Holiday on a motorbike

We took a week off to explore a bit more of the Philippines. After all, up to now we hadn't seen more than Coron were we only explored the wrecks under water 6 months ago, Manila and Dauin.

Since we are already renting a bike anyway, a holiday on motorbike was an easy solution. We started on Negros, the island Dauin is on and drove 180 km up to San Carlos, explored the nearby hills and then took the ferry from San Carlos to Toledo, on the is land of Cebu. From Toledo we drove to Balamban were we crossed the mountains to Cebu City. From Cebu we drove down to the ferry in Lilo-an and back to Dauin again. We drove some 500 km and only had a flat tyre twice. With a gps on the phone it is pretty easy to plan your trips and see where you are in a big city. You can always stop your bike somewhere to check were you are. All the traffic stops randomly anyway.

It is nice to tour to the country side, we were the only foreign tourists during most of the route and some people were pretty surprised to see us passing by on a motorbike. The roads were well paved, except with part of our tour through the hills in San Carlos were we drove some 30 km off road or on roads that were once paved (a very long time ago).

We admired rice paddies, the 'small' Chocolate hills near San Carlos and some wonderful mountain views on three different day trips and the Tumalog waterfalls near Oslob, as well as the many villages and views along the road.

We planned to go to Bohol as well, but in the end we decided to do that some other time and rent a moped on Bohol instead of taking it with us on the ferry. There are several ferries were you can take your bike or car, but depending on the size of the ferry there is an interesting trajectory before you can put your bike on the boat. First, there is the normal charge for passengers and bike. Already the bike is twice as expensive as a passenger. Then some police checks your id. There a helpful guy was assigned to us who showed which offices we had to visit to pay some additional fees. Harbor fee, small bribe for some person, another fee in some office at the other side of the harbor, some more fee..., pay the helpful guy who made you pay all the fees, which adds up to more than three times the price of a passenger. Interestingly enough, the other ferry from Lilo-an was much easier. You just pay once and the fee includes one person.

Riding a bike was not that hard, except in Cebu city with all the jeepneys, tricycles, trucks and normal cars. On a motorbike you weave in and out of the waiting lines and try to maneuver to the front. By now Dolf is quite an experienced driver. Driving in Manila is still a bridge too far though.

It is no problem if something is wrong with your bike during the trip. Along the road there are vulcanizers, or mechanics every few kilometers. They have an interesting way of setting up their shop. It is usually a bamboo shed and most of their tools are self made from different truck or car parts. Everything will be reused, so they throw nothing away. The tire is fixed by putting some sticky rubber on the hole and then heat that part either with a self made ironer which they put on the aluminum foil of a packet of cigarettes or they lit some oil in a big sparking plug which belonged to a truck. Then they put the whole construction under a bench screw made from the shaft of a truck and let the whole contraption stay there until the rubber is firmly attached to the tire. And they ask the shocking amount of 30 pesos (75 euro cents) for the repair, which was probably still too high.

Cebu city is much nicer than Manila, because it is smaller (800.000 people) and it is surrounded by hills on three sites and the ocean on the other site. Downtown is a bit crappy, but we had a nice hotel in the northern part of the city close to the mountains. We visited a beautiful Taoist temple in the hills, the most important basilica (devotion of Filipinos has a complete other dimension if you compare them with catholic Dutch people; they kiss and touch all important statues when they walk by) and they Yap house, a wooden house in its original state from the 17 century from a Chinese merchant.

We also bought some electronical parts for Dolf. That was quite a challenge. We knew in what neighborhood we had to be, but walking in 35 degrees, with an overpowering sewage smell in your nose and honking cars everywhere make your senses a bit overstimulated. We did find what we were looking for, so I was happy that we could mingle ourselves in the traffic once more. The traffic looks extremely chaotic as you look to it from the side, but when you're right in the middle you actually discover some system where traffic lights and advice from police offers do not necessarily have to be followed.

