Shananagans

Well, I have arrived in Guatemala! After much debate, I decided to take my chances and not put Jake in a box, but rather just wheel on up to the airline counter. There was a lot of chaos at the airport. A LOT. But then, really, flight was delayed anyway due to mechanical error, so the fact that I was personally escorted all through the airport with men talking on walkie talkies and doing hand-offs of me, well, this was just a sideshow! My stars were not in alignment.

The lack of box, I have decided is not ENTIRELY my fault, you see, I extended my stay a bit in Tena in order to take part in this kayaking/biking/running race (relay...guess which leg i did). This cut down on available time. But then also, you will remember that my box was pretty smahsed in before. And then I left it at a hostel anyway for my return, but during some construction they moved it and it got a bit wet, and I just didn't want Jake to suffer more injury.

Roommate James already discussed with me a bit regarding my "shannanigans," if you will. More like a disucssion and lot of incredulous head shaking. But really, I thought about it and decided that if you consider the fact that he featured my less-than-mechanically perfect skills on HIS blog, and in fact, claims I even heated up the whole house with my mechanical endevours and considereing that Ecuador is already hot enough, I really was doing everyone a favor. That is how I think of it. His account of me preparing Jake for the journey is at http://hambonestyle.blogspot.com/2005/10/ecuador-guatemala-for-meg.html

Though, to my defense, the only grunting occured when i was trying to undo screws that, notably, i did not install. Furthermore, two guys also tried and could not get them undone, despite making their faces very red. Only THEN did James think he would bring out a different tool with more leverage. And the 6 hours included a trip or two to the store.

Jake is here, however. Alive and Kicking. Just wanted to make sure none of you were worried. And you should check out James' blog regardless, I usually find it pretty entertaining. -- Without talking to each other about it, we both started one on the same day.

Hemingway once said...

"It is by riding a bicycle that you learn the contours of acountry best, since you have to sweat up the hills and coastdown them. Thus you remember them as they actually are, whilein a motor car only a high hill impresses you, and you have nosuch accurate remembrance of country you have driven through asyou gain by riding a bicycle."-- Ernest Hemingway, Colliers magazine

We Won!!

The kayak/bike/run/tube competition that is. Well, not won exactly, but came in third. But that still means $100 each, which is pretty good here!

It's funny, I have never done such a short race before, I think my biking section was only about 15 km or so. I felt like I was in spin class or something.

CYCYLING TRIP COMPLETE! (Kind of)

Well, so after Tena I was going to have one or two more days on the bike, to Baeza and Pappecta respectively. I did not feel that I needed to climb all the way back to Quito (10,000 feet) and there were really big passes on both of these trips anyway.

Now, Tena was fantastic. I wrote about it some already, I think, and as I mentioned it is a huge mecca for white water rafting and kayaking. And there was this local competition on Saturday which was a relay of running, biking, kayaking and tubing. I think the tubing aspect was pretty funny concept, actually. Anyway, it was required that you have at least one girl compete on your team (which is actually why I think they includided the tubing...machismo latinos, if you will). So I knew about this competition, and people had been trying to get me to participate (biking, obviously) all week, and I had steadfastly refused. Biking to Baeza, was the mantra. I needed time to wrap Jake with care, which meant being back early on Sunday at the latest (7 am flight Monday), and clearly needed to bike to Baeza, since this was the orginal plan (Pappellecta was a maybe).

Well, so this guy, Jaime, that I had been hanging out with for a couple days and had been trying to get me on his team for Saturday propositioned that if I would stay for the competition on Saturday, he would bike WITH me to Baeza on Friday, we could return by bus, compete Saturday, and then I could take an early bus on sunday to Quito.

I was already slightly considering not boxing Jake, at this point. Mostly because it seemed like a headache, I thought maybe I would´'t have to, and he is more likely to be damaged in a box. And then also I could go rafting with Jaime the next day (Thurday), which was fun. And a day on the river where I would hopefully not be being beaten by one of the whirlpools was really welcome! So the plan is beginning to look pretty good. Mainly becuase (a) I think it really funny that I could pop into an event in Ecuador and (b) biking with someone definately wasn't an unpleasant alternative. Especially becuase even though I knew it was only 80 km, there was a HUGE pass and it was all really reeally bad dirt and stone road, except whwhere they were constructin cobblestone, which can be worse, I guarantee. Company is nice on hard days is my new conclusion in life!

