Most of the staff and scientists as well as the volunteers were in their early to mid 20’s and part way through or recently finished degrees, with a few older in early 30’s and the odd splash of oldies like me in mid 40’s to early 60’s. The school groups were 17 and 18 year olds mainly from the UK and Canada. I did feel quite old at times and not very cool!
Most of the school groups and teachers enjoyed the experience of being in the jungle and even with stomach upsets or twisted ankles took things in their stride, although many seemed fazed by not having email / Facebook and mobile phone contact for a few days. There were some good comedy pieces from foul mouthed, raucous hoots or loud whinging at 5am about the mud, tent, food or people with cries for help from Oscar, Peregrine or anyone as some damsel couldn’t get her bags to close.
I enjoyed helping as and when with the school groups taking a few along on the beetle work or a river swim and on each occasion had to liaise with the guides and Camp about sending a student back due to fatigue or injury. However, I decided to have selective hearing at 2am after getting to bed at 1am, when several students were wandering about Cantiles in semi shock after rolling 180 degrees and falling out of their hammocks or yelling because they’d found a bug. In the morning, the 3 staff and Camp Manager agreed that as they could yell to each other they weren’t dying and their teacher should have got out of bed to sort it out!.
Last year, some teachers had hysterics on finding Base Camp was not a hotel and spent the time huddled on the hut steps chain smoking and crying. Some girls refused to use the drop loos so munched immodium tablets for a week and were upset hair straightners and full make up were not standard fare. The misfit between expectations and reality echoed again when sadly couple of teachers seem to have no idea what they’d booked which could be difficult with a hip replacement or weak heart and disappointment on seeing mud, hammocks and toilet trenches. This led to complaints or disinclination to leave Base Camp and one older lady who hated Cantiles was genuinely baffled I was so happy living like that. I do recall I really was! This particular matter seemed odd as the lady had previously visited – but perhaps to a different set up?
The food although wholesome and freshly cooked was basic, carbohydrate laden with almost no meat. As it was generally low in fat it suited me fine but protein / calorie deficiency was evident. There was a heavy emphasis on white rice, corn or flour tortillas, pasta, beans, eggs and vegetables with occasional potatoes , horrible tuna, cheese, sour cream and fruit. 8 years on I don’t recall the tuna at all. Breakfast was cornflakes or oats with warm powdered milk, tortillas with peanut butter, jam or honey. I lost my sunny attitude one day on finding the PB reserves had expired – it provided needed energy.
Lunch in Camp varied from awful, brown watery vegetable soup with the ubiquitous tortillas which was utterly inadequate or pasta / rice dishes. I liked the packed lunches of cold tortillas with a refried bean, scrambled egg and occasionally cheese filling and water to drink. Dinner could be sumptuous as fried tortillas with savoury rice, pineapple or cabbage, tomata salsa and cheese and I remember 8 years on the delight on finding the salsa dish was dinner after a long day hiking the transects. One unwell school group didn’t want a lot of food so 2 blokes and I devoured the lot, with one student amazed how I could eat so much and be so thin. The guides were quick to see a business opportunity and would carry mars bars and coke cans up to the jungle camps and sell for a dollar each. I went through phases of devouring chocolate to stave off the hunger pangs and give a much needed sugar kick.
There were a lot of food issues regarding OW and the sub contracted company which were never satisfactorily explained and one great comment was ‘that we hadn’t come here to get fat’. This went down a treat! Night work often had midnight feasts with whatever we could find as leftovers and one mad venture at Danto saw 3 of us cooking eggs and tortillas over the fire. At Cantiles we tried hard to make sure everyone including the guides, cooks etc got a fair share 1st course before asking for more. It seems this has not always been the case and they are used to going ‘without’ as its a poor country and thats the way things are.
The quality of Guides seemed to vary between the Buenos Aires / Base Camp / Cantiles side and the ‘western’ side at Santo Tomas and Danto. Seems this was partly due to BA people realising the economic benefits of working with OW as they bring much needed work. The main alternative was manual farm labouring on someone else’s farm which apart from being hard going is only available during some months. The daily rate for clearing weeds with a machete or panga or picking beans on the coffee fincas is 7 dollars. For reference, trousers, shirt and wellies cost about 15 dollars. This daily wage equates to OW rates.
At Cantiles around the guides / cooks fire in between salsa dancing and some rum, I understood sufficient spanish to learn that it was the 3 guys present, Antonio, Mino and Roher with another in BA who agreed to work with OW 5 years ago and showed them the hunting paths and opened up the transects with machetes. At first they would not sleep in the jungle, preferring to stay awake and hunt at night, but adapted and now stay for a week or so at the Camps with us. OW staff used maps and GPS to delineate routes and transects, whereas these guys seemed to navigate by excellent local ‘place sense’, with a fast pace and all day stamina to work out the best practical way over very hilly, jungle terrain.
The standard of living was low with small, basic houses of concrete walls, tin roofs and often a family of eleven in 3 rooms. Some of our guides had taken a deliberate action of limiting the number of children due to the difficulty of providing for all. I didn’t see any starving people but fat locals were not part of the scene. One guide had his wife sterilised -not him! – due it seems to concerns things could split open during the hard farm labour. I recall one of the cooks walking every week in standard attire of flip flops, tight skirt and bag pack up the hills for 3 hours to one of the Camps with a 15 hour working day to follow.
With basic spanish, obvious respect for their skills, ensuring they got a fair share of the food and lots of smiles and laughter, you could thank the cooks for the food (the women get up at 3am to start making tortillas and learn’t I like strong, black coffee at any time of the day and am always hungry!), the guides for help with the survey work and looking after you in the forest and the muchalleros for bringing up everything including a generator on their backs.
Many of the younger men were trying to get to the US by swimming the Border river and then by train across Mexico and somehow into the US but its dangerous and one at least was caught and sent to jail. One returned after 3 years in Boston having saved as much as possible and going to night school to learn English. He set up as an entrepreneur with stalls selling hand made jewellery and hamburgers by realising westerners will pay handsomedly for meat. He said one could make money but many disagreed and wanted to leave as there were few opportunities. Education beyond about 16 seemed hugely expensive as accommodation in the distant town was needed too with a figure of 8 thousand lempira for a year. Although these insights into Honduras life were limited by my basic Spanish, I appreciated the opportunity to delve a little deeper into everyday living.
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