Moving on again

Hi everyone,
I know I´m late....again but things have been pretty busy here! For those of you who don´t already know I´m down near Pamplona for the third summer in a row visiting my favourite Spanish family! Since it´s the hight of summer we´ve been fairly run off our feet so I´ve only just had time to write.

Last week was actually fairly easy in terms of work for a change. After waking up to find a message saying I could definitely head to Pamplona at the weekend I waited around until Isa´s sister got her out of bed early then set about helping her get sorted to go out. Her friends who had visited at the weekend wanted her to come over so she was out of the house by just after 10.30am so I spent my morning reading, watching some old episodes of House MD on my computer and thinking up some new knitting ideas for when I got home.
In the afternoon Marie appeared home reasonably early and we went off to find the new shoes I so desperately needed. We had to take Isa along which meant I knew we´d never manage to get the shoes sorted - and I was right - but it was a reasonable trip out at least. In the end I couldn´t find what I needed and settled for buying the (to me) slightly expensive shoes I´d seen after class the following day.

Wednesday Isa didn´t want to get up out of bed since she wanted to watch her cartoons and when I finally decided enough was enough she sulked and wouldn´t talk to me for over an hour leaving me to sit around and colour in the ´difficult´ pictures she wasn´t going to do. By that point the grandparents had arrived and it was almost lunch time so I got myself some food, checked my Spanish homework and headed out around 3.30pm to go to class. It wasn´t too bad for my final lesson. My normal teacher was still on holiday but the new one was talking a bit slower and I wasn´t already in a grump which helped. We got through a fair amount of work and after getting my shoes and going for a final wander through my favourite part of Bilbao I caught the metro back to the house.

guggenheim

As promised by Marie we went to the Guggenheim museum after we´d both finished work on Thursday. Isa had been at a friend´s again so I´d had a fairly easy day and after getting a quick bite to eat we set off. We had Isa with us which I wasn´t entirely sure about but she seemed fairly excited to go and see the ´flower puppy´ outside the entrance so off we went.

There was a great video exhibit by Kimsooja &Shahzia Sikander which had some really impressive imagery and the music was like a mix of sounds I´d heard in both India and Peru. We only got to stay for 10 minutes cause someone got bored but I´m definitely going to check them out online soon! There was an impressive steal instalment which took up half the building with maze like structures but we got in trouble cause Isa decided out run back out of one of the mazes and if she´d gone off in a different direction we might not have seen where she´d gone. 

The two main art exhibits were by Jeff Koons and Jean-Michel Basquait. I think the first appealed more to Isa with his metal ballon animals and refashioned old toys but I think I preferred the Basquait exhibit with his graffiti art and messages about colonialism, racisms, class struggles and things like that - it was also pretty cool to see the collection he did alongside Andy Warhol - someone I remember studying in school!

Unfortunately Isa thought it would be fun to break free from her mum and touch an exhibition piece which almost got us chucked out and then spent the last half hour deliberately messing around, making too much noise knowing she had to be quiet and generally trying to make us leave.

Friday was a pretty busy day. The grandparents showed up for a bit in the morning, and everyone was sitting with Isa watching TV so I used that time to get my back packed and ready to go. The parents arrived in the afternoon but no one seemed interested in getting their own things packed until the evening after dinner. They were off to China early in the morning so they had to get themselves organised too. We had a final family meal and after I was given the money back that I´d paid for my new shoes - the family wanted them to be a present from them which was really sweet!

on the road again

On saturday morning the housekeeper came and took me to the bus station since she´d offered the day before. I got the bus from Bilbao to Pamplona which was a nice trip although there seemed to be a lot of holiday traffic on the road. I grabbed a coffee and a pintxo in the bus station then caught the next bus down to Olite - the closest I could get to San Martin de Unx on the bus as far as I knew. 

Knowing it was lunch time and it would be really busy I decided I would just start walking and hitch to my friends hostel/restaurant instead of waiting to see if they could come and collect me. A nice couple who were here on holiday picked me up in no time and dropped me right at the door.

The afternoon was spent doing little jobs around the hostel and settling back into life in San Martin. 

Sunday was the busiest I´ve ever seen it here with every table full of families and groups wanting lunch. We spent most of the late afternoon recovering from such a busy session and chatted about the other people who´d come to stay, how their English course summer camp had gone and how our families were getting on before having an early night. 

gorgeous new dog

Yesterday I spent the morning out shopping with Pedro and his grandson which was an interesting experience - had to laugh at the fact he decided he wanted ice cream near the start of the trip and was still asking for it two hours later! We had quite a few people for lunch and there was less of us working in the kitchen but between me and Linda I think we actually worked through the orders and the service faster than we had the day before with more people! I guess it was just easier with less people getting under each others feet. 