We were back in Dauin after 6 days, so we could join in a dive trip to Aligay, a small island before the bigger island of Mindanao (there is no main land in the Philippines, so I always have to talk in islands). We did some nice dives on pristine reefs (divers hardly come here, because it is pretty remote). We spend the night on the island. The group was pretty big (20 people), so we din't have enough tents. That would not have been a problem because we slept on a grassy area, but the weather did not agree with us. In the middle of the night it started to rain big time. We scrambled into one of our tents, were two people were sleeping and we managers to sleep in the 2 person tent with 6 people, 3 in the inner tent and 3 in the outer tent. Fortunately it stopped raining after an hour and because we were lying so nice and cozy our sleeping bags actually dried overnight. If you look on the facebook page of Bongo Bongo divers, you will see a nice picture of a sleeping Dolf with his head sticking out from under the tent (6 people was a bit too much after all).

We saw pilot whales and dolphins near the boat both on our way to the island and back.

Now it is time to do something useful again, so I am sitting outside with 35 degrees and sweating behind my laptop while a big ventilator tries to get the temperature down. As long as you just sit quietly or drive on a motorbike the temperature is ok. In these 6 days our coloring improved amazingly, even with factor 45 sunscreen.

We already have some pictures of the trip on Dolfs facebook. We'll add some more and add them to the blog as well.

Treasure hunting

We spend last week in Dauin, a village between Dumaguete (the big city) and Zamboanguita (the probable MCP location). We are renting a moped so we can see something of the surrounding and stay at Bongo Bongo Divers, a nice place close to the beach.

Of course the renting of the moped did not entirely go as planned. We drove from Dumaguete to Dauin, and after a few kilometers I started to smell burned plastic. There was nothing wrong while driving, so we just continued. In the end, it turned out that the back brake was a bit stuck and during the 15 km drive we actually achieved in demolishing part of the brake. The smell was the rubber of the brake which was totally gone. Luckily, the shop found it no problem to drive over to our place and change the moped.

Today we drove to the Siit arboretum near Zamboanguita, which is one of the options for MCP's location, together with Soren and Helle, our future 'bosses'. It was nice to visit the location. It is very green, with a lot of trees and situated on the top of a small hill. That's also the more difficult part, because the see is 1-2 km downhill and part of the road needs some construction before we will be able to drive up and down all day with the volunteers and the dive gear.

We marked out the places were the huts for the volunteers and us should be build and now we are hoping that the constructor is indeed going to build two huts in the coming two weeks as he promised to do. It would be nice if he keeps his promise so that we can officially start with MCP, but of course you never know what's going to happen. If this will be MCP future location, we will be very nicely situated. The huts are in the middle of a large garden, with lots of (fruit) trees and it is in the middle of a rural area. Along the main 'highway' are a lot of rice fields and waterbuffalos and it is less populated the further you are from Dumaguete.

Dunaguete itself is a friendly city with a 100.000 inhabitants, a movie theater, a big supermarket with all the western necessities (yoghurt, muesli, cheese) and a mall with enough American restaurants when you do not want to eat rice or noodles for a change. Luckily, Filipinos eat bread as well, so there are plenty of bakeries, although the bread is mainly sweet.

We also did some diving near Dauin. The quality of the reefs is good, except for the parts hit by the typhoon Yolanda last year. Visibility is quite good, especially in the morning and certainly much better than the usual 5m in Cambodia. There are a lot of different fish and also large fish as well, which is an indicator that there is not much overfishing. Which is good, since this is a Marine Protected Area, which means that people can only fish in a sustainable way. No dynamite or cyanide fishing, or big trawlers which destroy the bottom with their nets. Also no particluar fish or invertebrate species who is dominating the area, which is also a sign of a healthy reef. In Cambodia the bottom was crowded with diadema sea urchins, but here you see them very little.

If we want to go diving, we can just grab a tank and walk into the water. The reef is only a small swim away. We also went to Apo Island, a famous place for diving in the Philippines and in viewing distance of where we stay. Unfortunately, half of the dive sites are destroyed by the typhoon, but the other half of the reef is still intact and beautiful with coral gardens and lots of fish and green turtles. I think we have broken our turtle record on one dive, because at one point every five minutes we saw another turtle.

