I am in Quito right now, waiting to travel on to Bolivia. I have completed 3 months with the Amazon reserve, and I did not manage to change reserves, cause I enjoyed the one I was at too much! I did 2 months there, then travelled in Peru for 3 weeks, and then returned there for another month.

It�s been fab mate. I�ve learned so much. From the staff, the work I did at the station, the children in the local community I taught at, the many other interesting volunteers I met, and the rainforest itself.

It was all so beautiful too. Everything was alive around you. The ground, the trees, the air, and sometimes even your bed, which was sometimes freaky. And man is it noisy! The rainforest at night was probably noisier than Queen St. midday. The work was often hard, but you only had to do about 5 hours a day so there was plenty of time to relax in the hammocks, or down by the picturesque Rio Napo. And the local kids were always keen on a game of football (soccer) if you had any excess energy left -- but you had to get used to them running rings around you.

The work I did was pretty much exactly as the info pack outlined, which was good to see, and ranged from station and path maintenance to working in the organic and botanic gardens to teaching English. The most interesting and rewarding work for me personally has been the English teaching. I did this two mornings a week, two hours each morning. The kids had no English at all, and initially it was quite strenuous as it took ages for us to get them to settle down and listen to us. The teachers here get the kids to pay attention through some pretty harsh disciplinary tactics, and since that is what they were used to, (and we wouldn�t dare employ those!) it was hard to get them to pay attention! But then once rapport was built and trust established, it turned into a great experience. Got to learn a lot about their lives, and they were pretty keen on teaching us some Spanish and Quichua too which was badly needed, especially in my case! Needless to say, it was really hard leaving in the end and I�m already missing the tranquility and beauty of the place, and the clamour of the kids...

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