This morning I helped clean the pool and prep some things for dinner then I set about writing this. We´ve got a couple of hours until people start coming for lunch but we have rooms to make up so I´m off to help with the laundry. 

I should be in Barcelona by the time I write my next piece but I don´t know how easy it will be for me to post off my tablet (now it´s getting old and slow) when I don´t have a computer or laptop to borrow!

Chat to you all again soon either way,

Ciao!

OOOPS!!

Hi everyone,

Firstly, sorry the text has a weird white highlight, I've spent about an hour trying to fix it but it won't go away! 

I know I'm late in posting again but the weather has made it pretty difficult to maintain power/internet around here all week. I'll be lucky if this even posts!

So Monday was just an ordinary day, went to collect a water sample from the River Pilcopata, worked on updating the VC bird species list and checking that all the latin names were correct, and started working on a VC notice board so everyone could be kept up to date with the going's on here. 

We also had a new volunteer show up from Australia (originally South Africa). 

Tuesday was a little less ordinary. Everything was going fine at the beginning of the morning, until it came to sampling. I was trying to transfer some Formal (formaldehyde solution) into a smaller container to use that day, but because it had one of those caps with only a tiny hole it was taking forever to get any into the other bottle. I had a bit of an impatient moment and tried squeezing the bottle harder, while holding it up to see how full the small bottle was getting. Next thing I know the cap bursts off, formal is spilling everywhere and I can't see. I manage to shout to Heather before the fumes start effecting my throat and in no time at all we piled into the truck and made a hasty dash to the hospital - luckily only a couple of minutes away and fairly quiet. After a lot of cleaning out, a shower and change (cause the stuff was so strong the doctor was starting to feel bad), an IV drip (anti-inflammatory since I got some in my throat) and a whole lot of water I finally got to go back to VC, with a cream thing to put on three time a day. So all in all no lasting damage but I'll definitely be being more careful next time I decided to play with the chemistry set!

Couldn't help but laugh at myself for managing to throw chemicals in my own face

Wednesday was mostly spent recovering quietly in my room and pointedly avoiding all chemicals/things I could fall over/ anything else I could injure myself with. One thing we did do was organise our VC secret santa game. I was meant to go out sampling to make up for missing it the day before but someone had taken the truck elsewhere and we couldn't find it until it was too late.

By the time thursday came around it was absolutely chucking it down but we finally managed to get the truck, and I was in super-careful mode so we finally got out to collect our water sample from the other river for the week. Normally it takes about 15-20 minutes because we're testing part of the sample on site but the weather was so bad we grabbed what we needed then dashed back to VC so I could do my titration experiment there instead. I got a fair bit of studying done in the afternoon and on the evening a small group of us went to the high school graduation party in Pilcopata, since we've done so much work with the community and kids there. It did mean we had to go formal but luckily I managed to borrow a dress and apparently didn't scrub up too badly. The celebration was pretty fun although it didn't finish until around 3am! I also got to try guinea pig there for the first time - I don't know what I expected but it didn't taste all that different to rabbit, just a lot stronger. 

One of the rivers where we go sampling

Friday morning was mostly spent studying/sleeping but on the afternoon we went down to town to buy our secret santa presents. I was given the name of one of the older locals here who works in agriculture. I don't know him that well but I think I got a useful - yet general - enough present that he should like it - we'll find out tomorrow when he gets it. 

I was also 'dragged' out for my first proper night out in the discos in Pilcopata. It actually wasn't really all that bad, we mostly all stuck together and danced in a group although the last hour or so was mostly spent with me trying not to step on any toes while being taught some proper latin dancing, including the cumbia. 

After yet another late night I pretty much did nothing on Saturday, but then again I think everyone else was equally as tired so we all had a rather quiet, sleepy day. Our newest volunteer also left today to go back to Cusco. It's a shame cause she had been planning on staying longer but things just didn't quite work out here. 

Yesterday got off to a pretty slow start but we did all take a trip out to Patria to visit a friend's restaurant which was fun, and the food was amazing. On the off chance any of you ever end up in that busy little village you have to eat at La Rustica! 

The team enjoying a great meal at La Rustica

 Well I guess I should get back to work now, went sampling (successfully) today and after a lot of time not doing much proper work the samples are starting to build up. 

