Wednesday 7 March 2012 This morning was a glorious morning, which all of us (Bo, Anya, Eva, Oliver - Alex´s German friend over for 2 weeks - Gabriel and I) spent clearing the bamboo plantation, past the first campsite so that we could make space to plant more bamboo. Although I have an occasional twinge in my right elbow, I was able to machete trees up to the diameter of my upper arms (don´t laugh, it´s not that puny!, maybe about 2 and half inches in diam...

Tuesday 6 March 2012This morning Eva and I cleared around the coffee plants located around the vegetable garden whilst Anya did the mula run and the guys brought some soil down from the forest, using the donkey, to supplement the soil in the bed where we pulled out the rotten radishes the day before.It was a pretty dry day (slightly sunny at first but then overcast) and after lunch, I saw and managed to get photographs of, some parakeets and toucans in the ...

Monday 5 March 2012We had a very frustrating morning at the school this morning, levelling and re-levelling the ground without any clear instructions on what was needed, despite asking. However, we still had quite a good time as Joel was the life and soul of the party.After lunch it rained, so that we all started work in the vegetable garden whilst it continued to rain. We uprooted virtually all the radishes, most of which had rotted in the ground. I had...

Sunday 4 March 2012 Anya woke up still not quite right, whilst Eva was worried about whether her left knee would be able to bear the hike plus she had started to get a bit congested. Bo was still off his food so it looked like only Gabriel and I were up for the hike to the bottom. The sun wasn't out at the 7:30 am breakfast we had and it was very cold. After breakfast, both Eva and Bo decided to try and leave earlier than the camioneta we had booked for 1...

Saturday 3 March 2012 Packing up after a shower, I discovered that my shoulder bag (yet another item bought in Quito, Monika saying that my slashproof rucksack, bought specially for Quito, made me more of a target. As if I could look less like a tourist) had been slashed in two places! This is the first malicious incident of any sort to occur to me in Quito so far. Luckily, nothing was missing, partly due to the fact I kept trying to move my admittledly large...