Yesterday we went on an interesting quest. Supposedly, between Apo Island and the big island Mindanao there is a hidden shoal, an elevation of sand in the ocean. Very few people know it exists and supposedly it is very beautiful down there. Fisherman told (of course) different stories of the location, the depth and what you can catch here. A 100 kg grouper, for instance. Two local fisherman joined us on the boat and with 15 people we went looking if we could find this secret place. Including some rough navy maps with depth data Dolf was able to collect and 50 m of rope and 40 m of anchor line but without depth finder (stuck at customs in China) we started our exploration.

The first group went down on a location which was pointed out to us by a fisherman sitting in his small boat fishing in the middle of nowhere. After 55 m of descending they saw the bottom, but it was very deep. There was a slope going up though. Group 2 went down a bit further up the slope, we were part of the third group and still could not reach the bottom, because it was at 70m. The rest of the area is 300 m deep, so maybe we did find the shoal after all. No big fish or other interesting things to see of course.

It is interesting though to go down the anchor line into the 'blue nothing'. When you look up you can see much more compared to when you look down. 50m down, we were still able to see the rope of the anchor, all the way up to the surface. When you go down, you only start to see the bottom when you're more than 30 m down. It is beautiful to look up and only see the sun and the water. The anchor was drifting above the bottom however, and not touching the ground at all.

There was hardly any current and if you just continue to hold on to the anchor line going up and down and keep an eye on your computer it is perfectly safe to go down that deep. Because the rope is near you cannot get confused which side is up or down. Usually, it is not so interesting to do that because you can only stay that deep for not even a few minutes before you have to up again. On the way back we did another dive at Apo Island, to see at least some coral and fish.

For Magnus, the owner of the place were we are staying this was already attempt 2 for the treasure hunt. To be continued...

On the move again

After visiting the Netherlands for almost 2 months, it is nice to be on the move again. We were glad to spend so much time at home, so we could visit family and friends and enjoy some Dutch food and Belgium beers.

Our first stop was Hong Kong. Compared to what we have seen so far of Asia, this city is very efficient. Of course we knew that space is the limited factor in Hong Kong. The airport is made on an added strip of land. On the bus drive I noticed an area with only one floor of stores between all the skyscrapers. I wondered why, but then it turned out a big parc is build on top of the shops.

Although the website of the hotel mentioned our room would be 11m2, it turned out to be around 7m2, including bathroom. Not a lot of space when you arrive with two suitcases, one big backpack and three smaller bags. They solve part of the problem by elevating the beds, so even our luggage fitted in the room.

Hong Kong is highly efficient. Each metro arrives about every two minutes. The taxis have virtually now business from the airport. You take the train to the central part of the main land and from there, free shuttle buses bring you to various hotels. And here we are, at the 16nd floor of our 7m2 room, with a 'lovely' view. Well, we still have a window. A lot of the cheaper rooms are just boxes without window. We are surrounded by three skyscrapers with aircos sticking out next to each window.

After visiting several dive shops (that's what you get when you are small, wetsuits are not made for people with short arms and legs), we also had time to enjoy the view on Hong Kong. Unfortunately, taking the tram up to the hill is the most popular tourist attraction, so we waited an hour to get up and 2 hours to get down, but the views were worth the waiting.

After spending a lot of money of dive equipment we flew to Manila. Fortunately, we were allowed to take our 80 kg of luggage and 20 kilos of hand luggage with us (maybe a bit too much...) Manila, what can I ay about it. I was not very positive on our first visit, but somehow it has improved a bit. Why I cannot say, because there are a lot of slums, the lines for a taxi at the airport had increased to 5 hours of waiting because they are working on a new Skyway (road above the old road) and we squeezed ourselves in the metro at rush hour were we really felt like sardines. Good the airco still functioned because this was bad compared to rush hour in the trains in NL.

