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.