Volunteering in the cloud forest

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After one week of voluntering, including activities like feding the hens, picking corn, digging, carrying wood, making an entrance sign for the reserve, chopping plants/herbs with machetes (oh yes, if you want to challenge me in armwrestling - any time with my new found muscles - hehe) and other less demanding activities like relaxing in the hammock (oh I love those hammocs), enjoying the beautiful views (have a look in the photo album), playing with the dogs, frisbees or dart, making art out of bamboo fibres and swimming in thermal baths; I feel like my baterries are charged.
The highlight of the week was definitely the two-day hike to the volcano Cotacachi where we also had a wonderful view of a lagoon. I actually climbed my first 4000 m peak! We started Thursday morning, taking the bus up to 3000 m. During the day we climbed 1000 m, camped on a peak and got the pleasure of watching the sunset in the mountains and then Friday we walked 30 km and descended to the camp at 2000 m. It was a really good trek. During Friday we went from mountain landscape to rainforest to bamboo forest and then finally the prairie. Wow!
After the first WE, when me and a French girl were alone in the rain forest (scary!!!) we are now four volunteers: me, the French girl, another Swedish girl and an English guy in the small camp in the middle of nowhere. To get here, you take a bus (only with locals, no gringos at all) from Otavalo straight out in the middle of nowhere in the mountains. There are no bus stops, so you just shout at the driver when you want to get off. The bus rides on extremely narrow and bumpy dirt roads on the edge of the mountain: on one side of the road there is a deep steep and on the other the mountain. Not very handy to meet another vehicle and therefore the bus driver almost continuously honks.
The camp itself is situated in a valley with beautiful views, but is, as mentioned before, in the wild forest. If you walk for 30 minutes, you get to two houses and another 45 minutes, you get to Santa Rosa, a village consisting of a school, three houses and a tiny shop. When you are in the camp you can easily imagine a movie where people get lost in the forest, the cameras zooming out from above showing that there is really nothing around but forest.
Once there was a bear that entered the camp during the night and ate all of the food. There are also pumas and other scary animals further up the mountain.
The temperatures are modest: in the night it is around 0 C and during the day 15-25 C.
So, if we have no electricity in the camp, how can I be writing you on the Internet? This WE we decided to make an excursion to the civilization: shop handicraft at the beautiful market in Otavalo (I got the opportunity to show my excellent skills in barganing that I had avquired in Brazil - I had to bargain for the whole group in the end - hehe) and slep at the hotel, take hot showers (although we do have that in the camp as well) and tonight we will watch one of the national sports: cock fighting.

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