Barton Creek Outpost, Bets & Rambo

The next 3 days were spent chilling out at Barton Creek Outpost, a kind of hostel-come-restaurant that is to become Trekforce’s new field base. We didn’t completely escape from work, however, as there was plumbing to be done. To say that the group was inexperienced at this would be a massive understatement. We left without testing anything, so fingers crossed! The food at the Creek was fantastic, and the rope swings and cliff jumping left us wishing we could stay for longer.

Dick has earnt 3 cheese burgers through bets about nails and Jasper and Big Dom have spent most of their time eating like kings back at field base, tempting us with professional looking photos of steak and potatoes, and smoking grape flavoured cigars. Dave likes gravy and custard almost too much, and Harry continues to believe that he is Rambo.

As we write this to the background noise of Dick’s snoring, we look forward to heading out tomorrow on a short canoe trip before returning to Elijio Panti National Park to do another project. Bring on the next 4 weeks!

Boardwalk into a lagoon project

Our first project was the long anticipated ‘boardwalk into a lagoon’ at Hill Bank. When we arrived we were amazed by the facilities, which included clean shower and toilet blocks, and a lot of spacious clean rooms. Unfortunately those rooms were not for us and we set up a rather muddy camp in the jungle nearby. The boardwalk we began to build the next day was indeed into a beautiful lagoon with crystal clear water, but the particular location that had been chosen happened to be the swampiest, smelliest, crocodile infested corner by some mangroves.

For the next 6 days we worked hard and enjoyed Harry’s generous ration plan, which saw us eating more than a sensible amount of chocolate biscuits.

On the way back from Hill Bank we stopped off for a night at the ancient mayan ruins at Lamanai, where we watched the sunset and rise from the top of the high temple, which 2000 years ago was the highest building in the whole Mayan area and afforded us fantastic views over the jungle and lagoon.

Unfortunately Frenchie had to leave at this point, as she had already extended her stay by a week. Her strange French ways and willingness to give anything a go will be missed. Now who will tell Jack off for farting while we eat?!

Waterfall Camp & R&R

Next we moved on to the beautiful waterfall camp for advanced training. We played with ropes in the river (ahem, learnt about river crossing), and learnt about shelter and trap building. Our instructor in much of this was the goldmine of all jungle information, Marcos, who used to train the SAS. He showed us the best way to eat termites, and how to eat the heart of the cohune palm, amongst other handy tips.

During all of this we were kept on our toes by a game of jungle cluedo, which Frenchie won with an impressive 4 assassinations. On the final night before we left Elijio Panti we went on a night walk. This basically consisted of a conga line led by (and terrorized by) Colin wending its way through the pitch black jungle with no head torches on.

Our first R+R back at field base began in rather messy fashion with a night out in San Ignacio. The cheap drinks got the better of some! We visited the Belize zoo, which is a strange mix of big cats in small cages and monkeys roaming free throughout. It was on this night that we had a roast dinner, although if those Yorkshire puddings were served anywhere in the UK the chef would probably be shot. Our final day of relaxing was spent by the swimming pool of a nearby resort, where Dick set up a strategically placed sun-lounger and spent most of the afternoon pretending to read amongst a group of American girls who were staying at the hotel.

Jungle Training & Machete Use

Its 26 days since we trekkers arrived in Belize eager to get stuck into jungle life. The time has flown by but much has been accomplished.

After half an hour to sort out our bags, get into our jungle gear and meet our fellow ninjas, we were straight into an hours walk to our first camp in Elijio Panti National Park. The first week consisted of basic jungle survival skills under the tuition of the TELs with their 2 months of knowledge and experience.

The first 2 days of our jungle adventure kicked off in style as Jack spent most of the night snoring farting and sleep talking. First thing in the morning we were paired into ‘buddies’ and played team building games which often ended in scraps between our two role models and leaders, Colin and Jade. After blindfolded obstacle courses we moved on to the advanced tests of our buddy skills. The Trekkers took on the TELs in a game of paralyzed farmer, blind dog. Needless to say the trekkers came out on top with a tremendous display of how to round up deaf dumb and blind sheep into a palapa.

