She's still here!
... At the Hostel in Cartegena where Im staying...
There's this older Russian tourist.... and I have to admit, Im afraid of her!!!
She must be in her early fifties. Shes short (maybe 150cm) and rather stocky... Thats not the right word, but lets just say that mass wise, shes equal to at least two of me!
... And given her proportions and age... Well you know, anatomy tends to drift with gravity etc.
This is all normal and fine, but Im challenged by her personality... She seems like quite a nice person and is certainly an interesting character given her age and her origin and the fact that shes travelling around the Americas in hostels...
But, it seems she's afraid of silence, and if you even so much as make more than momentary eye contact, she will immediately start a conversation with you, and will not stop talking unless you are talking... Its happened to me twice, and there is just no way out! She needs to hear talking to be happy... Needless to say, Im a very different sort of personality and I like silence.
... So I now have to avoid her as much as possible for my own piece of mind.
But, Im not the only one... I also see most of the other people who have been here more than a day or two with big smiles as they walk past the table where she is again earnestly engaged in conversation with one of the new arrivals (who usually have a slightly bewildered look on their faces) ... It seems we all know whats going on,but no one is prepared to "sacrifice themselves" to save the poor victim :))
I hope she finds someone who likes to talk soon though, cos I really do think she is a nice person with nothing but good intent.
But she also has some other behaviours that are challenging for everyone else in the hostel too(its a bit of a talking point around here). She seems rather "immodest" compared to other peoples "dress standards" and her evening fashion attire consists of a single worn and thin wrap that seems somewhat "ill proportioned". And so everyone walks around with eyes carefully averted for their own comfort...That wrap only manages to cover the bottom third of her breasts with its top edge, and the bottom edge is likewise disturbingly high up on her thighs!!)
But, for the first few nights here (before I rode off to Turbo) I was in the same dormitory ( mixed dorm with eight beds) as her, and at night, her immodesty becomes more blatant!
I dont know about you, but waking up to the view of her asleep, completely naked, and "spread eagled "on the bed nearest the door of the dorm was "more than I was prepared to deal with" in the mornings ! (Trapped with no escape!)
So, this time when I got to the hostel and saw she was still here, I had to specifically ask for a different dorm... Which the staff obligingly provided (along with "knowing" smiles and chuckles !)
On a long trip like this, you get to meet all sorts of other travellers from all sorts of places in the world.
And because you get to meet so many of them, you end up forming sort of broad impressions of the people from specific countries... Sort of a "Generalized Characature" if you will.
Now, Ive written a post or two in the past in which I expressed my own personal dislikes about the "charicature" that Ive formed in my head of certain sub-groups of travellers, and it didnt please some of my readers "one little bit"!
This post is however about a single individual, and I certainly wont be generalizing about their nationality because in all my recent travels Ive not met anyone else from Russia...
Im not sure why there are so few Russians crossing my path, but it at least seems clear that they simply dont do much travelling in the Americas :)
No, Thats not a spelling error in the post title.
And, Yes, Im "very afraid" of the Russian Bare!
Sunday, May 30, 2010
Pestilence!
Well, I had a plan!....
But that plan seems to have been well and truly derailed!
... Which is to say that I find myself still in Colombia and with no known boat leaving for Panama any time soon.
And "How did this happen ?" I hear you ask.
Well, Its a bit of a tale...
Last time I wrote, the plan had only partially been derailed and I had ridden down to the rough little coastal town of Turbo to meet a yacht.
After that, things got worse.
Firstly, and most importantly, the other motorbike guy I was with came down with Dengue Fever !
Dengue is a virus that is transmitted by mosquitoes (any mosquito I think) and it seems that its endemic to all the Caribbean coasts. It has a 5-8 day gestation period and there is neither a vaccination against it or a treatment for it once you have it... Other than to wait for your body to deal with it. I believe it attacks the blood but whatever the case, in some few cases, it can be fatal because the body runs out of red blood cells and unless you have a transfusion your toast! For most cases though, its not fatal but very debilitating with the patient suffering from extreme exhaustion for up to a month after symptoms show.
Back to the story...
Now, on the ride down to Turbo, the other rider I was with was complaining about general tiredness and pain behind the eyes but these things happen from time to time, (eg from a few drinks and not enough water the night before etc) and neither of us thought more about it...
But, that evening while we were trying to get in touch with the yacht captain (email and phone), my friend noticed that he had a skin rash appearing on his chest.
To me it looked like an allergic reaction to either sweat (heat rash) or more likely to washing detergent (poorly rinsed clothes). And both these things happen down here quite a bit too, so there was no undue concern as yet.
Now to distract us from health issues, we managed to contact the captain of the yacht... And it seemed that he was having more problems with the authorities! It seems that he had asked the authorities if he "could just quickly drop in and pick up a couple of passengers" despite having been ordered to leave the country (and its waters) more than two days before!!!
Needless to say, the authorities "didnt think that was a good idea" and so the captain had to "LEAVE" immediately.
Undeterred, the new plan was that he would anchor just over the boarder in Panamanian waters and we were to load our bikes onto a small launch and take a three hour ride in the open ocean (albeit very calm) to get to him where we would load the bikes from the launch to his yacht using the yachts mast/boom as a crane...
Sounds quite dubious I know, but actually Im sure it was all quite possible having done the crossing a couple of times before and messed about with bikes and boats and such...
But, it would mean that we would have to do all the immigration and customs run-around, and organise the launch and helpers and then head out in the ocean for three hours to a destination that I didnt know exactly where it was... and Oh yeah, we no longer had contact with the captain because he had to go immediately to Panama (out of range of Colombian cell phones etc...
But that was for tomorrow... Tonight we would just rest up and see about organising launches etc in the morning.
But, in the morning when I got up early went to check emails, my friend awoke and realised that his condition was much worse... The rash now covered his entire torso and he had a really nasty headache... Needless to say he set out to find a doctor immediately! He did that but had to get money to pay for the blood tests and I ran into him in the street just as I came back from internetting and he was going to the bank...
He was in a bit of a panic (and I dont blame him at all) and I didnt help when he showed me his rash and I had a bit of a laugh! But I realised he was really worried after a couple of seconds and then I switched immediately to helping him solve his problem - much better plan :)
So, the priority for the day changed completely from "how do we get to Panama" to " How do we make sure my friend doesnt die here in back-water Colombia" !
So, all in all, we decided that it was not a "good idea" to try getting on a boat for five days and we decided to "bail" on the crossing plan. It was also, "just not an option" for me to leave the other guy in that condition anywhere let alone in that particular little "rat-hole" of a town with no-one speaking english, and him speaking really minimal Spanish etc.
So, we sent an email to the yacht captain and then spent the rest of the day getting some blood tests done (inconclusive) and basically researching Dengue on the internet (we were pretty sure what it was by now), and waiting to see how my friends condition would develop.
And develop it did... By that evening, he was completely covered in a dense coating of little red spots (he looked like one of those german sausages with all red and white spots), had the usual splitting headache, was running a high fever and was completely exhausted!
By next morning it seemed that the rash had maxed out but the hot and cold flushes were still building and the exhaustion was worse.
We considered "staying put" but that made my friend feel even more worried, so the decision was made to ride back to Cartegena... He popped a 1000mg of acetamenophen to combat the fever, some hydration salts and some fruit juice, waited for an hour to see that he felt better, and then "rode out of town"...
And seven hours later we were back in Cartegena without further incident.
And now after another night, my friend is feeling much better... The fever broke during the night, and his skin is no longer irritated and is starting to resume normal colour. We still have to watch for blood infections while his body dissipates all the blood pooled in the skin, but its looking pretty good :)
... And so, here I am again, in exactly the same place I was two weeks ago...
Looking for a boat to Panama :))
But that plan seems to have been well and truly derailed!
... Which is to say that I find myself still in Colombia and with no known boat leaving for Panama any time soon.
And "How did this happen ?" I hear you ask.
Well, Its a bit of a tale...
Last time I wrote, the plan had only partially been derailed and I had ridden down to the rough little coastal town of Turbo to meet a yacht.
After that, things got worse.
Firstly, and most importantly, the other motorbike guy I was with came down with Dengue Fever !
Dengue is a virus that is transmitted by mosquitoes (any mosquito I think) and it seems that its endemic to all the Caribbean coasts. It has a 5-8 day gestation period and there is neither a vaccination against it or a treatment for it once you have it... Other than to wait for your body to deal with it. I believe it attacks the blood but whatever the case, in some few cases, it can be fatal because the body runs out of red blood cells and unless you have a transfusion your toast! For most cases though, its not fatal but very debilitating with the patient suffering from extreme exhaustion for up to a month after symptoms show.
Back to the story...
Now, on the ride down to Turbo, the other rider I was with was complaining about general tiredness and pain behind the eyes but these things happen from time to time, (eg from a few drinks and not enough water the night before etc) and neither of us thought more about it...
But, that evening while we were trying to get in touch with the yacht captain (email and phone), my friend noticed that he had a skin rash appearing on his chest.
To me it looked like an allergic reaction to either sweat (heat rash) or more likely to washing detergent (poorly rinsed clothes). And both these things happen down here quite a bit too, so there was no undue concern as yet.
Now to distract us from health issues, we managed to contact the captain of the yacht... And it seemed that he was having more problems with the authorities! It seems that he had asked the authorities if he "could just quickly drop in and pick up a couple of passengers" despite having been ordered to leave the country (and its waters) more than two days before!!!
Needless to say, the authorities "didnt think that was a good idea" and so the captain had to "LEAVE" immediately.
Undeterred, the new plan was that he would anchor just over the boarder in Panamanian waters and we were to load our bikes onto a small launch and take a three hour ride in the open ocean (albeit very calm) to get to him where we would load the bikes from the launch to his yacht using the yachts mast/boom as a crane...