Also next time I speak to you all it will probably be from Cusco, as I'm leaving VC on boxing day. Hopefully I'll have something different to talk about by then! 

Chat soon everyone!!

Festival Fun

Hi everyone,
A bit late once again I know but I just managed to get the next textbooks for my course and got a little distracted with that yesterday!

So in case any of you wondered about last weeks festival it was pretty cool, there was a lot of traditional dances all done in really elaborate costumes, plenty of music and, as you would expect at any festival, the alcohol was certainly flowing. Although I only stuck around for a little while it was really cool to see plus it gave us all an opportunity to snack on some great  Picarones (kind of like sweet potato doughnuts)!

Local dancing

On Tuesday our numbers were once again whittled down when Jimena, Rachel and Dan left. Jimena is coming back to continue her research in January but the others are either going back home or getting back on the road. So that brings our number (minus admin/management/'workers') down to 3. There is a new volunteer supposed to be showing up today but it's so quite around here now!

Rachel, Ricardo and Heather enjoying the festival

Unfortunately there's still very little to do around here. We were given a list of jobs we could work on but a lot of the things listed are just filler jobs which don't really have us jumping with excitment.

One thing we did do this week was go out to help clear a new trail on the other side of the river. We got the boat across early in the morning and a couple of us were quite looking forward to the expected slow pace that comes with hacking routes through the rainforest. However the route was actually pretty heavy going and the machete-ers weren't exactly hanging around. Although I thought it would be fine my knee started to protest pretty early on and, for once, i decided to do the sensible thing and turn back. This did leave me with the predicament of being stuck back on the river bank until they returned - 4 hours later - with no book/journal/other interesting thing to do but eventually, after gaining a good few dozen bug bites plus a burnt face, and losing an earring and


my water bottle (which decided to disappear down the river) the rest of the team finally showed up.

The little friend I made down by the river - got within 3 feet of me

The next mission was to actually get back over the river. The boat wasn't showing up and after about an hour and a half it was decided that we would have to use a different, less powerful boat, which meant getting further upriver so it could reach us and get back without struggling to get back upstream. So after a good half an hour of fast, difficult, trail-less scrambling we finally made it to where the boat could get us and we managed to get back to VC. Unfortunately my knee's still not great so I've been having to take it easy this last few days.

For the rest of my time in VC I'm going to be totally taking over with collecting and processing the water samples needed for the larvae project which is kinda cool, especially using a couple of little chemistry techniques I haven't used since high school. It's going well so far although it's only a couple of times a week.

In other news I got to work planning the rest of my time in Peru since I'll be leaving VC in under 20 days and leaving Peru in just over 40. So far I'm making sure to visit quite a few important sites between Cusco and Lima though I have a few days extra to either plan out or leave free to see what happens. I'm kind of disappointed as I was hoping to make the trip with a friend on his motorbike but with my knee being a cause for concern it wouldn't be a good idea - but maybe next time!

Well that's all I have for you guys this time, probably should get working on some of these water samples now!

Ciao 

Nature walk

Hi everyone,
so I know I'm late...again, but there hasn't been that much to write about lately.

I spent Monday/Tuesday helping process more water samples and looking for eggs and larvae.

On Wednesday the SFS students left. They've been here for an entire semester studying biodiversity and conservation in the Amazon but term finished so we all said our goodbyes and they left to go to Cusco before returning home. The rest of that day was pretty quiet -understandable with only about 6 people only at VC now.

Saying goodbye: Jimena, Rachel, Rachel (the SFS intern), me, Heather

This last few days it's been pretty hot here so we've been spending our afternoons hanging out down by the river trying to stay cool.

On Friday Rachel and I went out for a hike along the trails. We didn't see much but we did spot a few cool birds, and an interesting looking snake. 

This weekend there's an election going on in town, alongside a big festival for the town's patron saint. It was pretty interesting going down there yesterday to see the entire town out on the streets, people dancing, a parade and everyone out enjoying themselves. Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures since I forgot to bring my camera along but if this sudden rainstorm moves on I'll go get some pictures later today.

yellow rumped cacique

Well since that's my weekly roundup all ready over here's a brief round up of some of the birds we've seen around here for those of you who are interested: 

- Yellow rumped cacique

- Black vulture

- Scarlet macaw

- Blue and yellow macaw

- Turkey Vulture

- White banded swallow

- Red capped cardinal

- Purple gallinule

- Cocoi heron

- Smooth billed ani

- Barn owl

- Haotzin

- Blue tailed emerald 

- Common poto

- Sunbittern

- Spix's guan

- Blue grey tangier

- Caped heron

- Black tailed trogon

- Cobalt winged parakeet

- Black faced Dacnis

and many, many more - some of which I haven't been able to identify yet. 