Although we trekkers didn’t quite understand the novelty, the TELs were all amazed when Jasper and Harry revealed that they had managed to carry 6 eggs, unbroken, into camp. The sensible thing to do would have been enjoy the treat, but we had to have an epic egg and spoon race first, fortunately only one was broken (not naming names Frenchie!).

Putting aside the shenanigans of the first few days we rolled on into the more serious side of jungle life. Through jungle observation we learnt how to spot items of Dick’s belt kit but failed to spot Dick himself amongst them. Wendy instructed us in jungle hygiene, which turned out to be a bit futile as Jack only brought 1 pair of boxers with him. Jasper taught us which items to carry on us at all times in our belt kit. Nearly everything in his own was in some way useable to start a fire, which led nicely on to Harry’s lessons. We were excited to get our hands on our machetes, but that only meant a morning of chopping firewood for our fire lighting lesson. After about an hour of burning our fingers with lighters the pros stepped in to show us how it is done.

With all these skills we were ready for our first foray into the jungle on our own for solo night. While Jack was still setting up his basha Dave snuck round and stole most of the good fire lighting materials in his area. On the other side Frenchie and Dom set up quite quickly and were on the hunt for dry wood too to get a brew on. In the end we all got fires going, and settled in for the night.

Local guide / professional jungle ninja Antonio spent a few days with us to pass on his vast knowledge of the local flora and fauna (he knows over 200 different birds). Hopefully we won’t need most of the stuff he taught us, as it was for pretty extreme problems. Highlights included the ‘Plugyourbutt’ tree, the ‘Waitawhile’ vine and ‘Jackass Bitter’.

By the end of the initial training phase we knew which ants to use to stitch wounds up, which tree to cut down for pink cocaine and which trees would splash us with poisonous sap.

Borneo – July 2010 - Jungle Training

The first thing we learned on arrival in Miri was that you don’t need a jungle to start jungle training (the second thing we learned was that it’s possible to rent second hand Speedos from the public swimming pool, although you don’t want to have to). Due to the rather staggered arrival of members of the group, those who’d arrived earlier were rewarded with a trip to Niah Caves and we got our first glimpse of the jungle along with bats, ancient wall paintings and giant spiders.

Once the laggards of the group had finally joined up with us we got a lot of training under our belt (kits) and somehow found time to fit in sessions between almost constant trips to Ming’s Cafe and the Miss Sarawak 2010 preview in Imperial Mall. Somewhat suspiciously perhaps it was only once the models had left that Oz managed to negotiate the plane tickets to Bario and we were on our way.

The plane ride to the remote village of Bario is spectacular with some absolutely stunning views, although judging by Bob’s childlike glee the best view was the one he had of the pilots in the cockpit.

Our supplies arrived the following day, having taken the tortuous 16-hour trip by logging road. After a brief period of mourning for the few cans of beer that hadn’t survived the trip Jungle Training continued in earnest. A session in navigation was judged a great success when no-one got lost while pacing in a muddy field, although we were warned sterner challenges would follow once trees got involved. The hospitality of Stuart and Saluma made us reluctant to leave the comfort of Raja Inn, but the jungle was calling.

As we quickly learned to appreciate, there is a world of difference between talking about the jungle and actually stumbling through it in all its wet, hot, biting, stinging glory. The first leech victim (Matt) was duly revered and reviled in a manner which we would remember in later days with wry amusement as we expertly flicked hundreds of the tiny suckers off our boots.

Although Oz and Al played it cool, there was no hiding the fact that the ‘gentle introductory trek’ to JT Camp had been made unexpectedly hardcore by the heavy rains upriver. When you’re already waist deep in water it’s too late to check your notes on river-crossing, but everyone was excited to be putting the theory into practice and putting their jungle boots to the test.

Soaked, sweating and slightly slimy we stumbled ever closer to the much-vaunted JT camp. We couldn’t help but imagine the jungle paradise that awaited, complete - we assumed - with vine swings and all the jungle mod-cons. Al’s laughter as he turned the corner ahead of us was the first clue that we were in for a shock - not just because there were no monkey butlers, but because there was no floor. The rains that had turned paths to rivers had also turned the camp into a tree-studded swimming pool. We briefly considered introducing the dive phase early but on balance decided the jungle had won this round and we’d return to Bario for another bash at a different (and much higher) camp in the morning. Nothing in our jungle training had prepared us for Tom’s rendition of Jerusalem as he attempted to lift our spirits, although in the weeks to come it would slowly become, like leeches and mosquito bites, merely part of the tolerated background irritants of the jungle.