Sounds quite dubious I know, but actually Im sure it was all quite possible having done the crossing a couple of times before and messed about with bikes and boats and such...
But, it would mean that we would have to do all the immigration and customs run-around, and organise the launch and helpers and then head out in the ocean for three hours to a destination that I didnt know exactly where it was... and Oh yeah, we no longer had contact with the captain because he had to go immediately to Panama (out of range of Colombian cell phones etc...
But that was for tomorrow... Tonight we would just rest up and see about organising launches etc in the morning.
But, in the morning when I got up early went to check emails, my friend awoke and realised that his condition was much worse... The rash now covered his entire torso and he had a really nasty headache... Needless to say he set out to find a doctor immediately! He did that but had to get money to pay for the blood tests and I ran into him in the street just as I came back from internetting and he was going to the bank...
He was in a bit of a panic (and I dont blame him at all) and I didnt help when he showed me his rash and I had a bit of a laugh! But I realised he was really worried after a couple of seconds and then I switched immediately to helping him solve his problem - much better plan :)
So, the priority for the day changed completely from "how do we get to Panama" to " How do we make sure my friend doesnt die here in back-water Colombia" !
So, all in all, we decided that it was not a "good idea" to try getting on a boat for five days and we decided to "bail" on the crossing plan. It was also, "just not an option" for me to leave the other guy in that condition anywhere let alone in that particular little "rat-hole" of a town with no-one speaking english, and him speaking really minimal Spanish etc.
So, we sent an email to the yacht captain and then spent the rest of the day getting some blood tests done (inconclusive) and basically researching Dengue on the internet (we were pretty sure what it was by now), and waiting to see how my friends condition would develop.
And develop it did... By that evening, he was completely covered in a dense coating of little red spots (he looked like one of those german sausages with all red and white spots), had the usual splitting headache, was running a high fever and was completely exhausted!
By next morning it seemed that the rash had maxed out but the hot and cold flushes were still building and the exhaustion was worse.
We considered "staying put" but that made my friend feel even more worried, so the decision was made to ride back to Cartegena... He popped a 1000mg of acetamenophen to combat the fever, some hydration salts and some fruit juice, waited for an hour to see that he felt better, and then "rode out of town"...
And seven hours later we were back in Cartegena without further incident.
And now after another night, my friend is feeling much better... The fever broke during the night, and his skin is no longer irritated and is starting to resume normal colour. We still have to watch for blood infections while his body dissipates all the blood pooled in the skin, but its looking pretty good :)
... And so, here I am again, in exactly the same place I was two weeks ago...
Looking for a boat to Panama :))
Friday, May 28, 2010
Bandits! What Bandits?
OK, we made it to the little town of Turbo with no problems :)
Not at all surprising I think...
Despite the guidbook warnings and general paranoia, by people who have not been to the area (tourists and locals alike) about it being possible "Bandit country", it was all fine... I pretty much always find that such warnings are both here-say (not first hand, or second hand either for that matter - more like urban myth!), and very out of date too (not surprising when its been printed in a book!).
For our little ride, there was only about 30Km of dirt road and the rest was nicely paved...
Actualy, my guess is that the quality of the road had a lot to do with the reason there were no issues.
It seems to me that "bandits" of any form weather they be individuals, small disorganised bands, or large organised para-military anti-government groups, all prefer to locate themselves in "remote" places. In these places the local residnts are generaly poor farmers and represent no threat to the bandits (and also dont warrant the government spending lots of money on services etc for the area... so there are few police etc), while being a source of "supplies" etc if needed. Also, there is generally poor road access for government officials (army, police, etc) so the bandits have less to wory about on that front, and if the army or police do come into the area then its easy to know about it because they come in along the main roads where its easy to spot them. And finally, if the road is bad then traffic is slow and easy to stop for robery etc (They cant drive away at top speed on roads full of mud holes and rocks).
And so, it seems that the simplest "non-confrontational" method of dealing with an "infestation" of bandits is to make the area where they live "non-remote"... The simplest (although expensive) way to do that is to invest in infrastructure like roads and power and telephone... And then more people move to the area, and the traffic is fast and frequent and doesnt stop easily for robbery, and along with the people come government officials and schools and police etc...
And pretty soon the bandits dont have the security and privacy of remoteness and the easy victims any more... And one way or another, after a few years they are gone.
And the government for its part gets to claim they have improved all the services and invested in looking after the public, and gotten rid of the bandits too... All great for getting re-elected :)
The only down side being that the remote areas tend to be wilderness and with few people there thay are mostly OK. But as soon as the roads improve and new settlers come in, the wilderness gets "raped" of its trees and then turned ito farm land etc...
The whole process is rather tough on nature!
And so it seems to be the case here... And though for much of the area we rode through the farms and plantations have been there a long time and are clearly well developed; In the areas where the road is new, the trees are going and huts are springing up and farms are being built...
... And the bandits are gone as far as I can tell
And such is the way of "development" as far as governments and the public are concerned.
Not at all surprising I think...
Despite the guidbook warnings and general paranoia, by people who have not been to the area (tourists and locals alike) about it being possible "Bandit country", it was all fine... I pretty much always find that such warnings are both here-say (not first hand, or second hand either for that matter - more like urban myth!), and very out of date too (not surprising when its been printed in a book!).
For our little ride, there was only about 30Km of dirt road and the rest was nicely paved...
Actualy, my guess is that the quality of the road had a lot to do with the reason there were no issues.
It seems to me that "bandits" of any form weather they be individuals, small disorganised bands, or large organised para-military anti-government groups, all prefer to locate themselves in "remote" places. In these places the local residnts are generaly poor farmers and represent no threat to the bandits (and also dont warrant the government spending lots of money on services etc for the area... so there are few police etc), while being a source of "supplies" etc if needed. Also, there is generally poor road access for government officials (army, police, etc) so the bandits have less to wory about on that front, and if the army or police do come into the area then its easy to know about it because they come in along the main roads where its easy to spot them. And finally, if the road is bad then traffic is slow and easy to stop for robery etc (They cant drive away at top speed on roads full of mud holes and rocks).
And so, it seems that the simplest "non-confrontational" method of dealing with an "infestation" of bandits is to make the area where they live "non-remote"... The simplest (although expensive) way to do that is to invest in infrastructure like roads and power and telephone... And then more people move to the area, and the traffic is fast and frequent and doesnt stop easily for robbery, and along with the people come government officials and schools and police etc...
And pretty soon the bandits dont have the security and privacy of remoteness and the easy victims any more... And one way or another, after a few years they are gone.
And the government for its part gets to claim they have improved all the services and invested in looking after the public, and gotten rid of the bandits too... All great for getting re-elected :)
The only down side being that the remote areas tend to be wilderness and with few people there thay are mostly OK. But as soon as the roads improve and new settlers come in, the wilderness gets "raped" of its trees and then turned ito farm land etc...
The whole process is rather tough on nature!
And so it seems to be the case here... And though for much of the area we rode through the farms and plantations have been there a long time and are clearly well developed; In the areas where the road is new, the trees are going and huts are springing up and farms are being built...
... And the bandits are gone as far as I can tell
And such is the way of "development" as far as governments and the public are concerned.
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Shift in the Wind
Well, I had a plan....
We were all set to load up the bike on the yacht tomorrow at 8am...But that was this morning!
But a phone call this evening and everything is different...
The captain of the yacht is new at this run from Panama to Colombia, and he was trying to drum up business by visiting all the hostels and having a chat with the front desk...
Unfortunately he did this at one place while a Colombian Immigration officer was standing in the hostel lobby, and well, they didnt like his story (The whole tourists on private yachts thing is not quite fully approved it seems)...
So anyway, now the captain and his yacht have to leave Colombia immediately without passengers.
On the bright side though, he could have sailed out of port and not returned our money, but he didnt. He stuck around for basically a whole day waiting for us to call and then he returned all our deposit money... So I gotta be grateful for that.
But, while we were getting our money back, we had a bit of a discussion and we figure we can meet the yacht a ways down the coast and load up there...
Its not clear quite what we are actually going to do because none of us are sure where there are docks or what condition the roads are in etc, but the current plan is to "give it a go" so to speak!
So, tomorrow morning I set out early with another motorbike rider to head down to the Caribbean coast and a town called Turbo. It should take us half a day to ride to where the road gets bad and turns to dirt... Likewise it should take the yacht about the same time to get there, so then we make a phone call and see if we press on to Turbo or get a launch to take the bikes off the beach at that point.
If its a no go there, then we either do the dirt road (half day?) or we take the long way round on good road (full day extra) to Turbo.
Not sure whats gonna actually happen, but Im done with hangin out in Cartegena so Im happy to be riding somewhere... even if Im not exactly sure where :))
Oh yeah, and this area where we're going may still have FARC activity (Colombias militant resistance movement that kidnaps people and holds them in remote jungle camps for ten years or more!).... hope I dont meet them :)))
We were all set to load up the bike on the yacht tomorrow at 8am...But that was this morning!
But a phone call this evening and everything is different...
The captain of the yacht is new at this run from Panama to Colombia, and he was trying to drum up business by visiting all the hostels and having a chat with the front desk...
Unfortunately he did this at one place while a Colombian Immigration officer was standing in the hostel lobby, and well, they didnt like his story (The whole tourists on private yachts thing is not quite fully approved it seems)...
So anyway, now the captain and his yacht have to leave Colombia immediately without passengers.
On the bright side though, he could have sailed out of port and not returned our money, but he didnt. He stuck around for basically a whole day waiting for us to call and then he returned all our deposit money... So I gotta be grateful for that.
But, while we were getting our money back, we had a bit of a discussion and we figure we can meet the yacht a ways down the coast and load up there...
Its not clear quite what we are actually going to do because none of us are sure where there are docks or what condition the roads are in etc, but the current plan is to "give it a go" so to speak!
