Happy 5 Years Distributing Microsoft Anniversary to Westcoast!!

As of  28th January 2012, Westcoast have been distributing Microsoft Software for 5 whole years!! A big thank you to all our customers who have been purchasing from us, our sales guys for skilling up and selling Microsoft into their accounts, Marketing for driving Microsoft, our Microsoft Team for their expertise and continued learning and Microsoft for their support and resources.

Here’s to the next 5 years (and the 5 after that and so on)!!

Systems Center 2012, All change!!!

Yesterday Microsoft made a few announcements to Systems Center 2012 designed to streamline the SKUs and make licensing the products easier

Also, Forefront Endpoint Protection is being rebranded under the Systems Center Family to be Systems Center Endpoint Protection.

There are currently several different Systems Center products with varying licensing structures. Some require a Licence for the Management Server, some have these included when licensing the managed servers. Some come with SQL technology, some without. The managed Servers have Standard or Enterprise Management Licences (MLs), depending on their workload, some have only one. This is all changing…

Licensing the Servers

For Systems Center 2012 Edition, Microsoft are doing away with the need to Licence the Management Server for all the products. They are then consolidating the server MLs, Standard or Enterprise, for ALL the Systems Center products (Ops manager, Config Manager, Data Protection Manager, Virtual Machine Manager and Service Manager) into 2 suite Licences: Systems Center Standard and Systems Center Datacenter Licences.

Both these editions:

• include all the Systems Center Components
• Can manage any workloads
• include rights to the Management Software
• include rights to SQL technology (for the running of Systems Center ONLY)
• Cover up to 2 Physical processors
• The same version must be deployed on a single server
• have has SA included

The difference between the 2 products comes from the Virtualisation and Licensing rights:

Each Standard Edition will licence 2 OSEs on-premise and up to 2 OSEs on a server farm (Public cloud). Datacenter Edition allows Unlimited OSEs when the physical server is correctly licenced and up to 8 OSEs in the public cloud.

So, Licensing these products. Both of these are processor based licensing. This means that one licence will cover 2 processors on the same machine (you cannot use one Licence across 2 one processor machines). If you are licensing the Systems Center Standard Edition and you have a virtual environment , you count the amount of physical processors and the amount OSEs, you need to licence the greater number (divided by 2, then rounded up as each licence covers 2 processors) to be properly licenced

Systems Center Standard Licensing

Since systems Center Datacenter Edtion allows unlimited OSEs on premise, you count the number of physical processors only and licence those, remembering each Systems Center Datacenter Licence covers 2 processors.

Client Management Licences

As Already discussed, EndPoint Protection will be rebranded into the Systems Center Family and will continue to be available separately. The other Clients MLs will be consolidated into 2 other Licences, so the new SKU line up for the client will look as follows:

A Special Mention to the CORE CAL who recently acquired Lync Standard CAL and EndPoint protection last August, this now contains VM Manager as well!!

Software Assurance will also now be included on all the client suites. They will still be available on a per user or per OSE basis and include the rights to run the SQL technology and the management software.

 

So then, these are all the changes, how does this affect those customers covered by SA?

Software Assurance Migration

Customers with Active SA on their current agreements will receive rights to the New versions as follows:

Server MLs:

There will also be a Step-Up Licence from the SC Standard Edition to the SC Datacenter Edition, for the customer to upgrade to provided they keep their SA coverage up to date!

Client MLs:

The SQL technology is included as well (again, restricted for the Systems Center usage only) and the Management software is included as well.

 

It is important to note, that as of 1 February 2012, customer will NOT be able to purchase the L&SA SKUs for the current Systems Center products (SMSE and SMSD Licences will continue to be available). SA only SKUs on current products will continue to be available for renewing customers until GA of Systems Center 2012. The Standalone Licence only products will be available to purchase until January 2013.

Microsoft Launch Office University 2010 for Higher Ed Students and Faculty

Microsoft are launching an Office product aimed directly at higher educational Students and their Faculty 1 February 2012.

