My first week

I arrived at Cerro Seco a week ago after spending just over a week touring a little around Ecuador, trying to bring my Spanish up to snuff. I found out abut this beautiful place through the Yanapuma Foundation based in Quito and am going to be here on the Reserve for a total of 7 weeks. Upon my arrival, I was warmly greeted by Marcelo and Michaela with some traditional food and nice conversation. My first full day on the reserve, we toured around to get to know the place. I was amazed right away with the abundance of birdlife, and the amount of rain for say this is 'dry' tropical forest! I guess that's what you get for coming during the wet season! I'm disappointed that I never got to see it a couple weeks ago, before the rain came, because it would have been amazing to see the total transformation.  As it is I have been lucky to see the scenery become more green, new growth sprout, flowers bloom, and bird's nesting . I definitely recommend end of December/January for people to come so that they can witness it all!

Since that first day, I have spent more time getting to know the people working at the reserve, the reserve itself, and practicing my Spanish! This is a great environment to practice because Marcelo and Michaela are very patient with me - I have more of a textbook knowledge of Spanish, and definitely need to work on my conversation skills! I also have been gardening quite a bit - I have planted numerous plants in the organic garden (cucumbers, beets, radishes, squash, LOTS of watermelon ... the list goes on!) and have been planting fruit seeds in the nursery to hopefully have some seedlings to present to people during the upcoming celebration of Bahia's eco-city status (around Carnaval, Feb 20-23). I start teaching some local children English on Friday - informal classes since they are entering their vacation time, so only for those children of Bellavista who want to learn a new language. That will take up about 3-6 hours a week, if all goes well. I am also looking forward to hopefully getting some reforestation done, and participating in "mingas" (collecting garbage around the reserve/beach). In the next few days, I'm hoping to be able to create some new signs to put in the garden, and around the property.

I'm really looking forward to my next 6 weeks here!

Sarah Valentine, from Victoria, BC, Canada

This nest is only a couple meters from the hammocks!

View into the valley on my first day - it's already much greener!

The friendly neighbourhood Motmot - beautiful, and hangs out in and around the house!

The newly planted garden looking a bit like a waterfall - some how the seeds survived though and we've been seeing some little seedlings poking through!