So, tomorrow morning I set out early with another motorbike rider to head down to the Caribbean coast and a town called Turbo. It should take us half a day to ride to where the road gets bad and turns to dirt... Likewise it should take the yacht about the same time to get there, so then we make a phone call and see if we press on to Turbo or get a launch to take the bikes off the beach at that point.
If its a no go there, then we either do the dirt road (half day?) or we take the long way round on good road (full day extra) to Turbo.
Not sure whats gonna actually happen, but Im done with hangin out in Cartegena so Im happy to be riding somewhere... even if Im not exactly sure where :))
Oh yeah, and this area where we're going may still have FARC activity (Colombias militant resistance movement that kidnaps people and holds them in remote jungle camps for ten years or more!).... hope I dont meet them :)))
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Passage to Panama
Well, I think Im organised for a boat ride to Panama...
Ive hung about here in Cartegena for a cumulative month now with all the visits Ive done.
A few days ago, I rode north to Taganga again and hung out there for a while just for something different... Its not that much cheaper there than here because its a budding backpacker/tourist destination. But it was a bit different, and while I was there I decided to do a couple of scuba dives one day just for something to do (Its cheap at $30 per dive).
So, I dived and while the water clarity on the day was quite bad (just on this particular day), Id have to say that the quality of the coral was surprisingly good...
My limited experience is that pretty much anywhere that is within a couple of hours of the dive centre is not very good diving... Its just that there are divers there every day and it inevitably means that the fish get either caught and eaten or scared off... And the coral gets destroyed by boat anchors and careless divers etc.
But not yet at Taganga... They have a huge number of "brain corals" of many sizes (up to 3m across) and a wide range of colours (orange to bright green).... very pretty.
There are quite a variety of fish including Tarpon and Baracuda but there are no big manta rays or whale sharks or even reef sharks (all been fished out I think).
So, I enjoyed my dives despite the water clarity and Id recommend it to others.
And the climate there was very much as it is here ... Extremely sticky throughout the days and for most of the nights as well :)
But again, I met some nice people in the hostels and was feeling quite sociable.
But after a couple of days and some emails and phone calls, I had sorted out a boat that was leaving in just a couple of days, so today I rode back to Cartegena.
And I decided to do something that I virtually never do, and I gave a ride to another traveller all the way back here... Yes it was a girl, and yes she was very nice, but it was more to do with the fact that she was small and didnt have very much stuff that made it possible rather than any "romantic" aspirations on either of our parts :) ... and it was only a half day ride as well :)
Note: I have given short rides to quite a few people on my travels, but they are almost always local people walking along the side of the road that I pick up, and they almost always just need to get to the next town.
So, when I got back here to Cartegena, I rode out to see the captain and the yacht. And I paid him a $200 deposit to reserve my place... And thats about it... The boat will leave about mid day Thursday and Ill be "off-air" again for about five days while I sail back to Panama via the "idyllic" little sand/palm islands of the San Blass again :))
...moving North again :))
Ive hung about here in Cartegena for a cumulative month now with all the visits Ive done.
A few days ago, I rode north to Taganga again and hung out there for a while just for something different... Its not that much cheaper there than here because its a budding backpacker/tourist destination. But it was a bit different, and while I was there I decided to do a couple of scuba dives one day just for something to do (Its cheap at $30 per dive).
So, I dived and while the water clarity on the day was quite bad (just on this particular day), Id have to say that the quality of the coral was surprisingly good...
My limited experience is that pretty much anywhere that is within a couple of hours of the dive centre is not very good diving... Its just that there are divers there every day and it inevitably means that the fish get either caught and eaten or scared off... And the coral gets destroyed by boat anchors and careless divers etc.
But not yet at Taganga... They have a huge number of "brain corals" of many sizes (up to 3m across) and a wide range of colours (orange to bright green).... very pretty.
There are quite a variety of fish including Tarpon and Baracuda but there are no big manta rays or whale sharks or even reef sharks (all been fished out I think).
So, I enjoyed my dives despite the water clarity and Id recommend it to others.
And the climate there was very much as it is here ... Extremely sticky throughout the days and for most of the nights as well :)
But again, I met some nice people in the hostels and was feeling quite sociable.
But after a couple of days and some emails and phone calls, I had sorted out a boat that was leaving in just a couple of days, so today I rode back to Cartegena.
And I decided to do something that I virtually never do, and I gave a ride to another traveller all the way back here... Yes it was a girl, and yes she was very nice, but it was more to do with the fact that she was small and didnt have very much stuff that made it possible rather than any "romantic" aspirations on either of our parts :) ... and it was only a half day ride as well :)
Note: I have given short rides to quite a few people on my travels, but they are almost always local people walking along the side of the road that I pick up, and they almost always just need to get to the next town.
So, when I got back here to Cartegena, I rode out to see the captain and the yacht. And I paid him a $200 deposit to reserve my place... And thats about it... The boat will leave about mid day Thursday and Ill be "off-air" again for about five days while I sail back to Panama via the "idyllic" little sand/palm islands of the San Blass again :))
...moving North again :))
Friday, May 21, 2010
Navigation Guidelines
There are of course many many little self made rules or guidelines that we all use to help ourselves navigate the mirriad complicated choices of our everyday lives.
I like you have my own set of them, and a lot of my blog posts address topics that are difficult for me and that I have thus spent time trying to build myself some sort of guidelines for.
And over the past few years, I have thought lots and I have either built myself completely new rules or made big changes to my old rules.
I couldnt possibly share all of them in a post because I simply couldnt remember them all without the "situational stimulus" to trigger my memory for each of them.
But, I can try to share some of the larger general guidelines that I find useful in a single post...
So, here in a nutshell is how I try to live:
Pay Attention
Question Everything
Choose Hope over Despair
Be Honest
Be Passionate
Be Courageous
Be Respectful
Be Generous
Be Gentle
Follow your Heart
and Lead by Example
... and that little list actually gets most of it :))
And whats more, I dont recall having found a situation where any of them conflict ... Though the "balance/priority" changes situation by situation of course.
Not sure if thats useful to anyone else but it sure is for me.
Good luck with your own set :)
I like you have my own set of them, and a lot of my blog posts address topics that are difficult for me and that I have thus spent time trying to build myself some sort of guidelines for.
And over the past few years, I have thought lots and I have either built myself completely new rules or made big changes to my old rules.
I couldnt possibly share all of them in a post because I simply couldnt remember them all without the "situational stimulus" to trigger my memory for each of them.
But, I can try to share some of the larger general guidelines that I find useful in a single post...
So, here in a nutshell is how I try to live:
Pay Attention
Question Everything
Choose Hope over Despair
Be Honest
Be Passionate
Be Courageous
Be Respectful
Be Generous
Be Gentle
Follow your Heart
and Lead by Example
... and that little list actually gets most of it :))
And whats more, I dont recall having found a situation where any of them conflict ... Though the "balance/priority" changes situation by situation of course.
Not sure if thats useful to anyone else but it sure is for me.
Good luck with your own set :)
Thursday, May 20, 2010
Orders of Magnitude
... And the million years thing got me thinking about orders of magnitude in my life...
Not sure why but these were some of my "range of experiences", from very broad to very narrow. :)
I thought about time again, and in my personal life experiences I found that I have really quite a surprising number of orders of magnitude in this area of personal experience.
My largest time experience is of course my whole life at about 45 years. Which in seconds is about 1.4 x 10e9 seconds
On the other end of the scale, in my electrical engineering role, I was quite regularly looking at signals on an oscilloscope or designing logic circuits with critical time intervals way down in the pico-second range... Thats 1 x 10e-12
So thats a very broad range of time experiences covering 21 orders of magnitude!
And just to give you some idea of how small an amount of time that is... In one pico second, light which travels at 3 x 10e8 m/s (unimaginably fast compared to most of our "real world" experiences) has covered the tiny distance of about 3cm (or just over an inch for the US folk!)... Thats a very small fraction of time that we can easily measure in any electronic engineering lab!
And I thought about distance...
And my largest distance experience would have to be all the riding of the motorbike that Ive been doing in the last two or three years... Ive personally put over 130,000 Km on my motorbike, and Ive been paying attention for every single one of those Km as it passed under the bikes wheels! (which is 1.3 x 10e8 metres).
And at the other end of the scale, again working as an electrical engineer, Ive spent time probing and debugging silicon chips with feature sizes below 1 miocron... Thats 1 x 10e-6 metres.
So the range is 14 orders of magnitude!
On the speed front, its much smaller with my personal top speed of only about 230Kmh on a motorbike (Note, I dont count flying in jet planes because Im not actually doing it... Im just along for the ride, and Im incredibly insulated from the actual experience.) and in base units, thats only 2.3 x 10e5 m/s or 5 orders of magnitude.
... And a side note here is that as I mentioned, I currently seem to have a sort of "Stockholm Syndrome" with motorbikes, and Ive been having quite strong urges to buy and rework a motorbike and then personally ride it (on a salt lake) to 200mph (320Kmh)
... I dont know why... I do know it would scare the living daylights out of me and I also know that its not too hard to make a bike that can do it...We will wait and see if I take the project on or not I guess :)))
And on temperature its very limited too with a highest personally experienced "whole body" temperature of about 48 degC outside in a desert somewhere.
I could count the boiling water spills (100degC), or the molten lava I got close to I suppose at about 900 degC or propane gas flames (2200degC) etc; Or even the sunlight from the surface of the sun at about 5500 degC, but I think the "whole body"aspect is right for this case :)
At the other extreme (on the coldness front rather than the smallest measure of temperature like the others), is only about -27 or -30 degC while mountaineering... Despite my having spent a good deal of time working in Antarctica ... but only during the Summers. (lots of places have regular low temperatures below -40 degC and the coldest recorded in the world was about -90 degC in the inland of Antarctica.)... And thats less than 3 orders of magnitude!
Like I say, not sure why that all went through my mind... But it did, so I shared it.
