Wednesday 29 February 2012

Well, we woke up to no power (still) and no water. Today's scheduled task (which was to plant trees in the reserve) had to be postponed to get down to the more urgent problem of fixing the water supply. It wasn't just the volunteer house that didn't have power or water this time, but the main house which was also entertaining the second of a four set of Danish guests at the reserve. Most of us were therefore tasked with creating water channels on the path up to 1st campsite, whilst Gabriel and Freddy (a member of staff) rode reserve's horses to the top to sort out the water pipes.

Gabriel later said that although he enjoyed the ride, it was pretty steep, with the ground falling away under the horses occasionally and that they (Freddy and he) had to swing from tree to tree to check the water pipes. However, although the water flowed through the pipes, no water got through to us on the ground and we went the day without water. A little ironic considering how we've all commented/complained about cold showers (although I've now got used to it and can stand with my whole body under it, though not both hair and body for any length of time) and now we would have been grateful to have even cold water! It meant that washing dishes, drinking water (which has to be boiled for 15 - 20 minutes to be potable), flushing the loo, laundry, etc., was difficult and had to be carefully managed. We also put out lots of containers under rain spouts and in the open to collect rainwater.

It meant that I had a "wet wipe" wash, although of course, this wasn't adequate for my hair (not that I tried, of course, it would have been too ridiculous!). It also meant that when I made the bread there wasn't a lot of spare water to wash my hands and had to again resort to wet wipes. I added some special ingredients from previous grocery shopping (emergency supplies) in Quito: sesame seeds and a dried fruit mixture, which I chopped up smaller to make them go further for the two loaves of breakfast bread.

Managed to get some shots of birds previously seen at the reserve from the volunteer house balcony (although one is admittedly, slightly blurry). Due to the heavy thunderstorm, there were a number of landslides, especially around the hydroelectric tunnel, which stopped any buses from Santo Domingo getting through to Quito, via La Hesperia, all day - unusual in my brief experience. Anya wasn't able to go to Quito for a farewell meeting with Deanna, who flies out Thursday morning.