We are in a friendlier neighborhood than last time, with lots of restaurants close by. We visited the dive shops to now what they have here, bought some more equipment for the camera (never ending story) so we can use it under water as well and made some visits to interesting organizations for our new job. Which means we're still in Manilla after 5 days, because making appointments is not that easy in tropical countries. At both organizations we were very welcome though, so our time is well spend.

Unfortunately, Marine ConservationPhilippines doesn't have a location as of yet, which means we have to find some other work for a few weeks, which we are trying to organize at the moment. But our hotel is nice and cheap and we get to know Manila better. If people are ever going to visit us, we advise them to bypass Manila though and fly from Bangkok or Hong Kong to Cebu. Much closer, and probably a lot cleaner.

Old cultures and new habits

Oops, I discovered this blog a bit late, but it might still be interesting to read for people.

In the last two weeks we have been looking at several old d cultures and the highlight of the current culture in Mexico, lucha libre fights. Staring at the lucha libre fights, those are the fights of big muscled people wearing masks in a boxing ring. Usually you have the goods fighting against the bads. Everybody in the audience picks a favorite each fight and then they start. Almost everything is allowed so people jump on each other and it looks like they are slamming each other hard. It is all fake though. The first fights you see that clearly, but the last fight are the most experienced fighters and they do the most spectacular stunts. Taking pictures was unfortunately not allowed. It is nice to be part of the audience, because part of the Mexicans are really fanatic, scream a lot and even bring instruments (like a Dutch dweilorkest, but then better adapted to this situation). Unfortunately we were put in the tourist corner were the noise was less pronounced. You can buy lucha libre masks anywhere and a lot of kids went home with a doll or mask. Mexicans are great lovers of buying useless stuff. When we visited Teotihuacán we saw one family with fake obsidian dolks, bow and arrows, annoying flutes which roar and small statues. I think the Mexican tourists buy more than the other tourists.

It is unknown who built Teotihuacán in 800 AD, but the Aztecs were so impressed by the city 500 years later that they took over part og the gods and the building style and told themselves they were descendants of these people. The complex is well renovated (although they discovered later that one of the biggest temples had a platform too many). The main temples are the temple of the Sun and the Moon. The first temple is a breathtaking climb up, but you get rewarded with stunning views of the surroundings and a breeze. All the platforms of the many temples (over 40) have been rebuilt, but only one complex has been restored, including murals. We only had a guide book as background information because the guides are the most reliable. One question of a tourist was: Why are the stairs uneven? The answer of the guide was that during the building of the city they not take any measurements because they didn't know how to do that. That seems a bit unlikely with 40 platforms in perfect rectangles or squares. Maybe the stairs have been a bit corroded after 1200 years of use? Anyway, after this answer we decided to do all the exploring of the temples on our own.

Fortunately we had visited the anthropology museum the day before. This is a huge museum, of which we only saw 1/4 in a whole day with the beginning of life in the Americas, Teotihuacán, the Toltecs and the Aztecs. It is a good museum with a lot of information, displays and rebuilding life size or small size of temple complexes and if you want you can spend 3 days in here. We already had to skip the Mayas. It was good to understand which culture arose in which time and who met who.

In Yucatan we spend two weeks diving and visiting some Maya ruins in between. The ruins were nice but not spectacular, compared to Tikal in Guatemala and Copán in Honduras. The most famous old ruins of Yucatan, Chichen Itza and Mayapan were too far away but the museum partially made up for this. Tulum and Cobá on the Yucatan peninsula are old Maya ruins. Tulum is a 'recent' city, with its decline just before the Spaniards arrived and is different than other ruins because it was build on the coast and probably even had a lighthouse. Cobá is from the same time as the city of Tikal in Guatemala, with its highlight around 1000 AD. Not much is known of the city however and a big part of the temples are still under a layer of trees. We climbed a 42 m high temple and all the hidden temples were still visible in the forest from our viewpoint. We explored the city on a bicycle (smart guys, to rent these out) in the early morning. By the time we were finished, the tour groups came in. Sometimes it helps to get up at 6 AM and catch the first bus, which we learned after visiting Tulum at 12 in the morning when it was so hot that we sometimes needed to stand in the shade to cool down a bit.