Not sure why but these were some of my "range of experiences", from very broad to very narrow. :)
I thought about time again, and in my personal life experiences I found that I have really quite a surprising number of orders of magnitude in this area of personal experience.
My largest time experience is of course my whole life at about 45 years. Which in seconds is about 1.4 x 10e9 seconds
On the other end of the scale, in my electrical engineering role, I was quite regularly looking at signals on an oscilloscope or designing logic circuits with critical time intervals way down in the pico-second range... Thats 1 x 10e-12
So thats a very broad range of time experiences covering 21 orders of magnitude!
And just to give you some idea of how small an amount of time that is... In one pico second, light which travels at 3 x 10e8 m/s (unimaginably fast compared to most of our "real world" experiences) has covered the tiny distance of about 3cm (or just over an inch for the US folk!)... Thats a very small fraction of time that we can easily measure in any electronic engineering lab!
And I thought about distance...
And my largest distance experience would have to be all the riding of the motorbike that Ive been doing in the last two or three years... Ive personally put over 130,000 Km on my motorbike, and Ive been paying attention for every single one of those Km as it passed under the bikes wheels! (which is 1.3 x 10e8 metres).
And at the other end of the scale, again working as an electrical engineer, Ive spent time probing and debugging silicon chips with feature sizes below 1 miocron... Thats 1 x 10e-6 metres.
So the range is 14 orders of magnitude!
On the speed front, its much smaller with my personal top speed of only about 230Kmh on a motorbike (Note, I dont count flying in jet planes because Im not actually doing it... Im just along for the ride, and Im incredibly insulated from the actual experience.) and in base units, thats only 2.3 x 10e5 m/s or 5 orders of magnitude.
... And a side note here is that as I mentioned, I currently seem to have a sort of "Stockholm Syndrome" with motorbikes, and Ive been having quite strong urges to buy and rework a motorbike and then personally ride it (on a salt lake) to 200mph (320Kmh)
... I dont know why... I do know it would scare the living daylights out of me and I also know that its not too hard to make a bike that can do it...We will wait and see if I take the project on or not I guess :)))
And on temperature its very limited too with a highest personally experienced "whole body" temperature of about 48 degC outside in a desert somewhere.
I could count the boiling water spills (100degC), or the molten lava I got close to I suppose at about 900 degC or propane gas flames (2200degC) etc; Or even the sunlight from the surface of the sun at about 5500 degC, but I think the "whole body"aspect is right for this case :)
At the other extreme (on the coldness front rather than the smallest measure of temperature like the others), is only about -27 or -30 degC while mountaineering... Despite my having spent a good deal of time working in Antarctica ... but only during the Summers. (lots of places have regular low temperatures below -40 degC and the coldest recorded in the world was about -90 degC in the inland of Antarctica.)... And thats less than 3 orders of magnitude!
Like I say, not sure why that all went through my mind... But it did, so I shared it.
The Waiting Game
Right, well Im back in Cartegena again.
It took me another five days to ride back to the North coast of Colombia. Ive now done this section about five times, so on the way this time, I decided to take several slightly different roads to make it a bit more interesting. But in truth, it made very little difference... The country side and little towns were basically the same ride as previous times... Big mountains and valleys, green pastures, coffee and sugar cane plantations, and small but mostly very good quality highways.
There are still a few places in Colombia that Id like to go see, but they can mostly wait for a different trip as far as Im concerned...
And so, here I am in a beautiful but very hot and sticky coastal city in Colombia... waiting...
Waiting for a yacht... Not a particular yacht, just one that can take me and my bike back past the Darrien gap to Panama.
When I got here, I had managed to "just miss" the departure date of the yacht that I used a few months ago to come South... I wouldnt say it would have been my first choice for transport, but it was certainly cheap and effective, and Id have not hesitated to take the opportunity... But as I said, I missed that one.
Then there is a very nice, quite large, but also the most expensive yacht that does the trip... "Stahlrate"... And its in port here right now... But they are doing maintenance for the next six weeks and thats a longer wait than I want to hang around for!
Then there is a good sized catamaran that takes bikes too, and its leaving on the 25th which would be pretty well right... But Ive heard from lots and lots of people with first hand experience that hes expensive, doesnt know how to maintain (or care to) the boat, and excessively overcrowds the boat on every trip... It seems that the captain is a "business" man and enjoys making lots of money rather than the sailing or the yacht, or having happy customers !!
I really should probably just take this boat, but at the moment I cant bring myself to support this captain with my money rather than "anybody" else! But I have a few days before I have to commit on that one.:)
And so, here I wait...
Late yesterday, there was a rumour of another boat on the 27th... so Ill look into that today.
In the mean time, there are several nice and interesting people in the hostel Ive been at (unusually!) and so, it hasnt been too bad :) I spent a whole day helping a couple of them get their car through the customs and port formalities so that they can continue their journey South.
I also did the usual accumulated bike work which consisted of changing the rear tire, checking the bearings, and fully servicing the brakes again (they really need new seals in the slave callipers though) cos they were getting very spongy again. And I also managed to find a place that sold me a set of only "barely used" brake pads for my bike at well below the cost of buying new ones :) ...which Im surely gonna need before I make it back to Canada :)
So, Im amusing myself well enough, but even so, I have decided to head North a bit further to hang out at Taganga in the next day or two.
Its cheaper there and there is a beach and I can do the boat search thing by email.
... Oh, and I decided that Id probably try to buy a new camera when I get to Panama... They are apparently quite a bit cheaper there :)
And thats about all there is for status for now :))
It took me another five days to ride back to the North coast of Colombia. Ive now done this section about five times, so on the way this time, I decided to take several slightly different roads to make it a bit more interesting. But in truth, it made very little difference... The country side and little towns were basically the same ride as previous times... Big mountains and valleys, green pastures, coffee and sugar cane plantations, and small but mostly very good quality highways.
There are still a few places in Colombia that Id like to go see, but they can mostly wait for a different trip as far as Im concerned...
And so, here I am in a beautiful but very hot and sticky coastal city in Colombia... waiting...
Waiting for a yacht... Not a particular yacht, just one that can take me and my bike back past the Darrien gap to Panama.
When I got here, I had managed to "just miss" the departure date of the yacht that I used a few months ago to come South... I wouldnt say it would have been my first choice for transport, but it was certainly cheap and effective, and Id have not hesitated to take the opportunity... But as I said, I missed that one.
Then there is a very nice, quite large, but also the most expensive yacht that does the trip... "Stahlrate"... And its in port here right now... But they are doing maintenance for the next six weeks and thats a longer wait than I want to hang around for!
Then there is a good sized catamaran that takes bikes too, and its leaving on the 25th which would be pretty well right... But Ive heard from lots and lots of people with first hand experience that hes expensive, doesnt know how to maintain (or care to) the boat, and excessively overcrowds the boat on every trip... It seems that the captain is a "business" man and enjoys making lots of money rather than the sailing or the yacht, or having happy customers !!
I really should probably just take this boat, but at the moment I cant bring myself to support this captain with my money rather than "anybody" else! But I have a few days before I have to commit on that one.:)
And so, here I wait...
Late yesterday, there was a rumour of another boat on the 27th... so Ill look into that today.
In the mean time, there are several nice and interesting people in the hostel Ive been at (unusually!) and so, it hasnt been too bad :) I spent a whole day helping a couple of them get their car through the customs and port formalities so that they can continue their journey South.
I also did the usual accumulated bike work which consisted of changing the rear tire, checking the bearings, and fully servicing the brakes again (they really need new seals in the slave callipers though) cos they were getting very spongy again. And I also managed to find a place that sold me a set of only "barely used" brake pads for my bike at well below the cost of buying new ones :) ...which Im surely gonna need before I make it back to Canada :)
So, Im amusing myself well enough, but even so, I have decided to head North a bit further to hang out at Taganga in the next day or two.
Its cheaper there and there is a beach and I can do the boat search thing by email.
... Oh, and I decided that Id probably try to buy a new camera when I get to Panama... They are apparently quite a bit cheaper there :)
And thats about all there is for status for now :))
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Grappling With Father Time
While I was down there in the Amazon jungle, we pretty much all adopted the "siesta" lifestyle and the middle of the hot sweaty afternoons were spent by most of us laying about the place in hammocks.
But, one afternoon I wasnt really feeling sleepy, so I decided to go for a quiet paddle in the small dugout canoe.
So, with the carved wooden paddle in hand, I pushed off from the little dock and proceeded to amble my aquatic way around the lagoon... Its an "ox-bow" of the river that has been bypassed by the main flow of the river and so it is calm and still rather than the swift current of the main river.
And I paddled about quite happily for an hour or so... Trying to master the art of the absolutely silent paddle stroke, looking closely at all the river-side plants and listening to the jungle "do its thing" without any human made noises at all....ahhhh :)
And while I was doing that; If I didnt look at the simple cotton clothes that I was wearing (T-shirt and shorts made by machines) then I could look around and see absolutely nothing that was at all "modern"... No evidence of man whatsoever...no plastic, no metal, and no huts or clearings at all... No smells, no sounds... I may as well have been a primitive tribesman from thousands of years ago, paddling around looking for my next meal or something! The paddle, the canoe, the jungle, the river, the sky, my bare limbs, and my "awareness"... Just me and the jungle!
... And that was very interesting... In fact, I was almost compelled to think, "This" is what this jungle is "used to" as far as humans and "our place in the scheme of things" are concerned"... The modern humans (that I am one of) with their metals, synthetics and machines are really a very recent phenomenon as far as the jungles time scales are concerned... Weve only been destroying the place for a few hundred years or so.
And that led me to wonder how long this jungle has been around for in roughly its current form... Must be many thousands of years... Id guess that not long after the current ice-age got under way and the oceans retreated...
The current Ice-Age is about 30 thousand years old...
Actually we are rather over due for the ice-caps to melt and sea levels to rise again! according to the Ice-Age clock... Which is very regular you know... It cycles at about every 100,000 years or so.