Blue grey tangier

So it sounds like the rain's stopped - think I'll go head down to the festival. 

Speak to you all again soon!

Happy Thanksgiving

Hi everyone,
so I know I'm late in posting once again but we had a busy day yesterday. Maybe you should all just start expecting to see my posts on Mondays instead.

The main part of the week was once again fairly quiet. I spent a lot of time studying, looking at academic plans for the future such as Masters course (because it can't hurt to be prepared), and various other not so interesting things.

On Wednesday however we had a nice change when Mike, a reasearcher who'd returned briefly to continue his research on frogs, gave a presentation on his specialised topic to a class from the local high school. He bought some speciemens with him to show the kids which, as expected, led to a bit of craziness when one of them escaped and started hopping around the classroom!

Just before it escaped!

Thursday saw most of the students working in the kitchen and preparing for Thanksgiving dinner. Since it was my first Thanksgiving I wasn't entirely sure what to expect but we made handturkey place settings in the morning and a small lunch of soup and deviled eggs - didn't taste as weird as I expected. After a fairly quiet afternooon studying we finally got our Thanksgiving dinner. 

Some of the food included turkey, lentil loaf, green bean casserole, mashed potatoes, roast vegetables, stuffing, broccoli salad gravy. For desert there was spiced peaches, apple crisp and bannana empinadas. So much good food!!!

YUM!!!

Over the weekend I got a bit of studying done but saturday afternoon was mostly spent at this great swimming hole Jimena found for us. 

On Sunday a couple of us set off to hike to Quacaria (the local indiginous community village). We made it about half way when a truck drove up and we managed to scrounge a lift the rest of the way - standing in the back of a pickup truck, speeding along the country roads is a perfect way to cool down from a long walk. We spent a couple of hours out there in the river enjoying the Sun and the beautiful little swimming hole before deciding to head back. Although we didn't get a lift this time we were mostly walking downhill so the walk wasn't too bad despite the heat. It was after 2pm by the time we made it back to Pilcopata which meant nowhere was serving food so instead we sat in our favourite ice cream place with some fruit from the market and got some nice cold drinks which finished up the day nicely. 

One big difference around here as of Friday is that Zeidy - one of our volunteers - is no longer here Her and her girlfriend left for Cusco before heading home later in the month. It was great to spend time which such a lovely lass and we're already missing her here but a few people have already made vsiting promises so it's good to see such great friendships lasting beyond our stays here at VC. 

Saying goodbye - L to R: me, Jimena, Zeidy, Rachel (back) Maike, Mauricio (back) and Claudia

Well I can't think of anything else to share this time so I guess it's back to work - today I've been giving Rachel lessons in the Scottish langue, culture and history, since her father bought some land there. Definitely a fun exercise!

Ciao!

Comiendo en Cusco

Hi everyone,
I know I'm late once again but there have been problems with the internet....again.

Last week was pretty quiet and I spent practically all my time working through samples for the larvae project. The only other really funny thing was playing clips of peoples accents in Orkney and in the North East of England (since that's where my family's from) - the best clips where from Radio Orkney and some old clips of Auf Weidersehen, Pet. However the end of the week was much more exciting - Jimena and I headed to Cusco for a few days off.

On thursday we got the bus around 10.30am and after a pretty speedy journey (only 7 hours) we arrived in Cusco and our hostel - Estrellita. It was a nice enough little place and the people there were lovely but it was really noisy on a night with cars coming past beeping their horns all night.
For dinner we met up with a couple of the guys from Villa Carmen who where also down in Cusco. We went to a great pizza place called La Bodega and the food was amazing - unfotunately the rich cheesy pizza disagreed with my altitude-effected stomach so I only got a couple of slices but it was so worth it!

The following day we headed over to San Pedro market for a little shopping - Jimena to stock up on chocolates and I needed to get an extra jumper to combat the Cusco climate. The trip was a success and I managed to get a lovely alpaca-mix jumper for only 33 soles (£7.20). After the market we chilled out in a nice juice bar near the main plaza and used their wifi for a bit before splitting up.