There will be two Offerings:

Microsoft Office University 2010 including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Outlook, Publisher and Access

 Microsoft Office for Mac University 2011 including Word, PowerPoint, Excel and Outlook

The new box product will contain the DVD for the media, but no activation key. Eligible customers will receive this after they purchase the product when they go online and prove their academic status (by means of their school email address or logon, or international student identity card (ISIC)-should the online verification fail, the customer can  submit this manually to Microsoft) All Boxes will contain the following: “For Higher Ed students and faculty only – eligibility verification required”. If the customer is not eligible for the product, they will not be able to receive the activation key and will therefore be unable to user the product. Customers not eligible should continue to buy the current available relevant Office SKUs.

The Key provided will also unlock the Office image on a preloaded PC (the same as the other box products unlock the particular version you have purchased). As this is FPP, this will allow one user installations on 2 PCs (Under portable use rights)

It is important to note that this product is not aimed at School students (K-12 students), Office Home and Student will still be aimed at these customers. Alumni are also not eligible for Office University.

This new licence should fill the space for those higher education Students who will be the business consumers of Office and other Microsoft products tomorrow (and judging from my student experience, cash is very hard to come by for these things ) So getting them on Microsoft now can only be a good thing!

The Desktop Virtualisation Alphabet soup

I have some colleagues doing their MLSE and have come to the “Virtualisation Licensing” module and the alphabet soup therein: MED-V, APP-V, RDS, VDA, APP-V for RDS, VDI, MDOP. While there seems to be an abundance of technical knowledge for all these, there is very little high end simple explanations for these, and those there are out there make the products seem more similar than they should, and this is what this post will address.

 

MED-V

In my earlier post on Desktop Virtualisation, I went through a brief explanation on virtual desktop options. Included in this is the XP Mode you get with Windows 7 Professional or higher editions. This allows applications to run in XP mode should they not be compatible with Windows 7. This means each physical machine has it’s own virtual PC controlled and managed by that user allowing them to run legacy applications whilst taking advantages of the new Windows 7 OS.

MED-V also delivers the applications with compatibility issues with the latest OS on previous versions seamless to the end user. So what is they difference? Why spend the money on MED-V when you get XP mode with Windows 7? It is simple, MED-V is designed for IT environments and centrally managed deployments and provides support for the virtual environment and is suitable for large scale deployments. XP mode is suitable for individuals who require legacy applications. They will not be centrally managed or updated.

MED-V is only available through the MDOP Licence which is a subscription licence for users with active SA for their desktop OS.

APP-V, RDS and APP-V for RDS

App-V (or Application Virtualisation) comes in 2 flavours: App-V for Desktops. This is ONLY available as part of the MDOP licence. And App-V for RDS. This is ONLY available included in the RDS CAL

App-V for Desktops: Instead of installing an application on the desktop, the administrator packages the application using App-V and streams the application across the network where it is cached locally on the end users desktop but not installed. So the applications effectively sit in bubbles as to not conflict with one another. An example where you would use this would be if you needed 2 versions of Access working on the same machine. Installed on the same machine, they would conflict with each other, working in their App-V bubbles, they don’t!  Also, as the application is cached locally on the machine, the end user can work off line on the application. Any updates are streamed to the machine when it reconnects to the network:

RDS or Remote Desktop Services  is the shared usage of a desktop environment that is running on the server. A user will log in via a portal and launch a session of a full desktop environment. The user will then have access to the applications installed on the RDS Server. The application will run from the server and not the desktop but the application would be presented to the end user on their desktop:

Should you have a conflict in applications, again using the above example of the 2 versions of Access, traditionally a new RDS host would need to be built as they would not be able to run on the same Server. App-V for RDS allows the administrator to stream and cache the applications on the RDS Host in their isolated bubble (rather than the desktop), avoiding these conflicts and allowing them to run on the same machine:

 

The disadvantage for applications run on a Remote Desktop Server, with or without App-V, is that you will need a constant network connection in order to access the applications on the server:

If the customer has App-V via MDOP as well, IT can package the applications and stream to both RDS host and to the desktop as well to be cached locally for offline usage.

In order to run RDS, you need to purchase a Windows Server Licence for your server, then each user or device accessing the application on the server will need an RDS CAL as well as a Windows CAL. App-V for RDS is included in the RDS CAL.

MDOP or the Microsoft Desktop Optimisation Pack is a suite of technologies available to customers with Active Software Assurance for their Windows Desktop. As already discussed App-V for desktops and MED-V are just two of the technologies included in this subscription and help resolve issues by ways of different methods of virtualisation. Other technologies included in the licence, all a different flavour of soup for another day: AGPM, DaRT, MBAM, and AIS, full details and descriptions on the MDOP page.  Access to the software through MDOP is only available as long as the subscription for the software remains active.

