Alex's travel blog

Jatun Sacha

On Saturday I had the most daunting experience so far, when I was left to fend for myself at Tena bus station. It was very busy and I was sure I looked realy different and noticable. I sat down for a while, too scared to move...but then increased my confidence by asking where the toilet was in Spanish. When the bus to Jatun Sacha arrived, I thought "you´ve got to be joking" - it was absolutely packed and even had people hanging out of the door, and I had a huge backpack and 2 bags. Once I´d got on however, there was actually a seat reserved for me as I´d bought a ticket. But it was intimidating being squashed in amongst all the noisy locals, so this replaced the above as the most daunting experience so far.

Well, I made it to Jatun Sacha, and this is my 6th full day here. Jatun Sacha is a big reserve in the rainforest, run by an Ecuadorian non-profit organisation. It´s huge, but I´ve only seen a tiny part of it. You can find out more at www.jatunsacha.org if you want. Excitingly, since it was founded in the 80´s, loads of species of trees and plants new to science have been discovered here.

What have I been doing this week...On Sunday we helped set up a stage for a local festival, down by the Rio Napo. It was a pretty awesome setting, but the festival was a bit boring as nothing much happened. I enjoyed getting a ride back in the back of a truck though - it was bloody scarey. I´ve also planted tomatoes, pruned branches off trees, pulled up weeds, gone for a long walk in the forest, cut down some bamboo to use as support for plants, and swept up some leaves. The most unusual thing has been spending a couple of hours sifting through soil and picking the worms out. The worms were then to be put in a fresh trough of cow shit, in order to make more soil. The work´s basically been gardening: in the vegetable garden and the botanical garden. I don´t think I´ve yet done anything to "Help preserve the Amazon rainforest", which is the title of the project. I´m hoping to plant at least one tree in my time here.

I´ve got used to not having tea (which I was pretty impressed with) and I even don´t mind the cold showers and the insect bites. What I can´t stand, though, is the dirty clothes. It´s becoming something of an obsession, planning when to wear which clothes and when to wash them. I did some washing on Monday...in fact I did some of it in the stream. Strictly, we´re not meant to use the tap water for washing (even though everyone does) so I made the mistake of asking permission, and was told to use the stream. I thought it would be a laugh, but it was absolutely useless as the red stuff on the rocks washed onto my clothes. So anyway, I did the rest in the sink....but the humidity stops everything from drying. Only now, 4 days later, have I got clean underwear on. I think I was wearing the last pair of boxers on and off for 6 days. It was pretty disgusting.

Most evenings I´ve been going to the bar with the other volunters. Yes, the fact that there´s a bar 100m down the road rather spoiled my impression of Jatun Sacha being in the Wilderness! As you can see, there´s even internet access! More details to come soon.