Incan part of Qurikancha

I headed to Qurikancha - the Temple of the Sun. In Incan history it is the most important temple of the Empire, dedicated solely to the Sun God - Inti. It was an interesting place to visit and to see the variations in architecture between the Incan building and the more recent Spanish alterations, although the set up made it a little difficult to navigate.

The Spanish part of Qurikancha

Next we regrouped and headed across town for a real un-Peruvian afternoon. We went to the cinema. We'd heard about the latest Hunger Games movie coming out so we grabbed some popcorn and fizzy drinks then found our seats. Now the movie in general was pretty awesome visually, unfortunately it turned out to be dubbed in Spanish with no subtitles so I didn't understand a fair portion of the film - though I did get to keep working on my language skills I guess.
After the movie we had to head over to the ACCA office so Jimena could pick up so things for her project then we went back to the project to chill out for a bit.
Eventually our stomachs had just about settled after the mass amount of popcorn but we decided to keep it simple for dinner. We found a chinese restraunt off the plaza behind the main one and settled for wanton soup and spring rolls for dinner.

popcorn anyone?

Saturday got off to a slow start as we actually both managed to ignore the traffic long enough to get a lie in. After a late breakfast (fried egg sandwich) we walked up to San Blas where they have a craft market on Saturdays. We had a good look around and I now have some great ideas for what to get for a few luckily people back home. After that we found this amazing place in the same little Plaza called The Meeting Place where they have delicious Belgian waffles and an extensive coffee selection (including a very yummy hazelnut latte).
We headed back to the hostel very much satisfied with our morning's adventure and spent a good part of the afternoon making the most of the reasonable internet connection by skyping home.
By mid evening it was good time and we opted for Indian (trying to cover yet another foody base). There's a place on the main street with an unlimited Indian buffet for only 15 soles (about £3.80). The food was great, even if we did try our best to avoid eating the rice - our main ingredient back at Villa Carmen). After food we decided that we should grab a couple of drinks as we were heading back to the project the following day. There's a great bar on the corner of the main plaza (Plaza de Armas) called Norton Rats which is run by a motorbike enthusiast. It looked like it could have been a regular pub back in the UK with its dark wood decor, flags and bike raly shirts everywhere, plus dart boards and a pool table. Although we stuck to the local beer (four times cheaper than anything recognisable back home at £2.20) we still had a good time. Jimena made friends with the bar staff - including one little guy who set us up with an almost impossible game of darts - while I got chatting to a group of Dutch expats who now live in Cusco.
By around 11pm we called it a night and went back to the hostel.

Norton Rats bar!

On Sunday morning we got all our stuff together then waited for a new member of the VC team to meet us at the hostel. The girlfriend of one of the current volunteers was coming to visit her and we'd been charged with the mission of getting her there safely.
The bus left at around 11.30 - only an hour later than scheduled - and despite making some strange detour which we had no idea about we finally made it back to Villa Carmen just in time for dinner, followed by an early night.

The search for the lost petroglyphs

This post was written on Monday but posting was delayed due to lack of internet.

Sorry!!!

 I know I was meant to be getting back on schedule and posting yesterday but we were super busy and I didn't have time.

It's been a reasonably busy week over all. On tuesday (since I wrote about Monday in my last post) Claudia and I spent most of the day finalising and finishing up our Villa Carmen leaflet advertising some of the wonderful goings on here at the centre. The design was finally sent off to Cusco with the idea that it would be here in time for the stand we were going to have at Forest Week's fair on Saturday.
Tuesday also saw two big groups of school kids showing up to work with SFS (School for Field Studies). They planned out a bunch of activities including a display of the local watershed and some games about the food web.
They all had a pretty good time by the sound of it but their second group apparently had a little too much energy, especially when the teachers wouldn't help control them.

Our team of volunteers and researchers (some of them anyway)!

On Wednesday we had more kids coming to work with SFS so a lot of time was spent making sure everything there was going to plan, including making sure they all got their snacks sorted out.

By thursday I think the SFS students were glad to see the end of their brief teaching roles and we had no more visitors. Apparently the community outreach team (that's us) were meant to be giving some sort of presentation in the school but for some unknown reason they decided that wasn't going to happen. Instead I decided I would help Jimena - one of the visiting researchers who's here for a few months - with her research project. She's studying population of larvae in the rivers in this area and after a week of concentrated sampling she's been left with a lot of samples to work through. I'm now going to be helping her on a regular basis with studying samples and in return I'm hoping she'll teach me more about the scientific aspects and how to recognise different macroorganisms that we find in samples.

Going to collect water samples: seeing full sized trees floating past was pretty crazy!

