From rat race to jungle: adventures in wonderland

Charting the adventures of a twenty something, leaving the 'better the devil you know' of London, and heading out to rural ayrshire for six months to live with boyfriend, before jetting to central america, for a 4 month expedition in the jungle.

Tuesday, February 13, 2007

Back to Conte Burika

It´s amost one and I have escaped to town to use the internet and phones one last time,and get a square meal in before my three weeks of rice and beans (and tuna if I´m lucky).

The venturers are all slightly ambivalent about the project, all they can think about is the here and now, and the idea of packing their bags, or getting up at 3am to get the bus, is slightly beyond them. They are in all a great group, but no extroverts or natural leaders which makes things a little harder. I also have two Host Country Participants who are fab, one from El Salvador, the other from another indiginous tribe called the Biribiri, who lives on the Carribean coast of Costa Rica. One speaks ok english, the other can´t speak a word but as a result my Spanish is improving daily and I love it! They are both absolute legends in the jungle, handy with a machete and very quick to scale a three meter tree to string up the coax of the radio. But it´s more of a problem getting them to integrate with the Brits and New Zealander that I have, so hopefully we´ll get some group bonding done over the next few days.

So, it´s back to Punto Banco tomorrow and up before dawn for the 18km trek back along the beach, avoiding the rising tides and the cliffs that cut you off. We are supposed to be meeting some guides and 6 horses, but as this failed to happen last time (manyana manyana), I´m not convinced they will be there on the 15th and our group will have to do the walk with our packs, and enough equipment to load a truck - we´re carrying spades, saws, machetes, claw hammers, wellies, helmets, and on and so forth. So, nunche caballo, nunche projetto as far as I´m concerned.

I´m out of range then until March 4th, so Happy Birthday Charlie for the 27th and anyone else who´se brithday it is, Kate, all the best for your massive world trip, Phil, all the best for the Marathon des Sables, Catherine and Peter, I hope the house goes through, Sabina and Sarah, good luck with your births and Charles and Minette, have a fab time in Nepal.

I will be in touch with an update of the project and news of my next project allocation (I´m really hoping to be at Conte Burika for at least 2 phases, and then perhaps a trek - 250km, help).

So, next update, Turrialba, early March

Adios

Wednesday, February 07, 2007

My last hangover in 3 months

...and I am grateful; as when you wake up on a wooden floor with a mosquito net stuck to your face and have a hangover on top of that, you find yourself grateful for the fact that your last opportunity for having a drink has passed. The venturers arrive tomorrow and the No Drinking rule kicks in. So, last night was a biggie following our white water rafting (where I learnt to do a back flip from the side of the boat!) and we went the full hog and went to town to get some wine. Before you knew it, thirty knackered people had a full second wind and got up to all sorts of antics, including trying to get around all the rooms in fieldbase without touching the floor, hiding pineapples in fieldbase staff's drawers and in cuboards, (it seemed a good idea at the time), climbing on top of the 3m by 20m metal container which holds all our kit, trying to pick up cereal boxes from the ground with your teeth without letting your hands touch the floor, and piggyback jousting with broomsticks, which I managed to film on my camera.

So today is a little nauseus but I am relishing the fact that I will not feel like this for quite a long time from now, and we are all getting our heads around the fact that in 24 hours, we're going to by mummying lots of homesick and bewildered 18 year olds. Given how wierd I found arriving and settling into Fieldbase, I know lots fo them will be feeling the same.


I'll try to write again before heading back to Conte Burkia on 14th Feb, and I hope to post lots more photos too. Hope England and Scotland are not too nippy, it's a cool 32 degrees here with blue skies and parrots chirping in trees (one bird sounds like a mobile phone going off underwater, really funny) and I am going to go for a swim. :-)

Tuesday, February 06, 2007

Some photos of my trip to Carona, Conte Burika


I've got about ten minutes to update my blog so thought I'd get some photos on. This first one is of the horse me managed to hijack on our 8 hour walk from Panama back into Costa Rica. Our guide failed to show up, but we had randomly bumped into someone from the village at the boarder crossing who turned out to be an absolute super star, and accompanied us the whole 15km over countless big hills, walking along paths so eroded that sometimes we were 2m below ground level, drinking river water and eating wild oranges along the way.



This second one is of me and Wilbur, the guide, at the Panama, Costa Rica boarder in the middle of nowhere, me looking towards Costa Rica and Wilbur standing in Panama. AFter crossing this way, but being legally still in Panama, we later had to sneak back over the boarder from Costa Rica into Panama and then re-enter Costa Rica. In the end it was stupidly easy and it doesn't take a genuis to see that drug running here is one of the easiest ways of making some wonga.

That's all I've got time for now, we are off rafting down a grade 4 river in about 2 minutes, so I've got to go. Lots of love to all and hope you are enjoying this blog...

xxx