Well, Friday morning it is POURING rain...and by pouring, I mean torrential. Sheets. Blocks. Incredible amounts. Like the worst rain storm you have ever seen. The upside was that when it rains that hard, usually it doenst rain that long. So our plans to leave at 6ish were foiled, but by 8 things were looking pretty good and we were on the road by 9 or 10.

Now, Jaime didn't realize that I had eaten breakfast, why this would influence if he does, I am still confused. But as I mentioned, it is 80 Km, all on dirt, the first 60 or so uphill. No--the first 10 were flat actually, then the next 50 were uphill. Of course I eat breakfast. So we are going along, going along, sunny day, fantastic. But he is clearly getting tired a bit too fast and early. --I have to add here that he has apparantly won all these kayaking races and championships, etc, and rightfully considers himself in really good condition I am sure, but is a bit put off that I am not feeling tired and am faster.

Breakfast would still be helpful, however. Anyway, so I end up waiting for awhile at one point (my bike most definately gives me an advantage, I am sure as well), near a store, where one could clearly get food, etc. He pulls up--we have I think gone less than 25 Km at this point, even though the last 15 were pretty tough. He is exhausted, this is not boding well. There is not much of a selection, but he declines getting anything from the restaraunt down the road, so with a few crackers and a long rest we are on our way.

A couple other stops, I am still thinking that if we plan on getting there anytime before nightfall, he better eat some breakfast, lunch something. But he thinks he's fine without food so we keep continuing on The day continues on until sometime around 4ish I'd say.

Well, it's pretty steep, and our stops are definatley getting closer together. So Jaime pulls over and gets off his bike in a little flat part in the road, where there is a bus stop-shelter thing, kind of. You can tell he is despartely in need of food-- I am in need of a little something as well (I just don't seem to carry cliff bars with me here!), but am clearly in much better state than him.

We had been told that there was a store not too far away, so thinking that we must be close, I of course offer to go and get some food and bring it back quick. After a bit, Jaime agrees that maybe this is a good plan --he is visably shaking, and getting to be pretty out of it, at this point. So I leave him, (turn back to see him laying down in the road and head up. And up. And up. I am really hoping this store is coming along soon.

Finally (well, not that long, really, but maybe 25 or 30 minutes), I see a house/shack sitting back from the road with a sign that announcing that it sells cheese! Fantastic! Not so fantastic is that it seems deserted. Well, I find the women, who quite honestly is looking at me pretty dubiously as to why I arrived here on a bike, not to mention the fact that I am covered in dirt and sweat. Always a pretty picture, I like to think.

Well, I convince her to sell me just a portion of cheese (it took a lot of convincing that I was not going to buy 2 lbs...I would give you a breakdown of the 25 minutes I ended up being at the store, and the conversations therein, becuase it is pretty entertaining, but this is already getting a bit lengthy), some canned tuna, crackers, and a couple of cokes. This was the best I could do to cover salt, sugar, carbs, protein, etc.

Off I go, back down. Now, a smarter Meghan would not have left her backpack with Jaime, but would have brought it in order to carry the food (This is why I didn{t want to purchase the 2 lbs of cheese). But, apparantly, I am not the smarter Meghan. Since it is really, really rocky, and downhill, I fully need my hands on both brakes, and it doesn't work to hang the bags from my handlebars, so instead, I tie them to my sports bra, one one each side. Though heavy and cumbersome, this works pretty well, but of course the coke is in old school glass bottles so they are clanking against eachother, and due to my positioning they are also clanking against the metal stem. Did I mention lots of rocks?


Ok, so now I attempting to careen down the damn the mountain (big ass hill? I don't know what you call it), with two black bags hanging off my front, making a racket clanging around, and what better to join me then a gang of barking dogs? 5 of them surrounding me. Sweet. A grand parade.

But I made it. I was glad to see that Jaime had moved from being sprawled in the road to the bench, which I thought was probably a good move. He initially thought I brought him back a beer, based on the banging glass, and wasn't overly impressed. But he did prove very receptive to the coke, tuna and cheese.

It was 5:30 by this time, however. Baeza wasn't going to happen, I am afraid. We watched the sun set over the hills from our perch and waited for a passing pickup or bus. A pretty entertaining day, altogether-- he was able to laugh about it as well by the time we were en route home.

Though I did leave my helmet on the bench. Damnit.

