hey hey,

Seen so many creatures this week, to list them... Amazon horn frog, owl butterflies, some giant duck that was sitting on top of canopy (bit of a bizarre place for a duck), a Chachalaca bird (what a cool name for a bird) and 20 swallow tailed kites.

The baby turtles have started to hatch from their nests, we released 57 into the temporary enclosure on Tuesday, i got to help place them in the pool, they are soo tiny and delicate. Had to be careful not to crush their shells. More keep hatching every other day. Last year they had over 500 hatching.

 As the wet season is coming near, we have alot of projects based around reptiles, such as frogs and lizards. I had to go on a walk at 5:30 in the morning to check all our reptile traps we have loacted around the reserve. we caught a lizard and a giant tree lizard. Once caught and classified we release them. We want to expand our species lists for the reserve to try and help protect the area. Also as it rains alot more now, we have quite a few projects in doors, for example i had to sew a giant fish enclosure together, it was made out of netting, which will then be placed in the creek near the lodge. The river is rising so quickly, the change in height was 2 metres in a day or so. The debris floating by was an amazing sight. Whole trees with buttress roots floating by.

On the days it hasnt rained i took part in activities such as digging more holes for planting flowers (however this time i managed to snap a digger in half, i must be getting big muscles from all the hard work i do here), painting and decorating one of the new buildings (the Information centre), had green hands for a while because of that.

Alot of us have been doing some great cooking this week, someone made creme brulee one night, and Molly and Beth cooked giant pizzas and nachos for us all one tea time, was such a great treat.

Yesterday was the best day, laughed so much. I was just a walking disaster. started off badly when i got on the wrong boat to go to my project, all the other volunteeers found it hilarious. my right boat came and picked me up a few minutes later which was nice of them, and we went off to a random part of the jungle to chop palm leaves down, for roofing on Enriques farm. i was the only one with wellies so i had to stand in the mud near the boat and put the leaves on board. i was sliding around so much, fell over i dont know how many times, my waste down was covered in thick mud. We finished really early so Eugenio our driver, took us around an island, we got beached on a sand bank so i had to get out and push, once again bcause i was the only one with wellies, everyone ended up gettin out because im obviously not strong enough to push it. We stopped at a farm to pick a plant root which we sometimes eat at meal times (tastes quite powdery). Got back to the lodge and everyone had a football game.

All in all a brilliant week, as usual. Really not looking forward to the end of the next week as all the volunteers bar 5 of us are leaving so thats nearly all my friends, its going to be hard to say goodbye, we´ve already started planning our reunion next summer, for when i get back from India.