Sunday 18 March 2012 Had a lovely breakfast of crepe de frutas with a side of chocolate sauce: yum! Then it was pack up and checkout time, where I made my way to where I saw buses parked in a square (but it´s not an official bus terminal), hoping that I could catch a bus there. Trying to find someone to ask, I saw a few of the bus drivers and conductors napping in the storage space under the bus: it was shady and looked cool - just what I needed, whilst wai...

Saturday 17 March 2012 Not much more to say that have hung out on the beach at Canoa, in my own pavilion, being offered jugo, agua, cerveza, etc by vendors passing by after a very healthy fruit salad breakfast with crepe at a nearby hotel restaurant. Must make an attempt to cut down on all that carbohydrate consumption now that I have control of what I am eating day-to-day. Canoa is known as a good surfing place: it´s got regular waves and the beach is fair...

Friday 16 March 2012 - The Last Farewells We woke up to a slightly overcast but dry day and immediately started to finish the last packing up: squeezing and pushing things into our overfull backpacks - certainly true in my case - including dismantling our mosquito nets and stripping our beds of linen. We made our apologies via Alex for not wanting to take part in a last-minute interview comparing La Hesperia/Ecuador to our respective countries and made our ...

Thursday 15 March 2012 This was the last day for Michael, who was off to San Miguel before flying back to the US Tuesday, although he hoped to be able to change it to Monday. Beau was joining Michael for his trip, which was hopefully going to include a canoe trip to the jungle (after my experience in the Amazon), so after breakfast, we said goodbye to them as Eva, Anya and myself would be off for good on Friday. I elected to do my mula run (60 litres), an...

Wednesday 14 March 2012 In the morning, Anya, Anna (one of the two new Spanish volunteers) planted tangaré trees, this time conveniently near the tree nursery. Anna and I worked together whilst Anya had to work on her own, until she went back, not feeling well. Anna and I had to replant about 4 as they were too near the ones that Anya had planted, so we weren't able to plant all of the allocated plants, especially as it started to be difficult to see clear...