I’m coming to the end of my 2 week placement on the Arajuno Road Project and I’m really going to miss it. Bar getting up at 7am, everything about the school day is brilliant. You start the day walking to school through the Amazon, arrive at a school where the kids are lovely and the lessons are creative, and then finish in time for lunch in your wooden jungle home. It’s awesome.

Also nearby is Baños, which is Ecuador’s version of Bath, only with adventure sports as well as the relaxing, health farm thing going on. Also it’s cheaper and has a cool market. We went there last weekend, with the people from the animal conservation centre down the road.

To begin with I was a little nervous about insects and all that but now I just check my bed for scorpions and climb in happily. In less than 2 weeks I’ve started to feel really at home and, as a Londoner, it’s a novel experience to feel so welcomed in a community. I’m really going to miss it and I don’t feel I’ve spent long enough here. In hindsight I wish I had booked directly through the project and worked for at least 4 weeks but as it is I leave tomorrow. I am going to be traveling around Ecuador though so I can’t complain too much. Tena for white water rafting, then the death defying Quilotoa Loop, then down the coast from Canoa to Puerto Lopez to whale watch and party on the beach.