Full Desktops running from the Server

There are 2 ways in which to licence the desktops from the Server as either session based on a Remote Desktop Server (RDS) –the new name for Terminal Services – or individual virtual desktops in a VDI environment.

Session Host – Remote Desktop Server – RDS

As explained above, RDS is the shared usage of a desktop environment

The devices access different sessions of the same Virtual Desktop environment running from the RDS Host. Licensing for this Scenario is also explained above. This has limitations in that it does not allow users to install their own applications, personalise the desktop environment or have any admin rights.

VDI Environment

Remote Desktop Services (the new name for Terminal Services) allowed users to connect to the RDS server for a session of a full Desktop or individual programs. That sever could host multiple sessions for multiple users sharing the same resource. When Microsoft launched Windows Server 2008 R2, they changed Terminal Services to Remote Desktop Services to reflect the added role to the Hyper-V: Remote Desktop Virtualisation Host. This then allows for users to access a dedicated Virtual desktop running a Windows Client OS on the server.

In order to Licence this Scenario, each DEVICE accessing a VM will need to have an Operating system covered by Active SA, this then licences the Windows OS client running on the datacenter. Should the device not be covered with SA, be a third party device or a thin client, you will need to Licence with these with a VDA or Virtual Desktop Access Licence. The Server will need to be licenced with a Windows Server Licence, and then each Device accessing the VMs on the server would need the appropriate Windows CAL. Each Application would need to have the correct amount of licences for the amount of devices accessing the application. In order to deliver the VDI desktops to the devices, you will need an RDS CAL

VDI Suites

As delivering a VDI environment requires high management, Microsoft have have released a suite of products designed to deliver the VDI environment in a cheaper, simpler way. This takes the place the the need for the RDS CAL (or Citrix XenDesktop, Quest vWorkspace, VMware View should you not wish to use the Microsoft technology). This is known as the VDI suites. You get 2 versions:

In the Standard suite, you get the restricted rights to RDS, this means you get the connectivity of RDS but not access to the RDS Host itself (so the RD Broker, which connects users from their device, to the  Virtual Desktop, and the RD Web Portal, which users can use to connect to their desktop securely)

Should you wish connectivity to  an RDS host, you would need the Premium suite as this would give you the full RDS CAL and cover the device for connection session based desktops as well as VDI Desktops.

VDI Licences are a device based subscription Licences. The right to use the software on the subscription expires when the SA coverage expires

While this solution is more flexible than the RDS solution, it can be up to 4 times the price of licensing the RDS scenario.

A big Massive THANK YOU to Matt McSpirit and Nick from Microsoft for a very detailed response to all my tangled questions to get some clarification on this issue

The Microsoft Customer Immersion Experience at the Westcoast Solutions Lab

Come to the Westcoast Solutions Lab to experience a Day in the Life of your customer. The Customer Immersion Experience (CIE) has been created with fictitious data, including SharePoint Sites, email threads, contact names BI databases and customer data, for IT and business decision makers to come and “play” (or test drive) the Microsoft Productivity suite.

Only current Microsoft products are being showcased – No Beta’s or 3rd party Software

The current CIE platform includes:

Office 365, Office, Exchange, SharePoint, Lync, Project, Visio, Windows 7, Windows Phone 7, CRM 2011 and System Centre.

This is a great opportunity for positioning products in organisations which are unsure of what does and does not work for them with hands on experience with real-fictitious data (excuse the oxymoron) on products and how they all integrate, work with and complement each other in a working environment.

We want to produce the “wow, that’s good/useful/clever” response and nothing does that like seeing it working practically, right in front of you.

For more information, CIE modules and booking, just go to our solutions events calendar

The Microsoft IT Academy program and benefits

The Microsoft IT Academy is a subscription-based program for Academic institutions and is sold through the Schools and OVS ES agreements. This provides Educators and institutions with a comprehensive cost effective solution for teaching and learning about Microsoft technologies. The range of benefits include lesson plans for teachers, digital literacy courses, free and discounted certification vouchers and much more! The cost for the end users is usually around £700-800 annually to receive about £36000 worth of benefits discounts and cost savings.

