, I chose to go for a hike with the others. The reserve that we are in is very big and we were to hike through it for 6 hours. The first half was uphill and we saw the first campsite that only people from La Hesperia can stay at. It wasn't too much hard work getting to the top, in fact, it was much harder getting down! This was because the rainforest was denser and parts of it were slippery and steep. It was certainly interesting to get through it and I lost the others at one point after I had stopped to take a photo. I came down to a stream and didn't know where they had gone. If I continued going downwards I would have walked through the stream, which I didn't want to do in my walking shoes. I called out and C came back for me. I hadn't seen the path to cross over the stream but at least I wasn't lost.
It was a very long hike in the end and we finally got back at 3pm. That morning, I had proposed to the others about heating water in plastic bottles to use in the shower and make shower heads by putting holes in the lids. They all mocked my idea for some reason but I tried it and I had a beautifully warm shower after the hike and didn't need to use the whole 1.5 litres in the bottle. They don't know what they're missing.
On Saturday, we had our parade in the nearby village of Tandapi. We arrived at 11 in a place that was little more than one street that has about a hundred restaurants. This is due to the road being quite a main one for transport but I can't see how they can all compete with each other. We had our lunch paid for and I had my first beer in Ecuador. We did the parade and walked all the way down the street which was rather quiet. There was no music going on but we were with a trail of low-key floats. Ours was led by a donkey draped in flags as we were representing internationalism. We also had a loudspeaker passed between us to say hello in the languages of the countries we represented. I thought it was too dull so decided to sing through it. I did a version of Manu Chao's Me Gustas Tu but sang “Me gusta Tandapi …. me gusta La Hesperia …” The people liked it and the volunteers asked me to sing more so I sang The Lion Sleeps Tonight and Yellow Submarine.
When we got to the arena (a worn field with a few seats a the side) we were the second act on. We did it fine but we had rehearsed it more than we needed to. It was nice to see the other acts in such a small place. There were some good dances and I liked to be there watching it.
Later on, some of us went for a walk up the street. I'd bought some insect repellent from a chemist that sold ice cream and I met H and T when we got back. We decided to go for a drink but actually found it impossible to find somewhere that would serve us just drinks. It was all restaurants but we finally found one after we had tried both sides of the entire street. As we sat, we saw chickens, chicks and a tiny kitten walking around, both in and out of the restaurant, which was funny. I played with the kitten. It couldn't have been more than a month old and was so sweet.
After that, we went back to the arena to hear the results of the competition and we came second for our category of school acts. That was nice to know. We went to eat something which wasn't such a challenge and had fried banana slices, corn and other types of bananas. It was o.k. for $2 and we hoped to go for a drink as it was later and I had been told bars open after 7pm. But we had the same problem with the whole group this time. Some of them knew of a bar which had karaoke but when we found it, some guys in the street told us it wasn't open till 9pm. Basically, we ended up at the place I'd been to earlier but at least we could get some beer. We stayed there for an hour or so then some of the others wanted to go to the place where the beauty queen would be announced. I wasn't very interested and when I found out it cost $2.50 to get in, I didn't bother. Most of the others went in but I flagged down a bus with H and we didn't have to pay as they didn't ask us. We walked up the hill and arrived home at about 10.30. The other stayed out till 5.30 and it sounded like they had fun.
On Sunday, I planned to clean the place up. The shower floors were filthy and there was little else to do anyway. I went over for breakfast at 7.30. We had no milk and so I had oats with water and sugar. I cleaned the kitchen and the dining room then took the things over to clean the bathrooms and the common room which was equally dirty. I also decided to try and fix some of the chairs as I prefer to do useful things than just pass the time. I fixed some thin rope to make backs for two chairs then carved two pieces of wood to make a cross piece for a seat. I also fixed an old seat cover over one of the backs to make it stronger. Basically, I was just trying things out and enjoyed doing it. I also want to find some waterproof material to fix over the foam that is used for the seats.
The others took it easy as they were mostly recovering from last night.
We had to cook our own dinner as the workers weren't here at the weekends so we made some pasta with vegetables. It was good and we ate inside and chatted a bit before I went back to the house at 9.30.
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