Friday started far to early due to the constant thunder storm in the early hours of the morning. By the time it eased off it was basically time to get up. This would be fine under normal circumstances but it was day three of the same and we were starting to get a little grumpy from the lack of sleep.
For forest week we were eant to be going to cheer on and encourage the kids in a drawing/painting competition they were taking part in but once again we ended up staying on base - I'm not sure if it was because the competition was cancelled or if we just didn't go for some reason.
Instead I went with Jimena to collect samples. The state of the river was pretty amazing - there was no longer any sort of beach, the water level had moved up over 10ft and full sized tree trunks were being carried downstream.

On saturday we were supposed to be going to the Forest Week fair except due to some organisation issue we didn't have a tent set up or anything else prepared. I don't know if anyone else ended up going, but like the other events we were supposed to go to over the week we ended up not going.
Instead I spent the day studying and learning all about water treatment techniques.

Yesterday was our day off and we decided to go do something a little different. Not too far away there are some ancient petroglyphs which we'd heard about and wanted to go check out, so sraight after breakfast we set off. We'd been given brief instructions as to how to get there, apparently it was only about a two hour hike, but either we were walking to slowly or there was a bit of a miscomminication there cause it took us about three and a half hours to find them - also the might we took a wrong turn somewhere along the way might have accounted for some of that extra time...
It was a nice walk though and we did eventually find the petroglyphs.

Petroglyphs

I'm not sure if we were expecting a bit more but there were a couple of big rocks with a few drawings on - though I'm not sure how old. It was a good trip out anyway.
We got back a little before dinner with just enough time for a nice cold shower and a little Skype call with the other half and after dinner it was bat feeding time and the start of the first Lord of the Rings.

Looking out over Pilcopata, Andes in  the background 

Today has so far been dedicated to processing water samples and installing a new rain gauge.

Well back to work anyway - lots of samples to go through!

Field Trip!!

Hi everyone,
so I know my schdule for posting has gone a bit funny thanks to last weeks internet problems but I'm planning on being back on track for my next post - it just seemed silly to write a whole new post for a couple of quiet days. But on with the post.

So Friday morning was mostly spent studying - I've been reading all about water quality which isn't too bad for short bursts of time reading.
 After lunch though I went into 'town' with a couple of other volunteers (well one volunteer, one reseacher). We hung out for a while, checked out the fruit market and got some ice cream from the usual place - that place gets so much business from us lot here at Villa Carmen! We also gathered a couple of things for the night since none of us were too interested in going out to the bars.
Our evening was spent sitting out on the porch of one of the cabins with a couple of drinks, good music and nice conversation; What better way to spend a Friday night?

This little guy was discovered in the toilet block - tiny but deadly Coral snake

On saturday we discovered that the guy I'm working wih had gotten back from his break in the night so we wasted no time getting back to work. Since we have to have a stall ready to go for thursday we began designing leaflets. For some reason there's absolutely nothing in the way of publicity for Villa Carmen so Claudia and I spent all morning working on the perfect template and layout for the flier - unfortunately the official information we could use was all online and the internet was done so we couldn't access it. However we'd finially finished the design just after midday - perfect timing for lunch.
The afternoon was spent doing  little more studying before a short trip out to Huacaria on the bike. There was some money problem to discuss with the chif although i couldn't really understand a lot of the conversation. Instead I distracted myself playing with a couple of super cute puppies that came out of nowhere to meet the strangers. They must have only been a few weeks old and were still so tiny but they weren't shy.

Sunday was a little confusing from the start because I thought it was actually Saturday which meant I managed to miss my regulr Skype call with the other half - least I managed to do it today instead. After breakfast we got to do something a little different as we were invited to oin the students on a trip to a town called Salvaçion. It's about an hour away by car, can't always be accessed in the rainy season and - the best thing about the town - it had a swimming pool! Don't get me wrong I enjoy swimming in the river but it's sometimes nice not to have to worry about what you're standing on or what else is in the water too!
First stop though was a little ox-bow lake where they had these flat bottom rafts to paddle around in. The water was really only a foot deep and it wasn't the most exciting thing to do in your free time but it was a good laugh and we all enjoyed getting to do something a little different.

Getting Jimena to do all the hard work

On the way back to the car there was a sudden downpour which threatened to call an early end to our trip out but after about half an hour it relented and by the time we got to the pool it had stopped. We sat and ate our packed lunches (rice, avacado, and aubergine pancake) by the pool side before getting in. Everyone definitely appreciated the clear, chlorinated water and while the others had handstand competions on the bottom of the pool I just enjoyed floating around without having to worry about being carried downstream!