How can the IT Academy can benefit the Students?

The IT Academy is designed to give the STUDENTS the real skills they will require in the 21st Century work place and also technical skills they will need for careers in IT after graduation. It also provides access to training to get them certified on Microsoft Applications with access to new software and web-based E-Learning courses from productivity applications to high-level programing.

 

How can the IT Academy benefit institutions and Teachers?

The IT Academy integrates the courses into existing school curricula for classes for the students with all skill levels in IT. Teachers and lecturers will also have access to the latest technology and courses to keep up to date and improve their own knowledge base to deliver the best IT education for their students.

 

 

IT Academy Curriculum

E-Learning

Customers are allowed unlimited access to 250 courses specially chosen to align with the IT Academy programs for various Microsoft products. Teachers get access to the Instructor Learning Management System which allows them to select E-Learning courses for the Students, create access codes for the classrooms, manage group level messaging and access usage reports for each of their classes.

Digital Literacy

This provides computer introductory Literacy both Novice and an advanced curriculum to Skilled users.

Microsoft Official Academic Course (MOAC)

MOAC Offerings are available at a discounted rate. The textbooks series includes Microsoft exams objectives, lessons with scenarios and practice exercises. 180 day trials of Office 2007 and 2010 are also available as well as many resources for teachers for their lessons. Click here for full information

Microsoft Official Course (MOC)

Microsoft Office Course offerings are courseware aimed at IT professionals. This is offered to IT Academy members at a discounted rate.

E-Reference

IT Academy members are entitled to 50% discount on Microsoft Press e-books and 40% on print book excluding shipping costs. Details on the Library can be found here.

The IT Academy Allows you access to Educator tools including:

Become a Microsoft Certified Trainer (MCT)

The MCT is not a mandatory credential for an institute to provide training on the resources delivered as part of the IT Academy. The MCT provides the tools for the trainers to offer the best possible training to the students. As part of your IT Academy benefits, you may enrol one of your educators free of charge and additional educators may enrol at a 25% discount.

MCTs enjoy many benefits:

• Access to the complete library of Official Microsoft Learning products

• Substantial discounts on exams, books, and Microsoft products

• Members-only newsgroups and online community resources

• Invitations to exclusive events and programs

• Savings on annual fees

  Find out more about how the MCT program can benefit Microsoft IT Academy educators

Lesson Plans

Lesson plans highlighting the most important topics for lessons are available free to download and are fully customisable for optimum teaching. Sample lesson plans are available for download.

Microsoft Learning Content Development System (LCDS)

This form-based tool is a free download for the Microsoft Learning Community that enables you to create interactive online courses. You can use a library of templates to design your e-Learning course and create content using text and pictures.

Course Completion Certificates

Certificates are available to download and customise as recognition of your Students achievements

 

 

For full program details, downloads and other information, you visit the Microsoft IT Academy Program website

Desktop Virtualisation: Options and Licensing

As the trend for hardware consolidation and virtualisation increases, so do the queries across the licensing desk. Here is a brief breakdown on the common Desktop virtualising options.

What do you get with your Desktop Windows 7 Licence?

When purchasing Windows 7 only, without Software Assurance, you get one Physical licence and XP mode to run virtually on the machine. Should you wish to run more than Windows Licence on the machine, you will need to purchase Windows 7 Enterprise and have Active Software Assurance, you can run up to 4 virtual instances of the software in virtual machines per licenced device. You may create and store an unlimited number of copies for use on any licenced device. You can downgrade to previous versions of the Windows Desktop operating system in the virtual instances should you wish

Remote Desktop Services

By Licensing each user/device with a Windows and Remote Desktop Services CAL and an application (for example Office) through Volume licensing (only the Application needs to be through Volume Licensing), the customer can run the application from the server. This is limited in that multiple users access one OS or Application, hence the OS/Application is shared. No single user can reboot the OS of the shared users. If you would like this control, you would need Licence correctly for each user to have a full desktop running in the virtual environment.

