Maquipucuna Reserve and Ecotourism Lodge was wonderful. There was a small 'family' of workers and only 3 volunteers. I have helped with a variety of projects: Collected leaves for the roof, painted signs, marked trees for seed collection, made shelves, carried (heavy) bamboo for a fence, helped clear a hillside for planting seedlings. As well as watering the plants at the farm, and also the orchids when it didnīt rain. When there was nothing else to do I helped the tourists, and assisted the cooks and cleaners.

The Cloud Forest itself was very beautiful. I went on several of the numerous trails, looking for bears, birds, butterflies and snakes. The weather was very predictable, mostly sunny in the morning, and clouding over at about 1 o'clock. As the season started to change, it rained most afternoons. But it was never really cold, only down to around 15'C.

I managed to see two snakes while I was there, but only got a photo of the smallest one. Apparently this is a venomous snake, but it didn't seem very threatening to me.

Believe it or not, there are humming birds in this photo. My camera has a delay and i never managed to catch any flying. But there are several in this tree. There were feeders with sugarwater inside surrounding the open air dinning area. Sometimes the birds would fly in between us as we were eating or playing cards.

Here is the entrance to the lodge, the bridge, as you can see, is still under construction, but it is useable. You can also see one of the signs that Isa and I painted. I take no responsibility for the cartoon bird however. That was already there.

Here is proof of us doing some work. Preparing the hillside for planting seedlings as part of the reforestation project. It really is hard work without any machines. The ground had been prieviously burnt to get rid of most of the vegetation, so there was ash everywhere as well as dirt. I really enjoyed the mornings work because I knew that I was doind good things, you know, working with the earth and all that.