Tonight has been fairly productive so far: we've almost finished creating our leaflets for the forest week stand later in the week, we went and gathered some photos to use to help promote the station and we even made a couple of examples of things to make from your recycling.
Now I think I might go have a little seista while it's too wet to go outside then see about getting some more real work done.

Visited these little guys on our photo collecting wander

So until next time everyone - ciao!!

Happy Halloween!

Hi everyone,
Sorry it's taken me longer than normal to get this post up, but power and internet have been in short supply around here lately - I'll explain why later.

So it's ben yet another relatively unproductive week around here. On Monday we headed over to the schools to check in and finish sealing the gaps around the posts holding the fence in place around the weather station. Because the fencing around that particular schol isn't complete it had been decided that it wasn't safe to have the weather station on the ground - insted we fixed it on top of a flat roof of one of the school buildings. Unfortunately as they'd had to drill into the roof to fit the fence, the ceiling was starting to leak - oops. However we're pretty sure it's all fixed up, might go and check tomorrow.

On that trip we also discovered that the school kids were all going to be on holiday for two weeks. Apparently there was some teacher competition thing going on although I don't know if that was the reason for the two week holiday or if they just held the competitions over pre-existing holidays, either way it meas we haven't been abe to do any school related stuff for a week and a half now.

I did get to spend some time making up a couple of very proffesional looking signs for our weather stations so I'm looking forward to getting them up soon.

Another 'outreach' task over the last week has been to plan a stand for Forest Week which is happening in town (Pilcopata) over the space of next week. It sounds like there's going to be events and things going on all week but we have a stall on the Saturday with, I presume, a few other 'green'groups in the area. We're going to be showing what Villa Carmen is all about, some information about our community outreach programs, things like that. I'm looking forward to it, I just hope that with our limited resources we can actually make a proffesional job of it.

Spending some free time playing football with the workers

Meanwhile in my free time I finally decided to make myself some swimwear. Now I know how silly it sounds not to have some with me already but the plan had been to pick some up in Edinburgh before I flew out here. Unfotunately that didn't happen so I've been improvising lately. However using a pattern I found online (link to be found here) I made my own bikini top - since I'm fine just wearing the swimshorts I 'borrowed'of my other half. Despite the fact the pattern was geared up to be made using a sewing machine I slowly but surely finished up and it only took me about two days - I was being very precise with the lines I stitches I needed to sew.  I got to test it out yesterday and luckily it had no problem in the water and doesn't look near as makeshift as I expected!

One big thing from last week was the fact we all got together for some Halloween fun. The School for Field Studies (SFS) students all dressed up and we along with anyone else they could convince and we all spent the afternoon playing halloween games, like pin the parts on the zombie, halloween pinata and other things like that. They also all carved watermelons and had competions for face painting.

Me trying to hit the piñata

Now in the early hours of Halloween - literally around 3am - there was a huge storm that sat over Villa Carmen for hours, with thunder so loud I and lightening so bright it seemed almost inevitable it would hit something on site. Instead it seems the storm saved it's damage for when we weren't expecting it. The power went out Halloween evening, clearly due to the storm. The power out lasted almost 24 hours which wasn't such a big deal but it did mean going in search of an actual pyhsical book once the battery on my tablet prevented me from reading what I had been working through.

Everyone in their halloween costumes

Although the power came back pretty quickly, the internet was completely gone all weekend, and even though its back at the moent it's been coming and going for the last few days - so I guess I better hurry up and finish writing while I can still post this!

Besides I can't think of anything that's been going on here lately, except for some more studying, oh and we now have a second bat to look after, since it was knocked out of it's nest by some of the workers (who I'm not too happy with because they killed a nuber of other bats from the same nest). So the second bat is a little bigger than the first but we've only had it a couple of days. I've been trying to focus on getting it to eat but it's still kind of scared - hopfully it'll come around soon.

In the mean time I think a few volunteers are heading off into town so I'm going to go see what's happening there - hopefully we can go and grab some ice cream!

Speak to you all soon!!

An adventure into the past

Hi everyone,

this might just be a short post - we´ll see what happens - but it´s far too hot and I´m heading to the river as soon as possible this afternoon.