Running Virtual Desktops from the server

VDA is now an SA benefit when purchasing Windows 7, therefore, if you have a desktop covered by SA and you want to access the Virtual Desktop Infrastructure environment, you can do so without purchasing any additional licensing. Any Device not covered by SA or any non Windows Terminals require the VDA licence in order to access the VDI

VDA Licences

If the customer is not covered by Active SA on their Windows 7 Pro licence, they can get the VDA Licence through the Open Value program as a monthly subscription. This will allow you to run a Windows 7 Desktop on the server and access this remotely. This licence is suitable for those devices which do not qualify for SA. So thin Clients and even contractor or employee owned PCs can be covered by the VDA Licence. With the emergence of tablets into the work place as well, those customer looking to run Windows 7 on iPads can licence them in this way too. VDA includes all Client OS Software Assurance benefits.

VDA is licenced PER DEVICE but if the device has a primary user, then this user will have roaming rights to access their desktop via other devices such as home PCs, hotel PCs etc. If the device has multiple users, then this right does not apply.

FPP in VDI Scenarios

An FPP was designed for desktop deployment of the operating system. It is not the ideal licence for running in a VDI environment and has many restrictions. For this and other VDA information, you can download more information from:Licensing Windows for Virtual Desktops – Microsoft

SQL 2012, new Editions and Licensing Model

SQL Server 2012 will be launched in the first half of 2012 and will see 2 important changes:

1. New Edition Line-up

         – Standard, Business Intelligence (BI) and Enterprise

2. New Licensing Models

   – Per Physical Processor Licensing replaced by Per CORE Licensing

While changing the editions at the release of the new version is not a new move for Microsoft, the major change in the licensing model is. This in the licensing model is to bring SQL in line with it’s competitors who licence by the core rather than physical processor.

New Edition Line-up

• Departmental databases
• Limited business intelligence projects

 

 

• Includes Standard Edition
• Corporate and scalable reporting and analytics
• Power View and Power Pivot enable self-service analytics
•  
•  

• Includes Business Intelligence Edition
• Mission critical and Tier 1 applications
• Data Warehousing
• Private cloud and highly virtualised environments
• Large, centralised or external facing BI

DataCenter, Workgroup and Small Business Edition will be retired. Enterprise Edition Server – CAL Model will also be retired.

New Licensing Models

 

 

Core Licensing

There will be a minimum of 4 Core Licences per processor required. Every Core within the Server will need to be licenced.

When Licensing a Virtual Machine, only the cores used in the virtual environment will need to be licenced. A minimum of 4 Cores per VM will need to be licenced. If the customer wants unlimited Virtual instances, they would need to purchase SQL Enterprise Edition with Software Assurance and they must licence all the cores on the hardware. SQL Server Standard or Enterprise with SA will have full mobility rights

Server – CAL Licensing

The CALs for SQL will increase in price and will be available only for SQL Standard and BI Edition as well as Legacy Enterprise Server Licences. Enterprise Server Licences will be removed from the Pricelist 1 July 2012*. SA only SKUs will remain and upgrade the customers to new versions of SQL. SQL 2012 Enterprise Edition Server Licences will have a 20 core per Server limit when upgraded to 2012. Should the hardware the customer wants to run the SQL EE on have more than 20 cores, they will not be able to licence the server in the server – CAL model for SQL EE 2012. SQL CALs will need to be covered by SA and maintained in order for the customer with SQL EE Server – CAL model to remain compliant.

*The rules differ for EA customers

You can again licence each Virtual Machines with a server licence. Mobility rights are granted through Software Assurance.

Other SKU offerings:

Web will be available through SPLA only

SQL Express and Compact Edition for Mobile Embedded Database will be available as a free download. Developer Edition will be available with MSDN subscriptions or for a small fee

 

Customers with Active Software Assurance -  Migration paths

Customers with Active SA at general availability for SQL 2012 will find DataCenter features will be moved to the SQL 2012 Enterprise Edition. DataCenter processor Licences will be exchanged for a minimum of 8 Cores per processor or the actual number of cores deployed, whichever is greater. Enterprise and Standard Processor Licences will get a minimum of 4 Cores per processor licence or the actual cores deployed, whichever is greater. Those with Workgroup, Web or Small Business Edition with Software Assurance will move to SQL Server Standard including licensing rights.

Any customer licenced per processor will be granted the exact number of Core Licences in use at the END of the current SA agreement or the above minimums.  If the customer does a hardware refresh after the SA has been renewed and after general availability and increases the cores in the hardware, they would need to purchase additional core licences in order to remain compliant should the number of cores in the new hardware exceed what the customer has been granted under the above SA upgrade conditions.

