Simon will be in contact with Knowsley with a satellite
phone. Each day during the summer school he will ring in with his map
co-ordinates so his progress can be followed on the large scale maps
in the classrooms. He will also leave a short voicemail message recounting
his adventures and any jaguar sightings!
“We thought we were out of the
jungle once we had got back to San Joaquim yesterday but we hadn’t
reckoned on the 8+ hours more by jeep through swampy savannah to
Trinidad from where we’ll get a bus to Santa Cruz to fly home
on Saturday. Right now we’re at a truck stop by a river crossing.
The land is starting to look more ‘tamed’- charred in
places where ranchers have been burning the grassland to promote
new growth for their cattle. We’ve seen stacks of wildlife;
capybaras, crocs, jabiru storks, one anaconda and a confused-looking
armadillo milling around at the edge of the road as if unsure which
was the best option, mud highway or charcoal grass stubble. ”
“Hundreds of blue and yellow
macaws flying over the savannah at sunset was the highlight of the
day after a hard day trekking with no water to get here.
Pepelucho, our driver, true to his word, turned up to take us back
to San Joaquim. He pointed out the wreck of a Cessna in the jungle
about twenty metres from our camp. We had wondered why there was so
much litter strewn around everywhere. This place was a cocaine ‘lab’ that
was busted by 3 DEA (Drugs Enforcement Agency) helicopter gunships
eight years ago. Pepelucho said they came in from 3 directions at once
and for some reason killed a herd of cows as well. Apparently there’s
another wrecked plane somewhere on the other side of the camp.
"
"We were swarmed by stinging
bees this morning. Both Julian and I got stung. Now we’re back
in forest again looking for Brazil nuts. At some point we will go
back to face the bees and collect our rucksacks. The plan is to trek
4 hours or so to a stream where we’ve arranged a driver to
pick us up tomorrow at midday to take us back to San Joaquim. We’ve
got 2 concerns- 1. That the stream will be dry when we get there
and 2. That our lift won’t turn up "
"Trekked through savannah back
to a stream we had mapped with the GPS, but it turned out to be dry
so we carried on as the sun was setting- macaws, parakeets and a
few toco toucans were on their evening commute back to the forest.
In one of the forest islands we spotted a troop of capuchin (whistling)
monkeys that actually seemed to respond to our whistles for a while.
Unfortunately it was getting dark when we made camp at a log bridge
over the Arroyo Azul. Not a good place. Bad for mosquitoes and wolf
spiders.
"