Out of Order

By the way, I don´t know if you notice, but sometimes I go back and add an entry at a previous date (usually means I started writing but then ran out of time). Hopefully I will be adding phots as well at some point.

Near death.

Okay, well, maybe not quite, but it was really scary. I had my second day of kaying on Wednesday, and really, I thought all was going fine. We had some rapids, not huge, but enough for me. As I mentioned, the water was really high this week due to all the rain, and was moving really fast. So I am going down the river feeling pretty good, really. It´s beautiful. I keep trying to describe it, but I just don{t think that I can do it justice. The water is absolutely transparent, and is met by all the tropical plants on the side, or sometimes cliffs, while off in the distance are the Andes, the tops rising up into the clouds.

I go into the final rapid, which is the biggest. The waves are pretty big, much, much taller than me as I am sitting in my kayak. I am having trouble keeping facing forward, but I have had this problem in many of the rapids but have still been able to maintain my balance enough not to tip. Not this time, I am afraid. I got knocked down and pushed up against the cliff. It took me some time to find the safety handle so I could get out of the kayak and above water, mostly becuase it was hard to reach due to part of the cliff jutting out at an angle that I had trouble getting my arm around.

I get up and get the air I need for about one or two seconds, but am being pushed along with the rapid, over some rocks I think and into a hole. Or a whirlpool, I am not really sure which. Scary as all hell. You are being held under water, being thrashed about, with not nearly enough force to be able to get up to get a breath. The force of the water is stunning. At the back of my frantic mind I remember, or think I remember, that you will always eventually rise to the top. But in as much as that was not happening, and I was running out of breath quickly, I was trying to remember if there was some time frame that went with that ´´eventually.´´ I don´t know how much time went by, but it felt like an eternity. Eventually I did get pushed out. I was nearly at the end of the rapids, and was so happy to breathe and feel the water gentling that I did not care too much about the occasional cuts and bruises I was getting from the rocks below.

They caught my boat upstream some, so I beached it, emptied it out and continued the way downstream. Not too much left, thank God. I had a beer when I got to shore.

My Vision

Well, apparently the reason that we were not supposed to eat before going to the Shamen was because we were going to get sick --as part of the cleaning process, if yoiu will. Aohwaska (that is spelled phonectically, it is a Quecha word that I have no idea how to spell) is used to give the Shamen a vision, usually what medicane to prescribe when someone is sick.Though it is also used to help him see the future or bring forth a memory from the past. It is made from a bunch of herbs, and resembles something of a really thick, earthy, bad-tasting tea. In fact it is so ill-tasting that they even give you a chaser.

About 25 minutes after I drank the Aohwaska, the cleaning ceremony began. I sat in front of the Shamen, who is wearing a number of necklaces that, when they move, add to the music that he is making with his wooden instrument. During the cleaning, the only music is his singing-chanting. One of the first things he does is put his mouth to the top of my head and suck the bad energy out- this is quite loud. Really loud. While chanting, he is constantly moving a cluster of slighly wet palm leaves over my head and around my body. Each Shamen has their own chant. Before I get up, he again touches his mouth to my head and blows in new, clean energy. Also very loud. I still was not feeling any affect from the Aohwaska, so his wife gave me an additional portion. Interestingly, it is always the wife´s role to dole out the portion of the tea, based on body size, not the Shamen.

I went back and laid down somemore with the other couple people I was with, who were both feeling it a lot more, and both vomited within about 45 minutes from when they drank it. I wasn´t feeling anything really, but I thought, hey, at least I am not getting sick! Well, I did get sick about 3 or 4 hours later. At which point the Shamen comes over and shakes the leaves a bit more. So clean. Apparently, this is pretty typical people for people who are really active (delayed vomiting and no visions). Though it usully works after 3 times or so. I can´t say that I am parciularly inspired to take it again, though both the people I was with said they would.

We ended up sleeping there--its always so pleasant to fall asleep in the open air with all the sounds of the outer jungle around you. We woke up to lemongrass tea and eggs in the morning before heading back to Tena.

Shamen

Well, today it POURED all day, which put a damper on my kayaking lesson. We are entering high season here so the rivers are pretty high and fast right now. I had my first day yesterday on a Class II or III river if that means anything to you, and well. It was an experience. I will make an entry of that. Lets just say I am not YET ready to enter my first competition...maybe after another day. Though I can´t do a roll, at least I have perfected existing the boat when I flip. This was more than a bit scary when I was stuck in it the first time, I can assure you.