After a further trek the next day we were understandably relieved to find Hornbill camp intact and as dry as things ever are in a rainforest.

We soon got used to the jungle routine and rattled through the rest of Jungle Training with no problems until we were, in theory at least, fire-lighting, animal-trapping, parang-wielding jungle geniuses. It still remained for us to prove ourselves however and the fires of solo night (or, in some cases, the damp piles of wood of solo night) differentiated those that had been listening and those more interested in myriad of jungle bugs and long drop etiquette. Though some of us ate our noodles dry and cold, nobody actually died, so we returned to Bario victorious to celebrate the completion of Jungle Training and the beginning of our conservation project.

You could say that we’d got stuck in and we’d nailed it (Oz’s daily shouts of encouragement).

TELs - July - Snakes, Caves and R&R

Never have so many owed so much to the teachings of so few as under Marcus’ calm instruction we undertook advanced jungle training and continued our development from urban warriors to advanced jungle ninja’s. Traps, fire lighting and shelter building are all now part of expanding repertoire of skills for belt kit night.

A life on the stage is calling for Trekker Gavin whose stunning performance as a suicidal teenager was widely applauded and gave a healthy dose of realism to our first 2am night time scenario. It culminated with him lying unconscious in a river, with first aid and a stretcher carry from the TEL’s his only hope of survival. Success is relative and though we missed the helicopter pick up and he died from a broken neck we all learnt masses and with lots more scenarios to come it was deemed an early success by all the TEL’s.

Sadly the group had to say an early goodbye to Jasper who learnt quickly the disadvantage of being 4-8 inches taller than everybody else on a long stretcher carry after his back gave way. The onset of “man flu”, which took down James too, meant an early exit for both. A temporary setback with both rejoining the group a few days later.

The group also sadly said goodbye to Melissa. The “Doc” who had performed a heroic task in teaching us first aid and had quickly become the sixth TEL to all of us. Her constant cries to “man up” and seemingly endless supply of little goodies to pull from her bag (cappucino’s in the jungle!) will be sorely missed. We look forward to the UK reunion!

Harry the snake magnet continued in his rich vein of form, picking up his belt kit to go to bed he inadvertently disturbed a coral snake that had made it home. “Close-ish” examination by Dom, Harry and Dick led to identification of a Coral rather than King snake with understandable excitement. After settling down Harry and Dick went to bed comfortable in the knowledge that it was last seen heading in the direction of Dom’s hammock.

Advanced jungle concluded with solo night, early practice for belt kit night and our first night alone in the jungle, a challenge we all relished! All survived but first prize went to Harry who in a 12 hour period built a 3 storey condo with foot spa, closely followed by Wendy whose non-stop macheteing from start to finish of solo night led to an impressive shelter. True to form Dick set a fire, built a basic shelter and relaxed for the afternoon with coffee and biscuits, tasks accomplished. All reflected on how good it felt to be on your own in such a fabulous place.

It’s difficult to briefly describe the packed 5 days that made up rescue training but needless to say 5 days with the Belize Disaster Recovery Team is to be recommended to all! Reunited with Marcus and apprentice son Francis they set about teaching us knots, improvised stretchers, splints and belay set ups for people and stretchers. The undoubted highlight for all was the 100ft abseil. All the TEL’s acknowledged the added pressure of setting up your own anchor and belay when it’s the only thing between you and a 100ft fall. The camp itself was beautiful, right on top of a ridge and a 5 min walk to the river. The well deserved swim and wash every night was a welcome break for all. The only disadvantage of a high ridge became clear on night three when a truly awesome lightning, thunder and rain storm sat over the camp for the night. It was a pretty sleepless night for everyone as we soon discovered that bashers don’t work well in horizontal rain.

Harry again managed to find himself face to face with a snake the next day, a fer-de-lance this time, while walking the bank for a swim in just his lycra undies. Needless to say he was quickly seen running the other way, better judgement telling him to find somewhere else to swim!