But, back to the plot...
So, at a rough guess, this Jungle that Im paddling around in and imagining myself as a primitive tribesman in, has been "as it is" for probably about 25000 years!
But, I thought to my self, thats not long enough for all the speciation to have occurred... It took a lot longer than that, so clearly the diversity of all the plants and animals in this jungle is "trans-glaciation"... It must have come through the ice-ages/interglacial periods so to speak...
So, how long did it take to "create" this much biodiversity?
Well, Im hardly qualified to answer that but Id guess that its from several (and probably many) millions of years of evolution...
And that got me thinking, "Well, thats easy to say, but what does a million years feel like?"
I mean, we bandy that number about all over the place these days but how many of us actually have any concept of how long a million years really is?
And so, I thought that quite obviously the largest time that I have experienced is of course my "whole life" of about 45 years... But then I immediately thought that to keep it simple Id expand that to the maximum reasonable life of a person of say 100 years...
Now, I know for myself that sometimes, life feels veeeeerrrry long... Im sure you know what I mean.. Im only in my fourties, and I can hardly remember most of my childhood... Its all just vague and blurry with the odd highlight moment etched in my memory. And imagining forward I can really only conceive of things (in any sort of personal way) a few decades into the future...Its just the limits of my experience :)
So, to my little human awareness, a hundred years is an incredibly long time and its really beyond my capacity to conceive of things in a personal way that are beyond that sort of time span... But if the jungle has been doing its thing here through the "seasons" of the ice-ages for even only one million years then the simple mathematics says that a million years is "Ten Thousand human lifetimes" !!!
Now thats a VERY long time!!
That gives me some perspective on the scale of a million years and how things might look to this jungle if it was an entity and had a "perspective" !!
But, one afternoon I wasnt really feeling sleepy, so I decided to go for a quiet paddle in the small dugout canoe.
So, with the carved wooden paddle in hand, I pushed off from the little dock and proceeded to amble my aquatic way around the lagoon... Its an "ox-bow" of the river that has been bypassed by the main flow of the river and so it is calm and still rather than the swift current of the main river.
And I paddled about quite happily for an hour or so... Trying to master the art of the absolutely silent paddle stroke, looking closely at all the river-side plants and listening to the jungle "do its thing" without any human made noises at all....ahhhh :)
And while I was doing that; If I didnt look at the simple cotton clothes that I was wearing (T-shirt and shorts made by machines) then I could look around and see absolutely nothing that was at all "modern"... No evidence of man whatsoever...no plastic, no metal, and no huts or clearings at all... No smells, no sounds... I may as well have been a primitive tribesman from thousands of years ago, paddling around looking for my next meal or something! The paddle, the canoe, the jungle, the river, the sky, my bare limbs, and my "awareness"... Just me and the jungle!
... And that was very interesting... In fact, I was almost compelled to think, "This" is what this jungle is "used to" as far as humans and "our place in the scheme of things" are concerned"... The modern humans (that I am one of) with their metals, synthetics and machines are really a very recent phenomenon as far as the jungles time scales are concerned... Weve only been destroying the place for a few hundred years or so.
And that led me to wonder how long this jungle has been around for in roughly its current form... Must be many thousands of years... Id guess that not long after the current ice-age got under way and the oceans retreated...
The current Ice-Age is about 30 thousand years old...
Actually we are rather over due for the ice-caps to melt and sea levels to rise again! according to the Ice-Age clock... Which is very regular you know... It cycles at about every 100,000 years or so.
But, back to the plot...
So, at a rough guess, this Jungle that Im paddling around in and imagining myself as a primitive tribesman in, has been "as it is" for probably about 25000 years!
But, I thought to my self, thats not long enough for all the speciation to have occurred... It took a lot longer than that, so clearly the diversity of all the plants and animals in this jungle is "trans-glaciation"... It must have come through the ice-ages/interglacial periods so to speak...
So, how long did it take to "create" this much biodiversity?
Well, Im hardly qualified to answer that but Id guess that its from several (and probably many) millions of years of evolution...
And that got me thinking, "Well, thats easy to say, but what does a million years feel like?"
I mean, we bandy that number about all over the place these days but how many of us actually have any concept of how long a million years really is?
And so, I thought that quite obviously the largest time that I have experienced is of course my "whole life" of about 45 years... But then I immediately thought that to keep it simple Id expand that to the maximum reasonable life of a person of say 100 years...
Now, I know for myself that sometimes, life feels veeeeerrrry long... Im sure you know what I mean.. Im only in my fourties, and I can hardly remember most of my childhood... Its all just vague and blurry with the odd highlight moment etched in my memory. And imagining forward I can really only conceive of things (in any sort of personal way) a few decades into the future...Its just the limits of my experience :)
So, to my little human awareness, a hundred years is an incredibly long time and its really beyond my capacity to conceive of things in a personal way that are beyond that sort of time span... But if the jungle has been doing its thing here through the "seasons" of the ice-ages for even only one million years then the simple mathematics says that a million years is "Ten Thousand human lifetimes" !!!
Now thats a VERY long time!!
That gives me some perspective on the scale of a million years and how things might look to this jungle if it was an entity and had a "perspective" !!
Thursday, May 13, 2010
Very Expensive Mistake!
Well, I guess Ive had that coming for a while...
I just got my two little cameras and my GPS stolen from the hostel where I was staying... And I have to say that it was my own fault! (Though my little computer was safely locked away, so I still have that)
Thats not to say that I approve of my stuff being stolen or people who steal!, but I was careless and in that sense, it serves me right.
It was a bit of a combination of things that did it though.
First off, Ive stayed at this hostel about five times now and I really like it because its cheap, clean, friendly, and I get on well with the people who run it... And of course, Ive never had any sort of problems here before either.
Secondly, there were very few (only two) other people here at the time so the risks seemed lower to me than in a crowded place.
Third, the hostel virtually never lets locals from Peru, Ecuador, or Colombia in for exactly these security reasons (yes westerners steal too but it is at a far lower rate... so the hostel people say anyway), and they have had no theft problems for a long time. But this time they did and Im sure that it was this young guy who stole my stuff.
And, finally (though perhaps I should put this as the first and most important point), I didnt lock up all my valuables... Yes, I put them away and out of sight, but not Locked away!... And I made the mistake of letting this young guy see me using my computer with the GPS and the camera... so he knew I had them... And, I have to admit that over the last several months I have been getting rather "Cavalier" about security and not taking nearly as much care as I should (which by the way, is I think still only about half the level that most paranoid tourists seem to practice!- I really dont think the world is as dangerous as most of them seem to think :)) )
So,while I was out running around today packaging and posting a few items to send back to Canada, the Culprit simply waited till the only other person in the dormitory was out and then he went through my sleeping area and found my gadgets in the draw under my bed, and he left... Checked out and we assume left town!
It wasnt till about 6pm that I noticed the theft though and there was not much to be done about it then. The hostel people did do a run around for me and checked all the other nearby hostels, but as expected, there was no sign.
What good has come of this... Not a lot I guess, but the two cameras (the one I have been using and my old one that I had as a backup) were really both quite old and worn, and not worth much money. So they are more of an inconvenience than a big loss.
The GPS unit was also not critical, and in fact, I had decided that it wasnt the one I would likely be keeping (too big and bulky and newer ones seem better now that I know what to look for). But, it was quite expensive, and I would estimate that I could have sold it for $500 or more!
... And without a charger (with special plug)its gonna be useless to the thief too as is one of the cameras that has a recharger rather than disposable batteries)...
Oh well... Not much I can do about it now other than to be more careful in future :)
The only other interesting, and I think good, thing about it all is that I have stayed remarkably calm and non-stressed by it all... Now I admit that I had just downloaded all the pictures so I didnt loose those like I did the last time a camera of mine got lost/stolen (during my last motorbike ride)... But then again, that time it only cost me about $300 or so. This time I think Im out by about $1000 or so...(replacement cost with second hand items)
So, the fact that Im cool and accepting about it all and that Im not even really angry at myself for my own "complacence/stupidity" is I think, a very good sign of my own "personal development".
... As Buddha apparently once said :
" Holding onto anger is like grasping onto a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else: You are the one who gets burned"
... And another thing he apparently said was:
"Your work is to discover your work and then with all your heart to give yourself to it."
... So, Not that Im a Buddhist at all, but I guess Ill get on with working on that one too! ... Though for the time being, Ill be doing it with paper maps rather than a GPS and there will be precious few pictures for you readers to look at in my blog posts! :)))
I just got my two little cameras and my GPS stolen from the hostel where I was staying... And I have to say that it was my own fault! (Though my little computer was safely locked away, so I still have that)
Thats not to say that I approve of my stuff being stolen or people who steal!, but I was careless and in that sense, it serves me right.
It was a bit of a combination of things that did it though.
First off, Ive stayed at this hostel about five times now and I really like it because its cheap, clean, friendly, and I get on well with the people who run it... And of course, Ive never had any sort of problems here before either.
Secondly, there were very few (only two) other people here at the time so the risks seemed lower to me than in a crowded place.
Third, the hostel virtually never lets locals from Peru, Ecuador, or Colombia in for exactly these security reasons (yes westerners steal too but it is at a far lower rate... so the hostel people say anyway), and they have had no theft problems for a long time. But this time they did and Im sure that it was this young guy who stole my stuff.
And, finally (though perhaps I should put this as the first and most important point), I didnt lock up all my valuables... Yes, I put them away and out of sight, but not Locked away!... And I made the mistake of letting this young guy see me using my computer with the GPS and the camera... so he knew I had them... And, I have to admit that over the last several months I have been getting rather "Cavalier" about security and not taking nearly as much care as I should (which by the way, is I think still only about half the level that most paranoid tourists seem to practice!- I really dont think the world is as dangerous as most of them seem to think :)) )
So,while I was out running around today packaging and posting a few items to send back to Canada, the Culprit simply waited till the only other person in the dormitory was out and then he went through my sleeping area and found my gadgets in the draw under my bed, and he left... Checked out and we assume left town!
