Today we met with Joe, Pam, and the owners of the apartment complex in NE Portland we are considering converting to a permaculturally oriented cohousing community or ecovillage. We got good news. The current owners are willing to sell to the four of us as partners in the project! So over the next month or so we will be finalizing the details of the transaction.

This means we will be moving to NE Portland by this fall to reside in the complex as we work on its conversion to a more sustainable community. We are naturally quite excited by this turn of events and are looking forward to the project. We have been dreaming of living with other permaculturists for several years -- we will finally have our opportunity.

Afterwards the four of us met and discussed details of how we will go about the process. There is much to be done as we have quite ambitious goals: reclaiming much of the paved area for conversion into gardens, setting up community garden, composting, and recycling areas, weatherization of the dwellings characterized by seventies era construction, addition of new green features like solar water heaters, construction of a common house, and more.

We hope to use our blog to document some of what we are doing and to convey the excitement of a nascent ecoloigcally minded community in NE Portland.

On another note, Vlad and Luke helped me this morning almost double our composting capacity. Due to the large volume of compost we have from Food Not Bombs and New Day School, our existing four compost chambers are full. The three new chambers built from discarded pallets will allow us to take advantage of this valuable resource to more quickly build the soil fertility of our SE Portland permaculture site.

We've been back in Portland a little over 24 hours and are getting re-acclimatized to Oregon. Still having some jet lag due to the 16 hour time difference between here and Philippines. It was raining when we arrived but things dried out enough to see last night's lunar eclipse.

We're already resuming our Portland projects. We've got plenty to do in our permaculture garden, called Amrita for "nectar", located here in SE Portland.

We have been working with the Food Not Bombs vegan mass feeding program and accepting all their excess organic produce and food scraps in our large, and expanding, compost area. We have already filled 4 compost chambers, each probably 2 cubic yards, from their abundance. So we will be working with Vlad, one of the group's leading and most energetic members, to construct 3 more chambers. Our compensation for this, besides the satisfaction of working with such a worthy group and great, idealistic folk, is that virtually all our own organic produce needs are met. Yesterday afternoon I spent several hours processing asparagus, apples, pears, oranges, potatoes, tomatoes, purple and green kale, lettuce, leeks, and peppers. All these organic vegetables would have ended in the compost pile had I not gleaned them! When we arrived our fridge was bare. Now it is filled with many dishes.

We will be planting several more fruit trees on the property in the next few weeks. Already we have 5 apple trees. We have pear, prune, and cherry trees waiting to plant. The grapes need pruning, and we plan also to move the large rainwater collection swale to a different location in the yard. We will be adding more rain chains and have already obtained a thousand gallon scrap iron water tank from craigslist for rainwater collection that needs installation. Last fall we replaced the dysfunctional wide driveway with a much narrower strip driveway and its landscaping needs to be completed. We plan to plant strawberries in the center strip.

Our community garden plot at Clinton Community Garden needs some preparation for spring. Its kale garden has been supplying fresh greens through the Fall and Winter to the neighboring New Day Ananda Marga School.

This afternoon we are meeting with our partners Joe and Pam Leach to continue work on a thirty plus unit cohousing/ecovillage concept we would like to implement in inner NE Portland.

The idea is to take an existing apartment complex with many typically American environmentally unfriendly attributes and turn it into a showcase of green building and sustainability concepts.

For example, the existing parking area is right in the middle of the property, dominating the site in an automobile-oriented but pedestrian (and especially children) unfriendly manner. Our plan is to move this parking to the (ideally, street side) perimeter. This will drastically reduce the site's impermeable surface and get cars out of the main site. Additionally, it will allow us to channel all pedestrian traffic into one common entrance area, facilitating social interaction among the residents. The center of the site can then be reclaimed for an organic community garden and other community space. We are contemplating other uses, such as a children's playground and a greenhouse.

In cohousing fashion, we would like to expand the inside common areas to include a dining and meeting area, laundry center, and workshop space.

Today is our last day in Manila and we have been working on updating our blog and web photo albums and posting restaurant reviews for places we have visited. Also, doing our last emails. We also plan to go out for lunch and try to visit some places with soy soft serve ice cream.

Yesterday we did our last grocery shopping, and then went to a spa for a one hour full body massage for each of us.

