Our trip to Benidorm: Seagulls, Cliffs, and Cactus, OH MY!!!

So , we did get to take a side trip to Benidorm, which is basically like the Miami or hot spot of Spain. It is THE coastal town that the northern Europeaners all go to for holiday. Our trip there was for conservation of course! We met with a man name Javier who did not speak as much English as the others we work with, which forced me to finally use my Spanish outside of shopping, but it was really fun(we talked about music, politics, american movies)! We took a 1 1/2 hr ride down, just Josh and I (Nicole left to visit family in Greece for a week! exciting!), and upon arrival took a ferry to Benidorm island. Which is quite the angled island! It is an island with massive seagulls! They are 1/3 to 1/2 times as big as ours. Pretty sure they are on roids or something. They are also annoying turds that like to laugh like hyenas in the sky (a few sounding like mario, woo-hoo!) and dive bomb you as you walk through the cactus infested cliffs. At Benidorm, I thought I was going to die like a million times. I also thought Josh was going to fall and die like a million times since he was wearing shoes with less traction. At the island, Josh and I met with two French students and the local lead volunteer, Eduardo. We had to leave the designated safe tourist area to climb on the cliffs, steep cliffs, like mountain goats, without harnesses or anything! was very scary at times. Involves a lot of hopping from rocks to rocks and keen balance. The whole point of the trip was to climb down to the caves at the bottom of the island to check on the local stone petros, these little birds that are hunted by the gulls. To get down to the caves, we had to walk along a very narrow ledge where it was one foot in front of the other, holding a little rope staved into the cliffside and well, a cliff with a 60 foot drop or so onto big rocks or the ocean, either way, it is a one way trip down. *shivers* After we finally got down to the cave, we had to be very careful to avoid stepping on any little rocks so we wouldnt disturb their nests. Eduardo had me assist him in checking on the tupperware nests to see if the birds were mating, nesting, or just not there at all. He also decided to speak spanish the entire time, fun again! we had to climb into a narrower part of the cave, only about 3, 3 1/2 feet tall. I helped for about 30 minutes before getting a bit claustrophobic lying on the floor trying to write as he made his way deeper into the cave to look for other nets.
After we switched, I got LOTS of pictures and videos of the GORGEOUS scenery from the cave. We then climbed back up and went to another part of the island to descend again and do the same. The entire time while doing this, I kept getting stabbed REPEATEDLY by cacti!!! In my leg, in my tuchus, my arms, these annoying little spines that were getting caught under my clothing so I couldnt pick at them. These cacti remained in my arm and legs for over a week, causing swelling and pain. I hate cacti.... After 5 hours or so on the island, we FINALLY finished and made our way back to Benidorm where we did a little shopping before heading back. Overall we got a good tan and a tuchus full of needles. Ouch.
-Rita

Joshua took over after i couldn't take it anymore >.<

Rehabilitation Center!!!!!

So although we work at the conservation part of Albufera, working with building structures to provide resting grounds for birds and protection for natural plant species, we also get to go on side trips to other parts of the park. This particular trip, also two weeks ago, was a trip across the lake to Albufara's rehabilitation center. It is a government run facility so students are not allowed to volunteer there but we got to visit. At the center they take in injured birds, wildlife, turtles and invasive species like the american florida turtle and raccoons, which are unfortunately terminated. :( Raccoons reek havoc upon local species by eating eggs of the young and are a huge problem in Europe. They have bounties on them, dead or alive, and the alive ones soon end up dead. :(   weird to think what is so cute and innocent in the U.S. could be so destructive elsewhere.
While there, we saw many turtles...which a lot have been released into the wild by previous owners...who also were idiots and fed them meat instead of vegetables. ...this results in the turtles refusing to go back to eating vegetables, ... meaning lots of dead baby chickens being consumed by the turtles. These same baby chickens are also the favorite meals of the eagles and other large birds kept in captivity. The end of our trip was met with a terrible fate, having two of the three birds brought in getting euthanized. (The really cute fluffy owl was the survivor!!!) One bird, with a badly broken wing happens to be a swallow that is very important to the environment around here. They also can't land on the ground due to their short legs; they cannot resume liftoff from there. A broken wing is a death sentence since they spend their lives in constant flight, eating, sleeping, mating, all while in flight. We spent a couple hours there and took many pictures, several being very endangered species, so it was a pretty cool experience (:

-Rita, over and out!

