Just a quick update on our volunteering positions. We officially started our volunteer jobs on 14.1.04. To sum up the place here...íts hot and humid!! Actually last night was not so humid and neither is today but it is very hot today! The vol jobs are going well so far we have done a myriad of jobs including- Weeding and pruning of the foundations Amazonian Botanical Garden, Aidan worked in the organic farm trying to make the clayey soil more tolerable to plant species. Helping out in the kitchen. I assisted a researcher with marking out areas for a reforestation 35 year study. Going on a 'bosque'(hike) through the jungle. Which was fantastic because most of the walk was actually straight through the river. We wear gum boots the whole time so our feet generally stay pretty dry until the water gets too deep. Just as we got too hot, we stopped for lunch at a river-beach and went swimming. Beautiful! Then to complete the hike we caught a canoe downstream to get to the bus. Well Aidan, myself and another volunteer decided to opt out of the canoe idea and just swam downstream with a log as our raft. Heaps of fun and lots of laughs, until the current got quite strong, the water shallow and a few too many rocks our poor bodies scraped along. I think I came out best from this situation. School has apparently been on strike since November and just started up again last week so I think i will begin teaching this coming week. From what i have been able to understand I will be teaching four classes twice a week. But everything is a little unorganised here so I will know more as each day goes by. We have just farewelled two volunteers over the past two days so we are down to only 7 volunteers. A really nice bunch of people. To give you a run down of our day. Breakfast is from 6.30-7.00. No surprises that Aidan doesn't usually make it to breakfast until 6.55! Then we get ourselves ready to meet at the hammocks at around 7.30, that is when we are pretty much told what we will be doing for the day or morning. We return at 12.00 for lunch and then begin our afternoon of work from 1.30 to 3.30 (or a little earlier). The rest of the day is ours to enjoy before dinner is served at 6.00. Then the tradition to date has been to laze around in the hammocks for a while before heading across the road to a cozy bar for a few cervezas (beers). Weekends are great here too. Saturday we do a group bosque (hike) with one of the local guides and Sunday morning is handicrafts with Sunday afternoon free to ourselves. This morning i made myself a nice red beaded necklace and Aidan a bracelet. Very relaxing Sunday morning. So in short, we are settling in fine. The place is much more cosier and less remote than expected however the bugs still bite! Until next time. Take care. A histoy of Jatun Sacha... The first of the biological stations, established in 1986, and named the Second International Children's Rainforest in 1993, now protects about 2,000 hectares (4,940 acres) of Tropical Wet Forest. Field research has demonstrated that the Jatun Sacha forest is also among the most biologically diverse areas on earth. The Ecuadorian National Park System has no present or future plans to protect forest of this type.