We also finished watching some DVDs we had available. They were apparently pirated versions of current first run US movies copied, reportedly, in China. We should have guessed, since the latest James Bond movie, which just recently appeared in theaters, only cost one dollar. The packaging made them look like official copies. Although the image was decent, the English subtitles, apparently supplied in China, were outrageous (and non-sensical) and the sound also very poor! It just goes to show you get what you pay for.

Tonight is our flight back to San Francisco. We are looking forward to Spring in Oregon, gardening, and resuming work on our multiple Portland projects!

Tomorrow is our last day in the Philippines, so we are wrapping up all the projects we want to complete before our departure. We want to finish seeing the DVDs we purchased here. We want to go to a nearby spa for massage. We will have one last trip to Chinatown and the local malls to do final shopping.

This morning we are bringing our diary up to date and processing our most recent batch of photos. The latter includes editing out poor shots and duplicates, naming and captioning the good photos, and stitching together multiple shots into panoramas. Once this is done we will update our on-line blog and photo albums.

We awoke early in Talisay to start our boat ride and hike to the summit of Volcano Island before the heat of the day and the crowds. It was an excellent decision since once the crowds arrived the atmosphere became thick with dust kicked up by the horses hired to carry almost all visitors to the top. There were eventually hundreds of tourists arriving and an equal number of small horses accompanied by one keeper per horse. The path to the summit was a meandering rut at places half a foot deep in fine dust. Most tourists were supplied with surgical masks to make the thick dust clouds more bearable. The keepers drove the horses at a brisk pace, with frequent switch blows to the rump or even face. Some riders actually were galloping their horses up the pathway! Probably half the keepers rode their horses, seated behind their passengers. Thankfully, most of the tourists (who appeared to be Koreans, Taiwanese, and Japanese), and all the local keepers were quite trim so the horses did not appear overburdened by their loads.

We, on the other hand, joined most Caucasion tourists walking up the hill, about an hour’s easily paced hike. Our trip up was free of horses. Downhill, on the other hand, we were in the midst of throngs of horses both ascending and descending, and we had to suffer the consequent dust clouds.

The hike up was so nice that we stopped many times along the way to soak in the fresh air and the beautiful view of the first crater (this is the one that is usually photograph for postcards). There were many, many birds swooping around us. One was large and a beautiful bright yellow with some black stripes. One of our stops was to eat pink wild guavas and “kamunsil”, a traditional Filipino treat, growing wild, possibly the seeds were dropped by birds. It was a delightful treat!

The view from the summit was of the Taal Lake surrounding Volcano Island as well as the island’s own breathtaking caldera with its own little island. Thus, we witnessed an island within a caldera within an island (Volcano) within a larger caldera (Taal Lake) within in island (Luzon Island, the Philippine’s largest). At the bottom of this caldera we could see steam emerging from vents and boiling pools on the lake shore. The shallow areas near the shore were an eerie yellow color and the atmosphere was thick with sulfur.

We had earlier abandoned our plans to share the cost of a boat to the island with other tourists. The locals have managed to make this very difficult, likely to maintain maximum income for the local boat operators. We later discovered there are public cargo boats that charge local prices to ferry cargo and passengers to the island where there is a substantial resident population. But we saw no tourists using this means of transport. We did invite a German couple to accompany us on our day trip to the island. They had been staying in Talisay for one week and had made the trip several times earlier and served as our guides.

After returning from our outing we decided to proceed to the town of Tagaytay, perched on the high north ridge overlooking Taal Lake. It is reportedly 20 kilometers long with one main road running along the ridge. We stopped at the highest point on the ridge, People’s Sky Park, for the breathtaking panoramic view of both Taal and nearby Laguna Lakes, as well as Mt Makiling. Save for the thick mist, and possibly smog, we could have seen Manila, only 60 km to the north.

Then, late afternoon, we returned to Manila through an area full of pineapple and coconut plantations and plant nurseries.

We arrived in Los Baños last Sunday afternoon. After an unsuccessful search for lodging in the downtown area, we proceeded to the University of the Philippines and found a very nice hotel at a very quiet part of the campus at the foot of Mt. Makiling. Next door was a little but quite popular student canteen and we had them cook for us chopsuey, bihon and French fries. They were also selling soymilk.

