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...

Tuesday 13 March 2012 - The prodigal returns I had a leisurely day: breakfast, laundry and Internet before making my way back to La Hesperia, treating myself to a lovely lasagna for lunch (almost the cost of the bus trip out to Lago Agrio). Back at the "ranch," I found that Anya, Eva and Gabriel had gone to Atacames for the weekend. Not only that, but a lot of things had occurred and everything had changed: Anya had decided that she had had enough and wanted...

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...