We will definitely come back to Mexico, not Only to visit Auke en Yolí, but also to see more of the country and the history.

Diving in cenotes or: Ohohoooo, sometimes I get a good feeling....

.....it's a feeling that I've never never never had before. For those of you who now the Avicii song, that is basically how I feel right now. Today was one of the best diving days ever. We have been diving the Cenotes in Yucatan, Mexico for the last few days.

For those of you who don't know what a cenote is, here is a one alinea summary (feel free to skip it, but it is quite interesting if I may say so myself): Some 65 milion years ago, the Yucatan peninsula was a massive coral reef below the sea. During the last iceage this reef rose above the see a lot. Because it was limestone (thanks to the coral reef), caves formed in it, just like in Limburg or the "grotten van Han" in Belgium and the Grutas de Cacahuamilpa in Mexico.
Unlike those caves though, after the last iceage (think about rising sealevels...), they partially submerged again. Not to the old level though, else many american schoolkids wouldn't have beaches to get drunk on during spring break, and maybe equally important ;) the Mayan's wouldn't have had their nice peninsula either. But because of the porous limestone rock, all fresh water seeps through it, and forms a layer of fresh water on top of the salt water beneath.
That fresh water is what the mayans drunk (and basically we still do today), but again more importantly, it also creates a very beatiful mixture of fresh and salt water to dive in, together with other facinating geological effects. During the time the caves were dry though (a few tens of thousands of years) really beautiful stalachtites and stalachmites formed as well(amongst other things), just like in those other famous caves. So basically, you have hundreds miles of caves, many connected. Sometimes the roof of a cave get's thin though (especially with disolving limestone), and it collapes and leaves a nice round hole in the earth with water beneath. That is called a cenote. There are a whole lot of them (hundreds? thousands?) dotted around Yucatan with interconnecting tunnels, and tunnels leading to the open ocean. The largest system is over 200km long. There area plenty of open cenotes all over, for easy access, and to allow diving in caves (mainly caverns for us actually) with surface air and natural light always close by, usually in sight.

That is enough of a geology lesson (I always found this interesting as a kid), but more interesting is the "feeling I've never never never had before" as Avicii puts it. Have you ever wa(/o)ondered through those touristy caves thinking how beautiful they are but also how cool it would be to explore those caves without all the tourists? And have you ever thought about how cool it would be to be able to fly? Or have you ever driven in the countryside early in the morning or in the evening and seen the mist in the fields on the side of the road, thinking there should be a ghost standing below that single tree? Well, all of those feelings, and more, came true today.

Doing the cavern diving we did the last few days, with today as a highlight, you basically fly weightless through those caves. The formations are incredible, and because the water is so clear, you sometimes forget there is water at all and really feel like you're flying. While following a route, you see side passages opening left and right (itching to go in, but knowing you can't), you fly over a hill, around a pillar, past a gallery of stalachtites and stalachmites, and down again into the next tunnel. An air pocket at the top of a cave creates a mirror reflecting all light from your torch down, creating a lightshow on the rocks below. When the water get's shallow, you stick your head above it and there are bats flying around, and meter thick tree roots penetrate the cave top to get to the water below. And then you go down again to continue your route. To top it all, on one dive, there is a single hole (filled with water of course), going down 30m from the opening of the cenote, where sunlight really shines down in rays to the bottom. A clear blue ocean with beams of light shining all the way down. And you're halfway on the wall, seeing both the trees 20m above you around the rim of the cenote, and the beams of light on the bottom on a white cloud of hydrosulfuric acid 10m below. The cloud of hydrosulfuric acid occurs naturally in the water (waste product from plant material breakdown by bacteria) and forms a white nebula of multiple layers. Swiming through that feels like flying through the mist in a mysterious magical landscape. Branches of fallen trees stick up from the bottom of the cave through the nebula. You expect a black crow to sit on a branch and fly off, to inform the witch of that nebula you are there. Playing with your hand and torch through the nebula makes it swirl and move around. The diver next to you is broken up in slices by the thin layers of nebula between you.
When you go up again and get close to the end of the dive, you see light from other small cenotes as green aquaria in the distance, with crystal clear water, fish and plants in them, and ocasionally a snorkler (if your later, a lot of them actually, but we were early birds). And when you surface again in your cenote, their are plenty of birds around, like motmots with beautiful colors and tails or weaver birds.