Early the following morning, Monday around 7, we packed our bag with bread, bananas, tangerines and water and we started our climb to the three peaks of the dormant volcano Mt. Makiling. It was a very easy, gradual ascent. On the way, we met two avid birdwatchers, who shared with us some of their shots of the birds they were able to spot that morning. At the trail head, we were advised not to go beyond the Mud Springs, about half way up the mountain. Reportedly, recent heavy monsoon rains had caused a lot of landslides and fallen trees which damaged the pathways. Indeed, there were many places were trees were uprooted and boulders had been swept down the mountain and portions of the pathway had been obliterated, but the rest of the pathway was easily spotted and we were able to continue well past Mud Springs. Other than the occasional struggle to walk over or around the landslides and trees the hike was very pleasant. We were refreshed by the profusion of birds singing and flying around, and the many, many beautiful butterflies, huge and tiny, black, white, yellow, orange, brown, and blue, fluttering, their wings like fairies. The trees were enormous and magnificent and flowers were radiant.

The descent was as slow as the ascent because of fear of overworking our knees. We reached the Mud Springs three hours later and were rewarded with an eerie scene. It was a big pool of hot and bubbling mud with steam rising into the air. We heard a sound very much like someone drumming. We walked towards it and found out a couple of big steaming fumaroles filled with thick, boiling mud. The drumming sound is produced when the mud bubble bursts. The air was heavy with sulfur.

On the way down, past 4 pm, we met the birders again. They were still at it!

Back at the hotel we showered and rested our aching feet for a while. Then we went out for dinner at the same canteen. Afterwards, we went back to our room and watched the Oscars.

Today, we got up before 7 am hoping to have a massage, but the masseuse was late. When she showed up, we were packed and all ready to leave. Needless to say, we were disappointed.

We headed back up the mountain to the Makiling Botanical Gardens, located in a dramatic site where two creaks converge, and spent a couple hours meandering through the enormous trees, a picnic area by the streams, through palm trees and, finally, the Philippines Raptor Sanctuary. This is where they have a collection of the different hawks and eagles found in the islands. It was sad to see these magnificent birds just perched on a branch inside their cages looking forlorn.

We checked out of Searca Hotel and headed out of town. First stop was in Calamba, Laguna, the hometown of the country’s most famous national hero, Dr. Jose Rizal. It was most meaningful for Maitri as she had been reading about him all her school years. We toured his house (now a local shrine) where he grew up along with his 9 siblings. Maitri found it to be a pretty cool feeling to be walking on the same grounds where this famous person used to run around when he was a boy.

We also stopped at a nearby church and were granted permission to climb the stone belfry tower accessed by a spriral stairway. It had a very good view of the city and Mt. Makiling.

After a couple of jeepney rides, we arrived in this little town called Talisay at the very edge of Lake Taal, the caldera of a temporarily dormant volcano, whose most recent eruption was in 1965. We checked into a modest resort on the beach of the lake near the center of the town and walked a few blocks to the public market where we were able to get dinner. We are planning to take a bangka ride to Volcano Island, the largest island in the lake. From the shore the steam can be seen rising from an opening on the side of the mountain.

Today we arrived in Los Baños, a city an hour or so from Manila. It is situated on the shore of Lake Laguna, and is famous for its many resorts with volcanic hot springs, hence the name ("the baths"). It is also the location of one of the University of the Philippines campuses, which is where we are staying. It was here that the so-called "green revolution" reportedly started, centering on developing new rice varieties and stimulating cereal production with chemical fertilizers and pesticides. Our plan is to climb nearby Mt Makiling, a dormant volcano. We will also tour the local botanical gardens, and, if we have enough time, take a swim in the swimming pool.

We have spent the last few days in Manila, just relaxing after the return from El Nido. We finished our souvenir shopping and visited many of the busiest markets in the city, including the Mall of Asia, supposedly Asia's largest. We also took advantage of the low local prices for spectacles and ordered new pairs for both of us. (Our last prescriptions were four years ago.) I ordered a new pair with red frames and partially rose colored lenses. Maitri ordered a pair with blue-purple frames and also got a pair just for computer work.

In these last few days, we were able to eat at several other vegetarian restaurants, including in Chinatown and Makati.

We also finally visited the world's only bamboo organ, located in Las Piñas, another Manila suburb. Because it was the opening day of the annual Bamboo Festival with its evening gala performance, we were not able to have the usual full tour during the mass, where one can listen to the organ playing.

Maitri wanted to visit the local Ananda Marga yoga house. When we last visited it years ago it was located downtown in the Paco Market area. Now it has moved to the suburbs of Quezon City. There we met Dada Ratmananda, a Filipino yoga teacher who is temporarily posted in Manila while he awaits renewal of his US visa.