So, I've been a little behind with limited internet access but here is some work updates!!! First: Park/Lakes of Almenara

Josh, myself, and Nicole, another volunteer that works at Albufara with us doing conservation work, get to occasionally go on little side detours. This particular trip, which was two weeks ago now, was to the Visiting center of Almenara where we learned about the center and the conservation projects being done around the area to help restore it, same as what we do with Albufara. However, the conservation work has been going on at Almenara since 1995, as opposed to Albufara's 2007, so there has been much more progress (aka, cleaner water, more plants and natural species). While there, we watered (again) some trees that had been planted and then got to go on a tour to the local beach which was GORGEOUS!!! However, fun fact, it was a nudist beach which a guy did take advantage of... *shivers*.... after that, we visited some local spots, including a very old farmhouse (with bees...lots of bees) and a mine that produces top soil. We got to see lots of birds of course! (:  The rest of the week was spent working at the park (albufara), a day in benidorm (a different post) and to the oceanografic (largest aquarium in Europe!) . Next post will share more about benidorm and my adventures with cacti! (which i severely hate!)

-Sarita (: 

Lots of work going on!

Some pictures included from the work we have been doing here in spain. We have worked so far at Albufera natural Park and also at a park in Montesol. Most of the week was spent making boxes (the green nets on the big boxes) which are used to keep birds and fish out so the natural plants can grow. There have been several invasive species introduced over the past 100 years that have been keeping the natural plants from spreading and has resulted in the endangered of many native plants and some animals. Unfortunately, part of this project involves carrying them out to these massive dry lake beds which are CRAWLING with spiders :( icky.
At this same park another group has worked on putting tracking devices on small birds to see their migration patterns and to monitoring any mating. We have also built a cajanido for these little birds. I am not much with screwing/construction. they showed me how to do it but my main contribution was decorating the front of it which our supervisor loved!

The other park we worked out was a smaller river park in Montesol which is about an hour outside of valencia by metro. There we looked for previously built bird houses (or as they call them, bird boxes, cajanidos) to see if the local owl population was using it. Out of 5 boxes, 2 were missing, 1 was empty, and the other 2 had honey bees (which is a good thing too but they were really hoping for owls). We then used the giant 5 liter bottles to go to the river, scoop up water and water trees, particularly younger ones that were only planted earlier this year and some planted in the last year or two. we could only water 2 trees per bottle so that involved   A LOT of watering. As Alex, the volunteer we worked with says, "the most boring work is often the most important" . I thought it was fun (:   If Lucia or Beatrice, our supers, send us back to montesol, next time we will work on removing the canyas (canes) that grow perhaps over 15 feet tall. They are an invasive species that have overrun the park! Our trip to this park actually had us show up an hour late because metros suck. Luckily Alex had waited for us but the other 4 people that were supposed to come just didn't show up...so JOsh and i were the only volunteers to show!
We get saturdays/sundays off and work Monday-Friday from 8am till 1 or 2 pm. (20 minutes of that is traveling). it is fun and the other workers/volunteers that are from valencia are super nice. They speak valenciano a lot of the time, which sounds more like french than spanish, which makes it difficult to try and understand sometimes. Out of the four volunteers, Josh, myself, Nicole and Aly, I have the most experience with spanish and am actually the only one that can speak anything more than hola and simple broken words. I found that highly discouraging because I am asked what they are saying. If the workers are speaking Spanish, I usually catch on to what they are saying but not so much when they speak valenciano. Nicole and Aly are from Canada and Nicole is a good worker and very enjoyable. Aly showed up once last week and is the LiLo (Lindsay Lohan) of Canada. She apparently stays at her apartment all day and just gets high. The supers don't seem to pleased with her. A waste of money if you ask me :/