For more SQL 2012 information, click on this link, including data sheets and FAQs

Support our boys for Movember!!

The boys on the Solutions team have downed the razors and are cultivating (with various degrees of success) some facial hair in support of men’s health for Movember.

Please support the Solutions team in this worthy cause and click on the below link to make a donation.

Thanks for your support!!

The Westcoast and Microsoft Amazon Experience incentive

Sunrise at La Selva, Garzacocha Lake

Earlier this year, Westcoast ran an incentive for our Microsoft resellers to win a trip of a life time to the Amazon!! I was lucky enough to accompany them to the Amazon Rain Forest in Ecuador. To get to the middle of nowhere does really take forever. A long-haul flight with a stopover in Madrid saw us arrive in Ecuador’s capital city Quito with enough time for a shower, dinner at the lovely Threatrum Quito Restaurant & Wine Bar and a collapse in bed at the Le Parc Hotel due to extreme exhaustion, travelling and jetlag (and the disappointment of firstly missing the rugby world cup quarter final between South Africa and Australia, then finding out we were beaten and out of the competition anyway!)

Monday, we woke all refreshed and immensely eager to get into the jungle. We met some of our guides in Quito airport, Jorge and Marco. We had another short flight from Quito to Coca across the Andes and into the Amazon. Unfortunately, the Andes were obscured by cloud cover, but after we passed them, the skies below us cleared to reveal miles and miles of rainforest. Coca Airport was tiny and quaint; we were the only plane there! The humid atmosphere hit me like a vapour wall when we disembarked from the plane much like I had expected. The “arrivals” side of the airport was barely big enough to hold the passengers from the small plane that flew us, barely half the size of my old high school gym. Baggage claim was a knee knocker wall by a garage door where the same staff that took the luggage from the plane handed out to the people waiting. Our open air bus took us to the docks where our boat waited to take us down the Napo River for our jungle destination. We had just enough time to have a quick look around the small riverside town and stock up on batteries, plasters, water and sunscreen before we set off down the river for our 70km journey on an open air motorized canoe. The speed sent the wind through us which was such a relief from the sticky humid atmosphere. The journey took about 2 and a half hours. The miles and miles of jungle were broken sporadically by evidence of man’s encroachment in this place: pylons, oil company’s buildings, barges carrying trucks. It was a little sad but i tried not to let it spoil my anticipation of our final destination. We arrived at the docks on the Napo River and had a short walk through the jungle, I immediately missed the breeze from the boat as the heat and humidity quickly became uncomfortable. The path ended in a smaller dock, ready with waiting paddle canoes. The docks were small and vegetation draped over the small opening of water. We got into the boats and were paddled slowly through the meandering water negotiating the both hanging and submerged vegetation, still shaded by the trees above. Slowly we rounded another bend and the shade above disappeared, the water opened up into the still and small Garzacocha Lake.

The glaring sun was excruciating and I now missed the shade of the walk, the jungle was alive with all the sounds of birds and insects, it wasn’t quiet, but it was definitely peaceful. Before long, the first hut of the bar came into view, nestled quietly into the trees of the waterfront. We had arrived at La Selva Lodge for our stay in the jungle. Waiting for us in the bar was a passion fruit cocktail and a frozen facecloth as we collapsed into some seats in the knowledge we had finally arrived! We were split into groups for our first activity for the afternoon, I cannot tell you my relief when our group was allocated a quiet canoe round the lake at sunset, the heat was now unbearable and I had run out of motivation to move my feet. The guides allocated to our little group of five were Jorge and a local guide Guillermo, we knew him as “William”. Both immensely experienced and passionate about the wildlife of the rainforest. Marco took the another five with their local guide Enrique.

We quickly found a troop of squirrel monkeys as we set off on our boat, jumping and playing through the trees, the edge of the lake being a corridor for them and their daily movements. The lake was still but not eerie in the dusk light of the setting sun. There were so many fishing splashing in the lake and many birds and even more butterflies fluttering about the water. On the way back we saw some Red Howler Monkeys settling into the trees for the night.

Dinner every night was lovely, communal and delicious, sounded by a bamboo horn. A bit of the usual food always mixed in with something else a little local. I eventually gave up tasting the decorations as they were clearly not edible. Dessert was mostly fruit although the whole peach in syrup on the first night to be eaten with nothing but a teaspoon is neither efficient nor clean, however, but provided the evening entertainment as we all tried.