It wasnt till about 6pm that I noticed the theft though and there was not much to be done about it then. The hostel people did do a run around for me and checked all the other nearby hostels, but as expected, there was no sign.
What good has come of this... Not a lot I guess, but the two cameras (the one I have been using and my old one that I had as a backup) were really both quite old and worn, and not worth much money. So they are more of an inconvenience than a big loss.
The GPS unit was also not critical, and in fact, I had decided that it wasnt the one I would likely be keeping (too big and bulky and newer ones seem better now that I know what to look for). But, it was quite expensive, and I would estimate that I could have sold it for $500 or more!
... And without a charger (with special plug)its gonna be useless to the thief too as is one of the cameras that has a recharger rather than disposable batteries)...
Oh well... Not much I can do about it now other than to be more careful in future :)
The only other interesting, and I think good, thing about it all is that I have stayed remarkably calm and non-stressed by it all... Now I admit that I had just downloaded all the pictures so I didnt loose those like I did the last time a camera of mine got lost/stolen (during my last motorbike ride)... But then again, that time it only cost me about $300 or so. This time I think Im out by about $1000 or so...(replacement cost with second hand items)
So, the fact that Im cool and accepting about it all and that Im not even really angry at myself for my own "complacence/stupidity" is I think, a very good sign of my own "personal development".
... As Buddha apparently once said :
" Holding onto anger is like grasping onto a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else: You are the one who gets burned"
... And another thing he apparently said was:
"Your work is to discover your work and then with all your heart to give yourself to it."
... So, Not that Im a Buddhist at all, but I guess Ill get on with working on that one too! ... Though for the time being, Ill be doing it with paper maps rather than a GPS and there will be precious few pictures for you readers to look at in my blog posts! :)))
Dugouts
Transport in the jungle is basically by waterway or by foot.
And on the water, by far the most common form of boat was the dugout canoe... And I just love these things :)))
They are so simple, and so old in design. But they are made with skill and care and they do their job wonderfully.
They can be as small as about 2m long, and as large as 50m long.
Most of the ones I saw on this trip were made of a single log for the base but the sides had been extended upwards by the addition of a couple of planks.
I saw several in the building process, and its not just a hollowed out log like you may think.
No, they get as much out of the log as they can, and that means cutting a slit in the length of the log and sort of peeling the log back and wedging the two edges of the split apart while the core of the log is hollowed out. The ends of the log are carved as you would think into the elegant points, but not as much of the log is cut away as you might have thought. Its all done slowly and carefully using hand tools, not power tools like chain-saws. Curved hand adzes are the name of the game. And the thickness of the canoe sides/floor is beautifully consistent and quite thin... The old ones I saw that had been cut up for use as seats etc had wall thicknesses of less than 5cm throughout... Lots of skill involved in making these :))
But, Ive seen plenty of others that were just a single well shaped log.
On this trip, I also saw lots of more modern larger boats too, but rather than adopting a "V" hull or "Cat" , or even flat bottomed shaped hulls as we are used to seeing in the West, these big boats were still in the form of a dogout... There were steel ones and aluminium ones, and fibreglass ones too, but even if they were 18m long, they were still only 1.5m wide...
That timeless form clearly is the most effective when it comes to working on fast flowing jungle rivers :)
... and here are lots of pictures :)))
And on the water, by far the most common form of boat was the dugout canoe... And I just love these things :)))
They are so simple, and so old in design. But they are made with skill and care and they do their job wonderfully.
They can be as small as about 2m long, and as large as 50m long.
Most of the ones I saw on this trip were made of a single log for the base but the sides had been extended upwards by the addition of a couple of planks.
I saw several in the building process, and its not just a hollowed out log like you may think.
No, they get as much out of the log as they can, and that means cutting a slit in the length of the log and sort of peeling the log back and wedging the two edges of the split apart while the core of the log is hollowed out. The ends of the log are carved as you would think into the elegant points, but not as much of the log is cut away as you might have thought. Its all done slowly and carefully using hand tools, not power tools like chain-saws. Curved hand adzes are the name of the game. And the thickness of the canoe sides/floor is beautifully consistent and quite thin... The old ones I saw that had been cut up for use as seats etc had wall thicknesses of less than 5cm throughout... Lots of skill involved in making these :))
But, Ive seen plenty of others that were just a single well shaped log.
On this trip, I also saw lots of more modern larger boats too, but rather than adopting a "V" hull or "Cat" , or even flat bottomed shaped hulls as we are used to seeing in the West, these big boats were still in the form of a dogout... There were steel ones and aluminium ones, and fibreglass ones too, but even if they were 18m long, they were still only 1.5m wide...
That timeless form clearly is the most effective when it comes to working on fast flowing jungle rivers :)
... and here are lots of pictures :)))
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
The Monkey Hat
One of the activities that we did while I was in the jungle was to visit a local family and see a bit of how they lived.
To do this, we all hopped in the canoe and headed back down river to the junction with the main river. There was a small village there, but on the opposite side of the river there were also a few individual houses in clearings and it was to one of these that we went.
The home consisted of two huts up on stilts about 2.5m off the ground.
They were situated in a cleared area of maybe 300m x 200m in area.
And, living in this clearing was a family of Dad, Mum, two daughters (say 13 and 10 years old) and a son (say 5 years old).
The hut roofs were thatched with palm leaves, the walls were made of planks of wood, and the floors were made of "unrolled" palm trunks. I only saw in the kitchen/eating hut but I assume the other was for sleeping. The kitchen hut was about 20m x 10m, and was simple and spartan ( one stove, two hamocks, one table, and two sitting benches). there were no doors or window shutters at all.
Living under the house (and about the place) were about a dozen chickens and a rooster. There was also a single dog (who looked like he didnt get fed that much but was not starving).
The cleared land was about half fenced off and there were about half a dozen healthy looking Brahman cattle grazing in it, and one bull.
Most of the rest of the land was devoted to crops with about half devoted to subsistence crops of rice (ready to harvest) and Yuca (a 2m high shrub that grows big underground edible tubers)
And there was also a good amount of a cash crop from Cacao trees. Cacao is the raw material that chocolate is made from. The Cacao trees were ready to harvest with the pods of "beans" being a purplish red... The pods are picked and opened and the beans are dried in the sun and then sold in town to middle-men who eventually sell them to the big international chocolate companies.
Cacao tree with pods.
Ripe Cacao pod (though they are usually yellow when ripe)
But, we were here to mess around with the Yuca...
First we went out the back and forcibly pulled one of the Yuka plants up out of the ground. Then we dug around and got about a dozen good sized tubers from the root system :)
Then we peeled the dirty skin off the white tubers ready for further processing back at the hut.
Before we headed back to the hut, a short section of the original plant stem was cut off and it was planted in the hole that we had created by pulling up the plant... Apparently in about six months (regardless of season) the plant will have fully regrown and be ready for the next harvesting :)
Back at the hut the tubers were washed and then turned into pulp with a large improvised grater. We all took turns and it didnt take too long to turn the tubers into a large pile of white milky mush!
The mush was then scooped in several handfulls at a time, into a sort of long narrow mat woven from plant fibers.
The mat was then rolled diagonally into a sausage and hung from the hut wall by a loop at one end. A stout stick was then put through a loop in the lower end of the mat and it was "wrung" very forcefully to get as much of the water out of the mush as possible.
The nearly dry Yuka was then taken out of the mat (sort of granular consistency) and rubbed through an improvised sieve.
The resulting finish powder was then scooped onto a very hot flat clay cooking disk and pressed down in the form of a crepe or pancake... And it as it cooked, it stuck together to form a sort of tortilla.
... And then we ate it... And it was quite tasty I must say. :))
So, then we sat around and had our packed lunches along with the Yuca tortillas, and generally did not much for a couple of hours...
But, there was another form of entertainment on hand in the form af the families pet TeeTee monkey! He had been in the hut since we got there but was a bit shy with strangers at first. But that didnt last long, and he quickly became the centre of our attention and was quite playful (as well as hungry).
I dont know quite how he came to be a pet, but there was the most antiquated relic of a gun in the house that I suspect had a lot to do with it!
The gun was fascinating to me though... It was a really old muzzle loader with an external firing-cap mechanism. But it was sooo corroded and the breach looked like it had been re-welded several times... The thing looked like a real "death trap" to me!... But it was their house, so what can ya say?
Me and the "gun"
The hows and whys not withstanding, the monkey was mischievous and playful... He quite liked to bite gently on your fingers and to then turn around, lay down, and hold your fingers with his back feet... very strange!
But the most fun game for him was to "be the monkey hat"... He did it to every one of us more or less as often as he could... He would scramble, climb or jump onto your head (often when you were not looking or expecting it) and he'd grab on tightly to your hair with all four hands... and then he'd just lay there and enjoy the ride! He was only about 18 months old, so I think it was sort of a surrogate "riding on mums back" thing, but what ever it was, he liked doing it a lot...
I was a bit of a challenge for him though because I didnt have enough hair for him to hang onto, so he had to scrabble quite a bit and it was a bit painful with his little finger-nails raking my scalp.
But I could easily get him off when I wanted whereas the others had long hair and he would really hold on tight and had to be "prised" off with several of us holding his limbs away from the victims hair :)
Me with the "Monkey Hat"on
So, the American frontiersman Davey Crocket and his famous Raccoon skin hat that I think everyone in North America has an iconic image in their mind of, had competition for a day with our Monkey hat!
... and a good time was had by all...
And then we went back up the river to our own little huts with thatched roofs for the night :)
A few pictures of "back in the city" down in the jungle... all there to support the Oil industry as usual...
