Chocolate Cuppycakes and Flooding

For the weekend I have been visiting with good friends in a tiny old town called Rochester and recently it has been experiencing moderate to severe flooding. But this was way back in January so naturally as humans we assume the worst is over. This was my first time seeing their new home!

White Wings Chocolate Cupcake Mix

The town planned a street party to celebrate the flood relief and generally get everyone back to their normal lives, schools have been closed and businesses ruined, but it was canceled due to rain and a flood warning. It's the kind of thing that happens when I visit my best friend, at least her dogs didn't eat something inedible to go to the vet again.

Quite nice for a packet mix

All in all it really could be a lot worse. The flooding in Queensland is pretty bad I hear. During the worst of it all I was actually in Ecuador doing Volunteer work for a small Kichwa community so I didn't even hear about the floods until my stop-over in Los Angeles when Americans joked about my home being underwater. I assumed that it wasn't too bad since we've recently had the bush-fires but Australia is the land of the extremes, when its hot - it's roasting, when it's raining it pours but when it's pretty it's exquisite.

Just following the instructions

Ecuador for those that don't know is located in South America and is beyond beautiful, when you're not in the mud or falling into a river. The town of Misahualli itself is also pretty unique as it's a tourist town, but once you leave the small communities and head into the jungle it's a whole other world.

We always bake something together

Where Australia is green Ecuador is GREEN.  As we trekked through a small fraction of that jungle for 5hours we saw many amazing things, butterflies were everywhere and the tiny poison dart frogs were almost impossible to find but it was definitely an experience I'd recommend to everyone else.

And they're done!