BUt lucky for josh and i, we have an awesome room mate named ALmendra who speaks Mexican Spanish fluently. So when we go out as a group, she is able to communicate but when Josh and I go shopping, it is just me to do all the talking and so far we have managed (:  The spanish people are also very nice, especially if you attempt to speak. They always try to speak english at the end when we leave (like to say have a good day). The local volunteers, especially Alex, speak pretty good english but still ask us how to say certain things, the same we ask for words in spanish. Between eachothers broken Spanglish, we get along well. (:

But that is all for now! We are having great fun! Did the beach this week! (: plans in the future for aquarium and museums (: 

This trip is going to give me a heart attack !

Zurich.

So, talk about a crazy experience. We ALMOST MISSED OUR FLIGHT! We arrived to Geneva with only a 40 minute layover! Since we didn’t have to check our bags, that should’ve been ok, except that Geneva is a small airport and they make EVERYONE go through pass port checks and then through bagging check AGAIN!  We told the attendant we only had 40 minutes and she told us that we had to try and shove our way through and cut people! What? Like no separate line? So after rushing to get inline, we had to wait to get our passports checked (and stamped!) Which took almost 20 minutes! We finally got through and ended up in the baggage line which was HUGE! I knew we had no chance of making it so I ran up to the  part of the line at the rope (the end of the front 1/3) and explained to the guy we only had 20 minutes to make the flight and he let us cut. After waiting 15 minutes to get our bags checked, we only had 5 minutes to get  to the gate which was up the stairs and waaaaaaay down the airport. We ran, we ran past the people movers and ran and ran and the final people mover we got on because it the sign pointed that A5 was past it when it was actually half we through it, so after we got off, we had to run over to the gate and got there right as the plane was supposed to be taking off. We ran up and were the last two to get on, she didn’t even bother to scan Josh in! We rushed on and were told that there wasn’t any room for our luggage (luckily they found a spot for mine and Josh’s got to ride first class in an empty seat…wonder if it got any of their fruit cups :P ) Josh and I crashed, tired and exhausted but boy, the view of all the swiss mountains through the clouds were absolutely amazing and totally worth the crazy run.  We are currently landed down in Zurich awaiting our last flight, the final leg to Valencia. We will have spent over 24 hours at airports as of 3pm! And we don’t even get to Spain until 7 PM or so! So crazy. There is so many duty free shops here, with lots of fine chocolates but I have to keep reminding myself that I am poor and cannot afford it XD But we are currently relaxing and trying to regain feeling in our tuchuses. Oh, and on the flight from Canada, we were served dinner (which was actually quite good) and breakfast…on a 7 hour flight. Quite awesome! They didn’t get my veggie order and instead had to take a leftover veggie order off first class (came with a hot towel..talk about fancy :P ) The seats all had t.v.s in the back of them with access to tuns of music and movies, including new releases. Definitely an awesome experience 

Ze Plane, Ze Plane!!!!

We (Josh and I) have arrived safely and are awaiting our plane at the Toronto Airport. It has been a very long morning with me only getting 3.5 hrs sleep, and Josh, 5. I've also managed to worry myself sick for the past two days, but thanks to a fathers' blessing via the phone, I'm feeling MUCH better. We will be making a quick stop in montreal and then flying from there, overnight, to switzerland! We will land in Geneva, and then transfer to Zurich where we have a 5 hour layover!! Joshua is trying to convince me to take the train into Zurich for a few hours but I am not willing to spend $50 on tickets alone, not including food, while having to lug around our carry on bags (which totals 4) just to have fun for 2 hours in the morning, in Switzerland. I may have won this, we'll see :P From there, we will make the final flight to Valencia and will arrive in the evening! So excited. Will update later, hopefully this time, from Spain!