To do this, we all hopped in the canoe and headed back down river to the junction with the main river. There was a small village there, but on the opposite side of the river there were also a few individual houses in clearings and it was to one of these that we went.
The home consisted of two huts up on stilts about 2.5m off the ground.
They were situated in a cleared area of maybe 300m x 200m in area.
And, living in this clearing was a family of Dad, Mum, two daughters (say 13 and 10 years old) and a son (say 5 years old).
The hut roofs were thatched with palm leaves, the walls were made of planks of wood, and the floors were made of "unrolled" palm trunks. I only saw in the kitchen/eating hut but I assume the other was for sleeping. The kitchen hut was about 20m x 10m, and was simple and spartan ( one stove, two hamocks, one table, and two sitting benches). there were no doors or window shutters at all.
Living under the house (and about the place) were about a dozen chickens and a rooster. There was also a single dog (who looked like he didnt get fed that much but was not starving).
The cleared land was about half fenced off and there were about half a dozen healthy looking Brahman cattle grazing in it, and one bull.
Most of the rest of the land was devoted to crops with about half devoted to subsistence crops of rice (ready to harvest) and Yuca (a 2m high shrub that grows big underground edible tubers)
And there was also a good amount of a cash crop from Cacao trees. Cacao is the raw material that chocolate is made from. The Cacao trees were ready to harvest with the pods of "beans" being a purplish red... The pods are picked and opened and the beans are dried in the sun and then sold in town to middle-men who eventually sell them to the big international chocolate companies.
Cacao tree with pods.
Ripe Cacao pod (though they are usually yellow when ripe)But, we were here to mess around with the Yuca...
First we went out the back and forcibly pulled one of the Yuka plants up out of the ground. Then we dug around and got about a dozen good sized tubers from the root system :)
Then we peeled the dirty skin off the white tubers ready for further processing back at the hut.
Before we headed back to the hut, a short section of the original plant stem was cut off and it was planted in the hole that we had created by pulling up the plant... Apparently in about six months (regardless of season) the plant will have fully regrown and be ready for the next harvesting :)
Back at the hut the tubers were washed and then turned into pulp with a large improvised grater. We all took turns and it didnt take too long to turn the tubers into a large pile of white milky mush!
The mush was then scooped in several handfulls at a time, into a sort of long narrow mat woven from plant fibers.
The mat was then rolled diagonally into a sausage and hung from the hut wall by a loop at one end. A stout stick was then put through a loop in the lower end of the mat and it was "wrung" very forcefully to get as much of the water out of the mush as possible.
The nearly dry Yuka was then taken out of the mat (sort of granular consistency) and rubbed through an improvised sieve.
The resulting finish powder was then scooped onto a very hot flat clay cooking disk and pressed down in the form of a crepe or pancake... And it as it cooked, it stuck together to form a sort of tortilla.
... And then we ate it... And it was quite tasty I must say. :))
So, then we sat around and had our packed lunches along with the Yuca tortillas, and generally did not much for a couple of hours...
But, there was another form of entertainment on hand in the form af the families pet TeeTee monkey! He had been in the hut since we got there but was a bit shy with strangers at first. But that didnt last long, and he quickly became the centre of our attention and was quite playful (as well as hungry).
I dont know quite how he came to be a pet, but there was the most antiquated relic of a gun in the house that I suspect had a lot to do with it!
The gun was fascinating to me though... It was a really old muzzle loader with an external firing-cap mechanism. But it was sooo corroded and the breach looked like it had been re-welded several times... The thing looked like a real "death trap" to me!... But it was their house, so what can ya say?
Me and the "gun"The hows and whys not withstanding, the monkey was mischievous and playful... He quite liked to bite gently on your fingers and to then turn around, lay down, and hold your fingers with his back feet... very strange!
But the most fun game for him was to "be the monkey hat"... He did it to every one of us more or less as often as he could... He would scramble, climb or jump onto your head (often when you were not looking or expecting it) and he'd grab on tightly to your hair with all four hands... and then he'd just lay there and enjoy the ride! He was only about 18 months old, so I think it was sort of a surrogate "riding on mums back" thing, but what ever it was, he liked doing it a lot...
I was a bit of a challenge for him though because I didnt have enough hair for him to hang onto, so he had to scrabble quite a bit and it was a bit painful with his little finger-nails raking my scalp.
But I could easily get him off when I wanted whereas the others had long hair and he would really hold on tight and had to be "prised" off with several of us holding his limbs away from the victims hair :)
Me with the "Monkey Hat"on
So, the American frontiersman Davey Crocket and his famous Raccoon skin hat that I think everyone in North America has an iconic image in their mind of, had competition for a day with our Monkey hat!
... and a good time was had by all...
And then we went back up the river to our own little huts with thatched roofs for the night :)
A few pictures of "back in the city" down in the jungle... all there to support the Oil industry as usual...
Piranah
Oh, and of course, we went fishing for Piranha too...
The little river that we were on is called a "black water river" which was different to the big one that we came most of the way on in the canoe. The difference is that the main river comes from up in the mountains and as a result of its long steep descent, it ends up carrying a lot of sediment and is pretty well permanently a milky brown colour... and has relatively low visibility due to the turbidity. But, our little river is much smaller, and though it is quite long, it originates in the lowlands and thus does not get the same tumbling ride down the mountains and it carries far less sediment.
And in the rainy season, these lowland rivers (that flow more slowly than the big ones) have lower banks (not cut as deeply due to the slower currents) and they overflow and flood out into the surrounding jungle. And this flooding covers the jungle floor and all the accumulated leaf litter which is washed into the river and lines the bottom...
And it is pretty well composted and all the natural tannins and organic colour from this stain the rivers waters to a dark coffee brown... It looks opaque when you are floating along in the canoe, but if you go past a dead tree in the water you can see down along the trunk, that its not got sediment in it... Its just the "leaf tea" that is making it look dark...
And its in these "black water" rivers that Piranha like to live... I dont know for sure but I assume its because they are carnivorous and they like to get access to the jungle when the river overflows because of the greater supplies of "fresh meat"! And Id also guess (now that Ive seen one "up close and personal" so to speak) that they are visual hunters because they have quite large (and very red) eyes that probably dont work very effectively in the turbid waters of the main river.
Anyway... When we first got to the jungle camp, we were told that it was fine to go swimming off the dock so long as we dindt go too far out where the currents were strong. And due to the heat, I fully intended to go have a swim one afternoon during siesta...
Note the "was"!
Because on the day we went fishing, we didnt have much luck. We went off in the canoe and they took us to good spots for piranha but it was wet season and the jungle was flooded and the fish were dispersed and apparently well fed. We tried several spots and it was the same story each time... We would drop our lines in the deep still shady places and within a minute or two we would get a couple of good strong nibbles... But we failed set the hooks despite our best efforts and we brought up nothing... Actually, when we did pull up the hooks, I was surprised to see how much of the chunk of tough meat that Id bated the hook with had "gone missing" with just a moderate "tug".. Clearly these guys had good sharp teeth!
.. But, that was all the evidence I got of their existence because despite having some skilled fishing people on the boat, we couldnt land one.
So, as dinner time approached, we eventually headed back to camp.
And as we tourists went to our huts to drop off cameras and hats etc, one of the camp staff decided to cast his line off the swimming dock and he immediately pulled in a good sized piranha!
I dont think it was any surprise to him at all.. I think they often catch them there!... Im just a bit amused that they tell us that its fine to go swimming there...
But I figure they know what they are doing so its probably safe like they say it is...
But as safe as it may be, that little experience seemed to dissipate all my swimming desires for the rest of the trip! :))
But I am glad to have seen the piranha ... It had a very nice set of very sharp serrated little teeth...
It also had beautifull big red eyes, and very nice iridescent dappling of purple and red colours on its sides...
And about an hour later I found that it also tastes quite nice, though it has relatively little meat on its very solid little bony body :)
... And that was the last we saw of Piranhas!
The little river that we were on is called a "black water river" which was different to the big one that we came most of the way on in the canoe. The difference is that the main river comes from up in the mountains and as a result of its long steep descent, it ends up carrying a lot of sediment and is pretty well permanently a milky brown colour... and has relatively low visibility due to the turbidity. But, our little river is much smaller, and though it is quite long, it originates in the lowlands and thus does not get the same tumbling ride down the mountains and it carries far less sediment.
And in the rainy season, these lowland rivers (that flow more slowly than the big ones) have lower banks (not cut as deeply due to the slower currents) and they overflow and flood out into the surrounding jungle. And this flooding covers the jungle floor and all the accumulated leaf litter which is washed into the river and lines the bottom...
And it is pretty well composted and all the natural tannins and organic colour from this stain the rivers waters to a dark coffee brown... It looks opaque when you are floating along in the canoe, but if you go past a dead tree in the water you can see down along the trunk, that its not got sediment in it... Its just the "leaf tea" that is making it look dark...
And its in these "black water" rivers that Piranha like to live... I dont know for sure but I assume its because they are carnivorous and they like to get access to the jungle when the river overflows because of the greater supplies of "fresh meat"! And Id also guess (now that Ive seen one "up close and personal" so to speak) that they are visual hunters because they have quite large (and very red) eyes that probably dont work very effectively in the turbid waters of the main river.
Anyway... When we first got to the jungle camp, we were told that it was fine to go swimming off the dock so long as we dindt go too far out where the currents were strong. And due to the heat, I fully intended to go have a swim one afternoon during siesta...
Note the "was"!
Because on the day we went fishing, we didnt have much luck. We went off in the canoe and they took us to good spots for piranha but it was wet season and the jungle was flooded and the fish were dispersed and apparently well fed. We tried several spots and it was the same story each time... We would drop our lines in the deep still shady places and within a minute or two we would get a couple of good strong nibbles... But we failed set the hooks despite our best efforts and we brought up nothing... Actually, when we did pull up the hooks, I was surprised to see how much of the chunk of tough meat that Id bated the hook with had "gone missing" with just a moderate "tug".. Clearly these guys had good sharp teeth!
