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! 

Back to School

Hi guys,
so just as a heads up it looks like I'm going to be fairly busy here from now on so I'll definitely be posting once a week (internet availability dependant) but I can't garuntee more than that.

So this week I've been spending a lot of the time going to our two local schools in Pilcopata and Patria where we're getting them into composting and where we now have weather stations based. It turns out the stations were actually donated by Edinburgh university which is a funny kind of coincidence.
During our last school visits I was asked to say a little something about myself too (instead of just sitting quietly at the back of the room). Normally I would have no problem with this as many of you know I'll happily talk to anyone about anything, however this was a bit different - I had to talk in Spanish. Now for those of you know don't know my Spanish capabilities are pretty much zero, but I translated a little something and read it out on command and thankfully not too many of the kids laughed at me.


While we had school visits practically every day last week I still had quite a bit of free time during the day - which I've ben using to study. I've had a bit of a problem with my university work in that due to past module dates I was under the impression I could take my next course after I got back in February, apparently this is no longer an option and the course only starts in October. They told me I wouldn't be able to enroll late into the course for this term so I'm stuck officially not studying until next October. However I have a friend studying the same course this year so I now have the first lot of coursework so I can teach myself the subject now - so I can take it officially alongside my originally planned other courses from next October, once I already know the content. That may or may not actually make sense but that's the plan anyway.
I've also been spending a little time trying to start improving my Spanish but so far that hasn't been quite so sucessful.

This week the centre has actually been pretty quiet due to the fact we're missing over half the normal people here. The School for Field Science group that are staying here have their mid-term break so they're all off in Cuzco, and some of the volunteers and researchers also left for a short break.

On the other hand we had a few extra visitors here - a TV crew from a Peruvian station making a documentary about various environmental stations in the area. They spent some time just filming the place itself but before long they started looking for 'volunteers'. They needed people to pose in certain areas and look busy around the centre, and since I was one of the only people around they got me, and a Finnish guy whose here, to help out. It felt a bit silly pretending to weed or make notes on camera but at least that was really all we had to do. Apparently It's going to be on Peruvian TV in about 3 weeks if anyone wants to try and find it for me then!

Today a couple of us decided to head up to a little animal centre nearby where a little old lady looks after a few animals which I guess aren't healthy or have suffered in the wild. I'm still not to sure on the details of the place because the woman seems to only speak Quechua but it was interesting to see the place. She had a few monkeys around including a tiny little Wooley Monkey which didn't exactly look ill but looked pretty sad, there were a couple of really friendly Peccary as well the the standard Macaws and Guini Pigs which seem to be everwhere around here. She had a Tapir too but it was being kept inside when we went.

Other than that I can't think of much else that's been going on here - it really has ben a quiet week. It hasn't rained since last Sunday and the place seems to have ground to a halt with the heat, which is pretty funny considering the same thing happens almost as soon as it starts raining.

Well it looks like I've got to go - just been asked if I want to head out to the river for a swim so I'm not gonna pass up that chance. Speak to you all again soon!!

Into the Wild

Hi guys sorry it took so long to get this posted - it's been a super busy week here in the rainforest!
So after I uploaded my last post on Wednesday morning it was back to work in the medicinal herb garden. It was nice to be there just weeding away but the heat was pretty crazy making it impossible to work for too long. We didn't even try to keep going after lunch.
Instead we hung out for a while and I got the chance to get to know some of my fellow volunteers. We actually decided, because of the heat, that we would go for a couple of drinks after dinner so around 8.30pm a group of about 15 of us piled into the pickup and set off for town. We only stayed for a couple of hours but it was nice to check out the town a bit.
We also spent some time with one of the tourists called Isabel. She was in a fairly celebratory mood since she just been found after spending two days (and one night) lost in the rainforest! It seems like she accidentally got off the trail and couldn't find her way back. Luckily she knew to find the river so the searchers eventually found her just before nightfall of the second day.

On Thursday it was back to the garden for the morning but we kept having to stop digging to move frogs out of the way.
After lunch a few of us decided to walk into the town (Pilcopata) about 1.5km away. Some of the group topped up on snacks for a long hike they were going to do and the rest of us picked a couple of odds and ends.
I had planned on having an early night and had already gone to bed when one of the guys showed up and asked if we wanted to go to the town fiesta. Part of Pilcopata was celebrating its 100 or 150 birthday (I never figured out which) so there was going to be local singing and dancing and things like that. It partly turned out to be more like some bizzare talent show but we stuck around for an hour or so before I walked back with a few others in the group.

Friday went a bit differently to the rest of the week as I got asked to help with a different project. One of the guys here has been doing community outreach work with the schools and asked if I wanted to help set up a couple of weather stations in two of the schools. So we spent the morning setting this up then spent the afternoon back out trying to encourage the schools to compost - not an easy task it seems!
Some of the other volunteers went out after dinner but I decided to stay in and have an early night.

On Saturday anyone without set plans was asked to help one of the researchers with her project. She's been working on producing bio-char to use to aid plant growth and improve soil fertilisation. Our job was to plant up a field of Plantain which was all sectioned off to test different combinations of bio-char and compost. It was pretty hard going because it was raining so hard and a few of us kept falling in the mud but we eventually treated and planted up 360 plants just in time for lunch.
After lunch it was off to San Pedro which is normally about an hour or so away by motorbike. Unfortunately the bike wasn't so keen on making the trip - the chain slipped off more than once and then we ran out of petrol (so happy bikes have a reserve tank). We eventually made it up there just to find that the guy we were going to speak to had left the previous day and wouldn't be back until Sunday - typical! So back to Villa Carmen we went. By this time it was dark, raining, and there was lightening flashing across the sky but it was still fun to go along the windy roads on the bike.
We got back just in time to get some food before bed.

Sunday was a very different kind of day - a group of five of us decided we were going to hike one of the trails up to this really cool waterfall. We set off into the rainforest just after breakfast and after using this kind of hand-operated cable car to cross the river we walked for around three and a half hours to the waterfall. On the way we spent a lot of time ducking under and climbing over fallen bamboo and trees, avoiding ants, wading through streams and fighting off thorny plants but we did see some sort of monkey (species yet to be determined), loads of cool butterflies and by the time we got there it was so worth it. We all cooled down swimming below the waterfall and ate lunch there. Once I'd finished sewing up my trousers (which had ripped across the knee on the way) we set off and made the return journey in three hours. Out of the group I was definitely the least fit but the encouragement throughout the group and the thought of fresh juice back at camp kept us all going. There was definitely a cheer when we made it back to the cable car and upon return to camp.

Yesterday (Monday) saw us back in the schools checking in on the weather stations. Patria school seem to be all ready to go now at least. In the afternoon we went up to Huacaria (I have no idea how to spell that one, sorry!). There's a small community there that live a much more traditional lifestyle, tracking, living self sustainably for the most part and making jewelry out of bamboo and other natural materials. We went to get some photos of an area they're hoping to built on and to discuss some matters with the chief, although it turns out we actually ended up talking to the shaman instead...I think.
After a quick cool down in the river it was back home to Villa Carmen just in time for dinner - pasta with tomato sauce and stir-fry - yum!

So I think that's a pretty good round-up for the week. Now just to post this then see where we're going today!