Day 5, the final day of rescue training and all the TEL’s knew a scenario was looming so the 6 whistles and a call to arms at 2am came as no surprise. A quick pack and we were on the road in the dark for an hour march to our scenario location “Dragons Bottom Cave” where a 24 year old female had managed to injure herself in the back of the cave. The caves were never more than 2 ft high or 5 ft wide and usually a lot less with mud and clay covering the floor and bats screaming around overhead. It certainly wasn’t a place for the faint hearted or claustrophobic! Harry led the team, supported by medic dick, Wendy and James all ably helped by Dom, Marcus and Francis. Quickly the team formulated a plan set about the belay for the stretcher and headed into the cave to deliver first aid and package the patient for Casevac. 8 people in the tiny spaces led to the TEL’S getting closer than at any other time in the last 2 months but 5 hours later, a lot muddier and with patient in tow we emerged into daylight! Our joy and praise was short lived when it became clear we still had more to do. Another belay set up and this time we were working the stretcher and patient down a steep drop to the river and safety. Scenario complete 10 hours after it started. Our reward, a thirty minute drift down river and rapids without a canoe or raft in site (the perfect way to travel in the jungle) to the road, the bus, civilization and most importantly 4 days of R&R.

All TEL’s reunited for R&R, James decided to head to the Cayes and the beaches, the sensible choice it later transpired. The remaining 4 paired up (Jasper & Harry, Dick & Wendy) and embarked on “The Big Hitch”, an audacious and as it turns out hopelessly optimistic plan to hitch down to Costa Rica and back in 4 days, covering Belize, Nicaragua, Guatemala and El Salvador. All went well after setting off at 6pm and both pairs arrived in Belmopan an hour after setting off having successfully picked up rides in pick up trucks. The plan to hitch through the night to Punta Gorda proved impossible as with everyone else heading to bed the roads emptied and the 4 TEL’s found themselves wondering the quiet highway in the dark. With much regret we flagged down a bus to Dangriga and hunkered down there for the night and an early start. The 5am start began well with a lift on an arctic lorry carrying breeze blocks meaning we made good progress for the planned 9am ferry to Guatemala from Punta Gorda. Unfortunately 2 hours in it took a wrong right turn and reluctantly we had to jump off. A hot, sweaty couple of hours later without another ride we reluctantly flagged down a bus to ensure we all made the 9am ferry and to stand a fighting chance of hitting Costa Rica. Little did we know the bus would take 5 hours to cover 70 miles, stopping every 200 yards and working it’s way through villages picking up cement, animals and laundry. It meant we didn’t arrive till midday much hotter, sweatier and a lot less enthusiastic for more travel. We had made the 1pm high speed ferry and hit Porta Barros in Guatemala that afternoon.

Maybe it was the sea air or the tranquil beaches that passed us as we rode the ferry but as we sipped a couple of beers in a bar in Porta Barros before hitching on it hit us all. The thought of a hot highway versus golden sands and cocktails was no contest and so we made a group decision to abandon the hitch there and then. 3 days resting in Livingstone, next to the beach, the bar and the cocktail menu proved it to be the right decision, it was after all R&R!

A fresh influx of trekkers arrive tomorrow. It’s now time for the pupils to become the teachers and our challenge for the next week and beyond is to impart our knowledge and newly learnt wisdom to them all. Final lesson plans and logistics planning before their arrival are the important tasks for now. 6 weeks remaining of our TEL’s course and we’ve lost none of the excitement or trepidation about what lies ahead!

Borneo- April Phase 2010 Update

Trekforce Borneo – Kelabit Cultural Site conservation project – April 2010

After our gruelling introduction to the wild brilliance of the Sarawak rainforest during jungle training, we enjoyed some hearty celebrations to conclude our first venture 'into the wild'. This involved relaxing and repairing in the palatial longhouse in Bario and imbibing 'Bar Y2K''s locally renowned and tasty combo of karaoke and moonshine. The vocal talents displayed have spawned a group-wide desire to create a new musical phenomenon - 'Mouth Full Of Wax' (Watch this space for the full band line up and tour dates).

