Summer escapades: Volunteering

As you may have noticed, my blogging has been a bit crap lately. Three months of travelling over summer without a computer stuffed things up a bit, and I haven't been on to it enough to catch up! So yay for sporadic posts!

When we were in Greece, Nicole and I spent most of our two weeks volunteering on a nature park. We did it through an awesome program called Help Exchange, where you work in exchange for food and accommodation. It's the same principle as Woofing: http://www.helpx.net/
For us it was a wonderful way to learn about Greece, meet cool and interesting people and travel cheap!

We were hosted by a lovely couple who run a nature park called Biotopoi (http://biotopoi-eng.blogspot.nl/) that aims to educate people about Crete's environment. The park had tons of plants and animals, and also has a pool and other activities that were part of an adjacent school kid education programme.  We volunteered alongside a Lithuanian handyman and a young Greek couple.

It was a wonderful experience! We stayed in a tent in an olive grove above the park, with an amazing view of Rethymno. We had to walk past all the wildlife at night when we went to bed. The park was nicely set up for volunteers: there was a nifty outdoor kitchen and lots of places to chill out. We got to experience proper Greek food: lots of feta, yoghurt and olives! We spent most of our time outside: working outside, reading outside and swimming at the beach. We were permanently salty-haired and covered in dust, smelling like paint and plants. It was great fun.

Cheers to Nicole for letting me pinch some of her pics. If it's pretty, it's one of hers!

Mihalis and Susanne our hosts :)

The park from above. 

Nicole with Alecos and Elen

Susanne with Vladimir and Maria-Victoria

FETA

Happy kiwis!

The outdoor kitchen

Our quarters

Olives that Susanne and Mihalis had picked and preserved.
My inner olive fiend was very happy.

Nicole and I wondered about the story behind
 this ruin at the top of the hill.

Dodging scooters on the road into town!

The work we were doing was a mixture: lots of painting, feeding the animals, taking the visitors on tours of the park and other odd jobs. The painting was fun in the sun and we painted almost everything in sight that needed a touch up. Feeding and watering the animals was interesting: scavenging plants for the rabbits (and learning about the different species in the process), poking fruit and veges into reptile enclosures for them to snap up. The tours were pretty cool to do too. There were many different nationalities, which made for interesting times!

An example of our painting handiwork

Messy painting!

This was Aphrodite, one of our charges. She was full of mischief.
Once I had to spend a good fifteen minutes untangling her
and her leash from a tree. 

Finding some shade: I wouldn't want to be wearing fur in
a Greek summer

So Crete has amazing nature so there was lots to talk about! I've included a wee snippet of some of the stuff we would talk about on a tour...

Crete is particularly special because 10% of the species present are endemic and 1800 are native, which is pretty incredible. It has many different ecological areas, which is one of the reasons for the number of species.

Here's a surveillance-esque pic of me taking a tour.

The endemic  Cretian Palm, a  slow growing pretty plant.
This one is a five-year-old.

The endemic oak. A baby version anyway! The park looks
after this guy because they're really endangered. 

An olive tree of course!
Greek people consume more olive oil per capita than any other
nation

A fig tree: another quintessentially Greek plant! 

Castor Oil tree. You can probably guess....

An agave, or century plant. It flowers only once, then it dies.
It's related to the plant that tequila comes from.

The carob tree. One of my funnest facts: the seeds
inside the pods were well-known for being
very regular in size and weight, so were used as a
unit of measurement. We still use the measurement
today in measuring gold- the seeds are called carats. 

This accidentally arty shot is of the native Giant Fennel.
In greek mythology, a torch made from these fennel stalks
was used by Prometheus to bring fire to humans. 

Wild thyme: Crete's herbs are notably pungent and strong.
This stuff blanketed the hills in the south.

The park also had some reptiles they'd rescued.
They were fairly friendly animals as you can see! 

Although some people were happier than others with the snakes.

Chameleons!

The chameleons loved crickets!
This was our party trick for visitors to show off the impressive
reach of the little guys' tongues. 

A stately iguana :)

The most dangerous animal in the park, a baby chameleon!
Nawwww. This little guy was the grand finale to the tour.
Seeing people's faces light up as they held him was pretty awesome. 

 Crete is a beautiful island with amazing nature, and we met the coolest people. I imagine I'll be back. Maybe in spring next time, when the orchids are flowering! I'll finish with another view shot. Greece is gorgeous.