For those of you who read last weeks post I headed off to the river straight after writing (notice the common theme here) and saw something pretty awesome. Walking along the river beach we saw these rather large footprints accompanied by some much smaller ones in the sand - a jaguar and it´s cub!! After we went for a bit of a swim we walked back the same way and we heard rustling from the reed bank. Now I can´t say for certain but we´re pretty sure it was the two jaguar we saw prints of.

Here´s the paw print you can see - check out the size!

...So that´s probably the most exciting thing that happened this week but don´t stop reading just there, there rest is stilll pretty interesting - I hope. 

Sunday night and most of Monday wasn´t too good as I had some annoying 24 hour sick bug thing - i swear I´ve been sick more often in the three weeks I´ve been here than the whole three months I was in India! Anyway that meant I couldn´t really do much on Monday when the kids came to visit for a tour but I walked around with them while we showed them the abandoned plane and the bamboo house, the tortoises, and things like that.

Showing the kids the tortoises

Monday also saw our monkey trackers returning from their ten days following Howler Monkeys through the forest before heading off to continue their search in a different area on Wednesday. 

Here´s a stick bird (Common  Potoo) and you can just see it´s chick!

On tuesday I was feeling slightly better - I spent the morning working out a proper schedule for the school program for November, not super interesting but it felt good to get a proper plan drawn up - then again I think someone wiped our schedule board clean to use for something else - never mind. I then spent the afternoon studying so it was pretty much a whole day infront of a computer but that was really just the start. 

I pretty much spent all of the rest of the week trying to get information for a timeline for the local area. I´m working through a couple of documents in particular which were written back in around 1600 which are super interesting - unfortunately they haven´t given me any useful dates yet but I´m sure I´ll find something. However it´s so interesting to read an authentic description of the history of Peru, during the time when the Yncan empire was growing, all about the different people and the cultures. Definitely glad I´m getting the chance to learn more about the country´s history instead of just Machu Picchu!

Yesterday started off with the same research but for the afternoon a group of us decided to walk into town, go to the river and have a swim. The water wasn´t great after the rain the night because but it was a nice change as most of us hasn´t been to that spot before. Afterwards we got ice cream from this great place in Pilcopata before walking back to Villa Carmen for dinner.

We´ve also been caring for this tiny baby bat - isn´t it cute!

Today I spent the morning doing a bit of Skyping with the other half and talking to the family - including a cousin who found me online today who I haven´t been able to speak to in about 8 years - so that was great!
I also spent a little time looking online, doing a little research for the next little adventure - I just couldn´t help it!

Well I think that´s it for now - I haven´t got my camera cable on me at the moment but I´ll photos will follow later today! 

On the Buses

Hi guys,
this isn't going to be a long post cause I'm writing just before bed in the hope I can post in the morning - internet connection depending.

So I finally made it to the volunteer project! I arrived a day late but I made it on Monday night.
The plan had been to leave Cusco by minivan around 5-6am Sunday (they made it so early because of their elections taking place the same day). However after I finally left the hostel by taxi (it was late) I made it to the area where I was to meet the van....except I couldn't find the van. It was getting on a bit so I decided to take the public bus. But despite me triple checking where the bus was going it still went to the wrong place - Colquepata, instead of Pilcopata! After a long wait in Colquepata the bus finally got going back and after a wasted morning I ended up returning to the hostel!

Monday morning came with a chance to try again. This time I found the stop but apparently the bus was full. Eventually I got the afternoon bus and after some rough driving we got in around 11pm and I went straight to my assigned bed.

Tuesday morning was interesting. I woke up around 5am to the sound of the crickets and birds outside my window. Before breakfast I got to go out and help with some water sampling down at the river checking oxygen levels and things like that.
After breakfast one of the other volunteers showed me around then we got to work weeding the herb garden until 12.30pm. For lunch it was rice, lentils, broccoli in sauce and salad. Once that was done it was back to work in the garden. I'm hoping to do more animal based stuff in general but as a volunteer it mostly depends on where you're needed.
We stopped around 3pm cause it was too hot to keep going. Apparently it's been the hottest day in quite a while - typical  - and it never rained.
The rest of the afternoon I spent getting to know some of the volunteers, reading, and hanging out by the small turtle enclosure here.
After dinner - rice, aubergine and salad - some of the others wanted to play cards. I joined in but as it was a game I'd never played before I was pretty hopeless. It mostly ended up being Rachel, the volunteer who showed me around, and one of the students from the School for Field Studies (there's a whole group of them staying for a month or so) who battled it out in the end.

Now I just need to see if this will post! Can't add any pictures as my tablet's decided not to notice the camera cable but will hopefully have some soon.
Bye :)