Once packed and thoroughly re-hydrated, we headed back into the jungley fray for a fortnight of incredibly challenging conditions on our first jungle conservation project. Despite now being trained to a level of expertise rivalling both the majestic Mears and the ludicrous Grylls, the weather, insects and the group’s collective malco-ordination had other plans for us. They clubbed together to provide some quite remarkable challenges and frequent unscripted drama in this unfolding jungle epic...

The start of project brought with it four skilled local guides backslash Jungle Supermen: Ken (the climber), Josh (the happy accident-prone hero), Migan (the permo-giggler) and Timor (the most efficient swordsman to ever wield a perang).

Over the next two weeks, we were led to a total of five fascinating Kelabit cultural sites including giant stone megaliths (allegedly carried there by Kelabit warriors as a display of their strength) and several burial sites with intricately carved dragon burial jars.

Our task was to GPS mark these sites before cutting and marking 300 square meter boundaries around each site. In four competitive teams we scythed through the jungle to cut and mark our own sides of each boundary. The benefits of this project are manifold as we are simultaneously protecting this valuable Kelabit cultural heritage, creating large areas of protected rainforest, protecting the wildlife within them, as well creating a both barrier of legally impassable rainforest to the onslaught of the logging companies (due to the profligacy of the sites in this area rendering it uneconomic to harvest). Finally, the site protection creates alternative employment for local people in the form of guiding eco-tourists rather than working for the logging companies.

For some, the project also served as a period of advanced perang training. For Rhi, Mike and Andy however, it was a case of lessons learned as they soon became a trio of thumb related casualties and the three most likely to try to blag a lift back to Bario.

The daily challenge of cutting the boundaries brought together some legendary partnerships, such as Oz and Ben (who recreated the film ‘300’ with their fierce perang attacks on the vines and thorns while bellowing King Leonidas quotes with every step) and then Rian and Josh’s breath-taking boundary cutting pace.

Due to the aforementioned triumvirate of insects, weather and sheer clumsiness, the medical kits were in almost hourly use. Also our Jungle Guide Rian providing us with his cryptic riddles, magic tricks, card games and occasional supply of surprise chicken and sausages.

The most influential challenge of all however was the RAIN. The continuous, torrential, tropical, thunderous, angry, lashing, all-powerful rain that hammered the jungle and our camp in particular for almost the entire duration of project. The camp became a boggy quagmire (with mud somehow climbing up your clothes to shoulder level even on just a short walk to the water collection point). Legs were weighed down with around 2 stone of mud per foot and keeping ‘dry kit’ to bearable moistness required extreme skill and labour.

Two weeks of these conditions barely dented the groups collective enthusiasm for jungle life, but when dead fall began to compete with the rain for air space, Al and Oz decided to de-camp and retreat to Rian’s village Pa’ Umor for safety’s sake.

One cultural site remained, the site previously abandoned on the wasp infested trail. To avoid a rematch, we decided to reach the site via boat and while the continued rain rendered the river un-navigable, we happily soaked up the comfort and warmth of the Pa’ Umor long house and hospitality of the local people. Daily mud/rain/thorn/insect endurance was pleasantly replaced with the consumption of vast quantities of pineapple curry, tapioca chips, coffee with condensed milk endless 'Milos' (heart-warming and bowel-shifting hot chocolate). The dark gallows banter which had developed in the jungle even lightened to the odd possibly printable joke. Maybe not.

During this period of anticipation, Bario became an enormous lake. This left the herculean Oz (who had scampered there alone to retrieve additional medical supplies and several crates of Oranjeboom) stranded (in the palatial luxury of Raja Inn).

The river eventually receded and we piled into a long boat / colander - which required continuous bailing of muddy river water to stay float throughout each trip. Such trifles, were quickly put aside however as we witnessed the beauty of the primary rainforest from the outside for the first time. This included a truly magical sighting of a large short-tailed Macaque (We await the development of Mike’s disposable camera to see if he was captured)(On film that is. We left the monkey well alone).

With our final cultural site protected, we celebrated the completion of our first conservation project and Andy's birthday in epic fashion. The weak-stomached scamp was forcibly dressed in some bizarre attire to raise his spirits and with a hearty Raja Inn feast inside us, we retired to our local – the Y2K bar – for hilarious chat with the Bario locals, electric shape cutting on the dance floor and some riotous renditions of 80’s power ballads.

Happy days with lovely people. Bring on project two...