Andrea Gardiner grew up in Kent, UK, before heading to Edinburgh to study medicine. She trained as a General Practitioner in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland, and along the way completed a degree in Theology. In 2005 she left her homeland behind her and set off to Ecuador to work as a missionary doctor in Santo Domingo de los Tsachilas. Her adventures there inspired her to write her first book, Guinea Pig for Breakfast. As well as being a medical doctor, Andrea has extensive experience of youth work with girls. Andrea currently works for the Charity she set up, Project Ecuador, and continues to live in Ecuador with her husband Vladimir, and two young daughters. She loves swimming in the river at the bottom of their farm, watching the humming birds and stitching clothes for her daughters in her spare time. An average day for Andrea might now involve crossing tree trunk bridges to reach the home of a patient dying from cancer, taking soap and toothbrushes to poor children in a local village school, watching the iguanas sunbathing with her daughters, and then barbequing a tasty guinea pig for tea with her husband and his family.