.. But, that was all the evidence I got of their existence because despite having some skilled fishing people on the boat, we couldnt land one.
So, as dinner time approached, we eventually headed back to camp.
And as we tourists went to our huts to drop off cameras and hats etc, one of the camp staff decided to cast his line off the swimming dock and he immediately pulled in a good sized piranha!
I dont think it was any surprise to him at all.. I think they often catch them there!... Im just a bit amused that they tell us that its fine to go swimming there...
But I figure they know what they are doing so its probably safe like they say it is...
But as safe as it may be, that little experience seemed to dissipate all my swimming desires for the rest of the trip! :))
But I am glad to have seen the piranha ... It had a very nice set of very sharp serrated little teeth...
It also had beautifull big red eyes, and very nice iridescent dappling of purple and red colours on its sides...
And about an hour later I found that it also tastes quite nice, though it has relatively little meat on its very solid little bony body :)
... And that was the last we saw of Piranhas!
Life in the Emerald Forrest
So, what did we do there in the middle of the jungle with no roads or electricity...
Quite a lot actually :)
During the days we usually did three or four "activities" and interspersed them with meals and afternoon siestas... And the activities were for the most part, drifting or motoring quietly along the river and side lagoons looking for wildlife...
(We did a couple of other things too but they will be covered in separate posts)
And we saw quite a lot...
... Note here that Im gonna use a few pictures from the net that I did not take so you can see the critters Im talking about...
There were far too many birds to identify let alone name...
Some of the more interesting ones were the Hoatzin, which is like a chicken or turkey but when they are chicks, they have finger claws on their wings and they clamber about the trees using all four limbs (like prehistoric birds).
(not my picture... from the web)
And there was a large King Vulture which as far as "birds of prey" go is probably the most colourful as well as being in my oppinion, a contender for being the ugliest!
(not my picture... from the web)
There were several pairs of the big blue and yellow Macaws (they are monogamous) and one big red Macaw.
There were four or five varieties of Toucans (in assorted colours and sizes) with their huge beaks, and several sorts of smaller and usually mostly green parrots/lorikeets. And there were a couple of kinds of swallows, and a couple of king fishers and an almost infinite supply of slightly different types of fly-catchers and ant-birds etc.
The birds were mostly too far away for pictures, but having been an avid bird-watcher as a kid, I enjoyed seeing them all and was pretty good at identifying their families and types even after all the years since I was "into" watching them :)
Mammals wise, there were a couple of three toed sloths way up in the tops of trees... It was good to see them through the binoculars but my camera couldnt do anything with them :)
There were a couple of species of bats, and there were both grey and pink river dolphins too (Though glimpses only and no pictures).
Cant see the bats on this log...
Take a closer look!
But by far the most diverse, common and interesting ones that we saw were the primates... There were seven different primate species (of the nine that are found in the area) including :- Squirrel, White Faced Capuccin, TeeTee, Sakki, Wooly, and Red Howler monkeys, and lastly, the little Black Mantled Tamarinds.
It was very interesting seeing all the different types of monkeys and we could see them carrying their babies and jumping big distances between trees etc, but it was a different story when it came to trying to take pictures of them... Very difficult! (especially with my little point-and-shoot)... They almost always just look like small blurry black silhouette blobs, so not much in the way of pictures Im afraid (Only got good pictures of three out of the seven).... But I sure enjoyed just seeing them all :))
Squirrel monkey
White Faced Capuccin monkey
TeeTee monkey
... The silhouette pictures!
And we did a couple of walks in the jungle as well and we got to see some more of the smaller critters...
There were of course, plenty of bity mosquitoes (and they could bite you through your clothes too), and there were a couple of leaf camouflaged frogs as well quite a few tortoises resting on logs in the river.
Camouflage is pretty effective!
And there was a very pretty but very small green snake (Id have liked to see more reptiles I admit)
Insects wise (well, the larger types anyway), there were quite a few different grasshoppers, and spiders sitting in their webs as well.
But the most "interesting" spiders were of course the huge black velvety Tarantulas that only came out at night (They lived in either burrows on the jungle floor or in the loose dead leaves on the bannana palms ... Though one did wander into the kitchen one night... I guess he was feeling a bit peckish! :) )... Honestly, they were the size of your face !... Which is not the most pleasant concept for a scale of reference I admit! :)))
Ohh, and of course, I cant fail to mention that there were miriad amazing buterflies...
... And of course more of my favourite iridescent blue Morpho butterflies...I saw at least three different species and again, the largest was the size of napkin... Like a bright blue handkerchief flapping through the jungle :)))
But, again they are almost impossible to get pictures of... Low light, maximum zoom, fast moving target, and a tiny little point and shoot camera!
So, another picture from the net (just so you know what Im talking about)
(not my picture... from the web)
... And finally, what about the plant life?...
Well, what can I say... It was the Amazon jungle!...
Yes, there were more plants than I could "poke my trusty stick at"!
... And the vermilion jungle went monotonously on for many many miles in every direction... With more variety and diversity than any of us can scarcely imagine :)!!
And it was good ...... Apart from those damn insect bites!
Did I mention that they were itchy?... Well, they were in fact VERY VERY itchy... And they were in places were one should not have to scratch too!.
Honestly!... There should be laws prohibiting insects from biting you in some places!!
But it was still good... Very good. :)))
And after four days of this, the canoe headed back along the river at high speed the way it had come in, and it took all day to "quickly" extract myself from the clutches of that primitive world of green !
Quite a lot actually :)
During the days we usually did three or four "activities" and interspersed them with meals and afternoon siestas... And the activities were for the most part, drifting or motoring quietly along the river and side lagoons looking for wildlife...
(We did a couple of other things too but they will be covered in separate posts)
And we saw quite a lot...
... Note here that Im gonna use a few pictures from the net that I did not take so you can see the critters Im talking about...
There were far too many birds to identify let alone name...
Some of the more interesting ones were the Hoatzin, which is like a chicken or turkey but when they are chicks, they have finger claws on their wings and they clamber about the trees using all four limbs (like prehistoric birds).
(not my picture... from the web)And there was a large King Vulture which as far as "birds of prey" go is probably the most colourful as well as being in my oppinion, a contender for being the ugliest!
(not my picture... from the web)There were several pairs of the big blue and yellow Macaws (they are monogamous) and one big red Macaw.
There were four or five varieties of Toucans (in assorted colours and sizes) with their huge beaks, and several sorts of smaller and usually mostly green parrots/lorikeets. And there were a couple of kinds of swallows, and a couple of king fishers and an almost infinite supply of slightly different types of fly-catchers and ant-birds etc.
The birds were mostly too far away for pictures, but having been an avid bird-watcher as a kid, I enjoyed seeing them all and was pretty good at identifying their families and types even after all the years since I was "into" watching them :)
Mammals wise, there were a couple of three toed sloths way up in the tops of trees... It was good to see them through the binoculars but my camera couldnt do anything with them :)
There were a couple of species of bats, and there were both grey and pink river dolphins too (Though glimpses only and no pictures).
Cant see the bats on this log...
Take a closer look!But by far the most diverse, common and interesting ones that we saw were the primates... There were seven different primate species (of the nine that are found in the area) including :- Squirrel, White Faced Capuccin, TeeTee, Sakki, Wooly, and Red Howler monkeys, and lastly, the little Black Mantled Tamarinds.
It was very interesting seeing all the different types of monkeys and we could see them carrying their babies and jumping big distances between trees etc, but it was a different story when it came to trying to take pictures of them... Very difficult! (especially with my little point-and-shoot)... They almost always just look like small blurry black silhouette blobs, so not much in the way of pictures Im afraid (Only got good pictures of three out of the seven).... But I sure enjoyed just seeing them all :))
Squirrel monkey
White Faced Capuccin monkey
TeeTee monkey
... The silhouette pictures!And we did a couple of walks in the jungle as well and we got to see some more of the smaller critters...
There were of course, plenty of bity mosquitoes (and they could bite you through your clothes too), and there were a couple of leaf camouflaged frogs as well quite a few tortoises resting on logs in the river.
Camouflage is pretty effective!
And there was a very pretty but very small green snake (Id have liked to see more reptiles I admit)
Insects wise (well, the larger types anyway), there were quite a few different grasshoppers, and spiders sitting in their webs as well.
But the most "interesting" spiders were of course the huge black velvety Tarantulas that only came out at night (They lived in either burrows on the jungle floor or in the loose dead leaves on the bannana palms ... Though one did wander into the kitchen one night... I guess he was feeling a bit peckish! :) )... Honestly, they were the size of your face !... Which is not the most pleasant concept for a scale of reference I admit! :)))
Ohh, and of course, I cant fail to mention that there were miriad amazing buterflies...
... And of course more of my favourite iridescent blue Morpho butterflies...I saw at least three different species and again, the largest was the size of napkin... Like a bright blue handkerchief flapping through the jungle :)))
But, again they are almost impossible to get pictures of... Low light, maximum zoom, fast moving target, and a tiny little point and shoot camera!
So, another picture from the net (just so you know what Im talking about)
(not my picture... from the web)... And finally, what about the plant life?...
Well, what can I say... It was the Amazon jungle!...
Yes, there were more plants than I could "poke my trusty stick at"!
... And the vermilion jungle went monotonously on for many many miles in every direction... With more variety and diversity than any of us can scarcely imagine :)!!
And it was good ...... Apart from those damn insect bites!
Did I mention that they were itchy?... Well, they were in fact VERY VERY itchy... And they were in places were one should not have to scratch too!.
Honestly!... There should be laws prohibiting insects from biting you in some places!!
But it was still good... Very good. :)))
And after four days of this, the canoe headed back along the river at high speed the way it had come in, and it took all day to "quickly" extract myself from the clutches of that primitive world of green !
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