Although this might sound too fantastic, and indeed it is multiple very different dives compressed, all these things we've seen and felt in just a few dives. And many more things, like frodo scrambling through mordor below mount doom, or swimming between the mangroves seeing fish(y) parents garding their young, or molly's like you see them in an aquarium compete for mates between the water lilies growing to the surface.

Chilli country

We have spend almost a week in Mexico city and surroundings and up to now it is the best big city we have seen. It is a huge city with 8 million people living in the city itself and if you add the suburbs almost 23 million people live here. Auke and Yoli live relatively close to the center and with a good network of metro and buses you can get anywhere. It has its normal big city problems of congested roads during rush hour and old buses with smelly exhausts but it is not as bad as other Latin American cities or Manilla.

The food is really nice here as well and with Yoli and Auke recommending us a lot of Mexican dishes, I'm afraid we will never like eating in a Mexican restaurant in the Netherlands because the food is very different. Chili is very important and they eat it with almost everything. You put it on your popcorn, it is in your ice, in your drink etc. Second most important is lime, which you add to a lot of things as well.

We have explored the nearby countryside and visited the small towns of Marinalco and Taxco. Mexico has very different landscapes, and this area looked a bit like Switzerland with lots of different species of pine trees.

In Malinalco a big party was going on because of the celebration of a saints day. The most festivities were in front of the church. Although the festivities were in honor of a catholic saint, it looked more like an Aztec party with people dressed as eagle or ocelot warriors with big feathery heads and dancing on old music. We also visited a small Aztec temple which was built in 1501 but never finished. Located on a hill, we had a magnificent view on the surrounding hills.
To escape the all night party and fireworks we continued on to Taxco, were we found out that there was another party with fireworks, fortunately not an all-nighter. Fireworks are not just fireworks but the whole village joins in and pays for a huge platform with a tower of fireworks in different forms and figures. Very spectacular, especially because we had a good view from the nearby roof terrace.

Taxco looked a bit Italian, a white city build against a mountain. The city became rich of the silver mining. We spend the night in an old monastery and explored the city the following morning. On our way back we visited the caves of Cacahuamilpa. Although the path in the caves was concreted and the tour group was big (only Mexican tourists), the caves itself were spectacular with a 2 km access in the caves. Our military tour guide showed us a lot of nice rock formations (of course you need some imagination and some were a bit far fetched). Some of the rooms were 70 m high.

The next three days we spent in Mexico City, walking around through the neighborhoods of Condesa and Coyoacán with its colonial houses and many small restaurants. In the city center are many nice things to do. Most impressive were the murals of the Palacio Nacional. This building used to be one of the residences of conquistador

Hernan Cortés and now the official residence of the president. The murals were painted by Diego Rivera and depict the Mexican history from the Aztecs up to 1935.

Mexico city was build on top of the old Aztec city of Tenochtitlán, which was completely destroyed because the Aztecs did not want to surrender and Cortes had to demolish the city to kill the last warriors. Fortunately, some temples have been excavated and the old Spanish buildings on top of them have been removed. A large part is still under the main cathedral, which is a pity because it is highly unlikely that we will ever see this part of history.

The cathedral is built in baroque style and therefore lavishly decorated. The floor is a bit wobbly because the cathedral is sinking (like the whole city; Tenochtitlán was actually built in the middle of a lake which has been drained of water completely by the Spanish) and 150 years ago it must have looked like the tower of Pisa with metal bands around the walls to protect it, but somehow the cathedral is more straight now than 80 years ago and it doesn't need a lot of additional protection anymore.