Our daily trips consisted of a lot of walking. I felt a little more adventurous when our guide was slashing he way through the overgrown path with a machete. There was a constant blistering heat which meant after lunch was time to laze about in the hammocks, swim in the lake, there was even an “Ecuador vs (mainly) England” football match the boys took part in and i was more than happy to cheer them on from the side lines. We also went 45 meters into the canopy on a platform built around a tree that was 350 years old. The birds were wonderfully bright in the tops of the trees. Jorge was captivating with his local stories, history and intimate knowledge of this jungle. He had been many places in the Amazon and met many people, from the nomadic people to the small communities along the river.

We also went piranha fishing on the lake fully complete with a honeymooning Irish man jumping in the water volunteering to “round up the big ones”. Unwilling to swim with the piranhas and the anacondas since I have seen the title films of both animals (I know Hollywood uses poetic licence, but unfortunately so does my imagination after seeing the films, and imagination always seems to win over logic). I finally built up the courage/succumbed to the heat as even the Ecuadorians claimed the weather was hot and bounded into the lake. The water was dark enough to hide the fish I was terrified of as it was clouded by plant matter that had fallen in a rotted leaving a dark yellow colour in the water. It was awesome, so refreshing tainted only by the random shrieks as things unseen brushed against me under the water (mainly myself, other people or the docks)

I was eager to see bigger mammals and we tracked some wild boar and followed the tracks of a young jaguar, saw some armadillo holes, a Brown-throated Three-toed Sloth snuggled in a tree by the lake. We were lucky enough to get quite close to some South American Coatis, although the encounter was brief as they dashed for cover at the sound of us. We saw many monkeys swinging through the trees. I really wanted to see a cat and this wish was nearly fulfilled and the gentle quiet hike was broken by the excited cries of the guides “PUMA! PUMA! PUMA!” and we raced forward towards the cat which turned out to be a jaguarundi, but it had disappeared into the forest by the time we reached the point it crossed our path without the rest of us so much as being able to steal a glimpse-like it was never even there in the first place, just the thick forest flora staring back. A dash along the side of a steep riverbed with the same excitement was more rewarding as I managed to get about a meter away from a caiman cushioned in the cool mud of the riverbed. Although getting out proved a minor challenge as I was knee deep in mud and pretty much stuck in my wellies until William cut some branches for me to stand on and pulled me out of the mud.

On our last full day, we were also lucky enough to go a short way down the river to see some of the local people, a small community who all live by the river, the Kichwa. We arrived at the riverside where a woman was washing a young girl’s hair. We had a short walk up to the house and we were surrounded by banana, cocoa and coffee trees the family was farming. As we got a small way from the river, some huts came into view. They looked exactly like the huts we were staying in back at La Selva, minus the mosquito nets between the walls and the roof. We met local woman, Berta, who was William’s cousin. She was so welcoming, she prepared some palm heart and plantain for us and local fermented drink chicha in the building that was their living room and kitchen. We chatted via our translator, Jorge, about life for them and she has some questions for us, but she was pretty knowledgeable about our way of life. We then went outside and tried our hand at the blow darts on a papaya. I completely missed on my first go, but hit on my second. I may not be able to survive on fish in this place, but at least I could dart something. There were other buildings which were the sleeping quarters for Berta and her extended family as we later learnt the woman at the waterfront earlier daughter in law and grandchild.

We had one night on our return to Quito where we met Jorge for a drink in the “El Pobre Diablo” (The Poor Devil) a local jazz club which had a wonderful local artistic vibe. The bartender made us mojitos and piña coladas. It was a lovely send off from a brilliant country and one of the best holidays one could wish for!

I would like to say a big thank you to all those who organised this special trip to a wonderful place I would otherwise probably never have seen. It was a long way but worth every second of the journey. The people both in Quito and La Selva were warm hearted and welcoming. Jorge, Guillermo, Marco and Enrique made the most of the experience for us with their enthusiasm and knowledge . To the people who came on this trip, thank you for some great company, wonderful memories and especially thank you for sharing your pictures featured all on this post today. It was awesome!

Sunset at La Selva

If anyone would like to be in with a chance for the next Microsoft and Westcoast trip, click here for more details!