The most important temple of Tenochtitlán, the Templo Mayor is partially preserved. A sewage canal from the 1900's goes right through the temple (really a pity). The temple is actually 7 temples, each temple built over the other. On the top of the temple are two pyramids for the gods Tlaloc (the rain god) and Huitzilopochtli (warrior god). The different layers are still visible and some statues and decoration are well preserved, including some of the colors, either still attached at the temple or in the museum next to it. Later this week we will visit the Aztec city of Teotihuacan to get an even better view of how the Aztecs lived.

For a nice evening out you have to visit plaza Garibaldi in the weekend, where all the Mariachi bands play. The bands consists of 3-9 people with different guitars, trumpets and a varying other set of instruments ranging from harp to accordion and they wear beautiful clothing allthough it looks better when the males are still slim. The whole square is filled with different bands and if you pay them they play one or more songs for you. It was a nice evening and included a lot of mezcal, pulque (fermented milk of the agave), tequila and beer.

No more chickens!

No, Dolf did not shoot al the chickens down with the catapult. Actually, the catapult broke again a few times and is now in a garbage bag. Another solution found its way to us in the form of sleeping  dogs in our garden who love to chase the chickens away. We were adopted by three dogs who live nearby (no, not the other way around) and at some point they decided that sleeping on our front porch was more interesting then sleeping on their own porch. We were accompanied by them in every visit we made and sometimes they ran after the motor as well when appointments were at the other side of the city.

We are now in La Paz, with sniffing noses and a headache because of the height. But we are lucky. Last week it was still -5 degrees at night, but now the sun shines during the day and the breeze is warm instead of cold. At night, we sleep under two blankets and Dolf was wearing two sweaters, a shirt and a long sleeve to keep warm in the evening. Tomorrow we fly to Mexico city to visit Auke and Joli.

Sorry, it has been a while since our last post. A few weeks almost nothing happened because of the school holidays and in the last weeks we have been so busy that we hardly had time to do anything else.

Almost 300 students have been on their field practical. Of course not without the usual problems, but we managed to execute the most important part of our project: getting students into the jungle where they learn something about ecology and get enthusiastic about the local plant and animal life.

Some groups were lucky and saw capibaras, a large stork or squirrel monkeys in the wild which are difficult to encounter when you're walking with a 10+ size group of chatting people, while others flowed through the beautiful mystic morning mists in a boat to the jungle.

One of the excursions was on the other side of the river and included a short boat trip and a sometimes tricky but exciting path through secondary and a little primary forest. The other excursions was to an animal refuge with an agro forestry area and a part of primary forest with some trees over 600 years old. The animal refuge had two marimonos (slingerapen in dutch), who will climb on people as well especially if you give them some food.

The students enjoyed themselves and most of the teachers as well. One path was a bit difficult and went up and down, and unfortunately one of the teachers slipped, but no further accidents happened. We have plenty of pictures, but we will upload them in Mexico when the internet connection is better.

We have some mixed feelings about the project this year. We had planned much more, but because the teachers were busy, a change of holiday (can you believe that in the Netherlands the government would decide two weeks before the holiday starts that the holiday already starts next week) and a lot of planned meetings where people did not show up we had to cancel some activities.

We did develop website with educational material for teachers. Instead of working with the teachers to develop the material we made it for the teachers. Have a look on www.leccionesamazonicas.org. Of course it is all in Spanish.

We were a bit sad to leave Rurre after almost 4 months. We have made some good friends including dogs, which we will sorely miss, but one of them will be in the Netherlands for a meeting at the end of August because he is in Germany now, following a summer course on the university.

We will be in Mexico for three weeks, first in Mexico City and the final week on Yucatan to dive in the cenotes, fresh water basins in the middle of the jungle who connect with each other through caves (no don't worry, we are not qualified cave divers and will therefore not swim through caves for a long time because you need additional exams and equipment before you're allowed to do that).

We will fly from Cancun to the Netherlands on August 23 and spend several weeks there before we fly onwards to the Philippines for our new job as science officer at Marine Conservation Philippines.