Anyway, the guy that was teaching me to kayak is taking me and this belgian guy to a Shamen that lives somewhat near his family´s farm in the jungle (where we are hopefully going tomorrow). There is a ceremony and I am not supposed to eat for the 6 hours previous. I´ll let you know how it goes!

Scenes of the Day #2

Sunday afternoon. Kids playing in the river in a boat they have constructed -- a full on barge, to be more exact, out of fallen down (presumably) trees, vines, and the like.

Random Scenes of the Day

Disclaimer: I would have a scene of the day every day, but inasmuch as I don´t email/computer every day, this is not going to happen. Darn. I like the concept though, so I am going to start doing what I can. Here are a couple that pop to mind.

Friday night. A car is pulled up to the river with all of the doors open allowing the salsa music to escape. Five couples are dancing on the riverwalk as the sun goes down.

Tuesday (?) evening. I am a bit deeper into the forest, and we are cooking dinner in a little clearing above a small lagoon. There is a family that lives in the area (18 children! this is not a typo). 3 of them walk by: one carrying a gun about to go hunting for the week, one with a fishing pole (stick with string attached), and one with a net of crabs. They disapppear up a path to the north of us.

Approaching Tena

I am currently in Tena, which purportedly is the rafting (and to some degree kayaking) capital of the world -- to vouch for Lonely Planet´s honesty in this, I can say that the city did host the Rafting World Championships last month!

The ride here was spectacular, and it felt SO good to NOT be in the mountains and SO good to not have any altitude (though I still am not sure what percentage that played in my rides, versus simply having to pedal around the Andes with a bike that is laden with approximately 867 million pounds.) I am not sure how long the ride was Friday-- 147 Mi by how the crow flies according to Google and Mike C, and the road here would close to qualify for a crows chosen flight I think, but I can assure you that I did no such ride. Somewhere between 80 and 140 Km is more like it. I know-- what a small window, eh? Darn broken bike computer ,) Though this way I can pretend I did the 140, so mayhap it is a blessing in disguise.

The first half was unpaved (as were various parts of the second half). Unpaved with about a million holes, and millions of rocks. Nothing too bad though. Kinda like China Camp, more or less, though not with the turns.

Though, my racks holding my saddlebags did break. Disappointing because, well, I guess because I didn´t expect it to happen since I bought the racks recommended by both bike shops. Incidently, never shop at Freewheel Bikeshop in the Mission. I hate them and think the owner is a total a**. I have thought this several times before, and stop shopping there, but then due to convenience, I return. But I highly discourage all to shop there andI never will again. The problem with the back rack was only that the screw came out(the hook at the bottom of the bag gives a bit too much, causing the bags on the really bumpy road to really thump around a lot and I guess eventually get the screw out. I had a spare, though it´s a bit too long so need to go to a bike shop before leaving Tena. Then the front rack broke. I whipped out a bit of ducktape, which helped. But then I had brought along a couple of bungee cords for this scenerio as well, so got to put those into use.

Lots of dogs marking their territory is the other thing that made the ride interesting, they follow you (surround you if high enough in numbers) barking until you make it past some invisible line marking thier territory. My plan for this was to fashion a type of leash/whip to scare them away (string or jungle vine with small rock secured at the end for weight purposes), but I was able to deal. I read about people carrying a bunch of rocks for this reason, but as I have mentioned many times, 867 pounds is the limit of my pedal power, hence my coming up with the idea of a whip. I never was driven to this though, thankfully. Once though, I think I had about10 dogs, that was a bit scary! These dogs do not seem or look too friendly, I assure you, and many wild dogs have rabies, I have read. It makes me feel better to yell at them as I pass.

It was all very lush, obviously, in as much as the road goes along side/through the Amazon. I don´t know how many times I stopped to take pictures. There were a couple little towns, which was really only evident by a bus stop, maybe a building, and a few houses every 5 minutes or so. Again, all wood with thatched roofs for the most part, lots of women doing laundry, some men working on building something or other, lots of chickens wanderng the yards.

I actually didn´t stay in Tena friday, but in Puerto Napa, which is about 5 Km south. I ended up talking to this guy who lives on the river there who offered me a room for the night (often has volunteers for an eco-project he runs stay with him, but none at the time). I think about 10 or 12 people (3 generations) live in the house, which is a couple stories, really open, and doesn´t seem all that crowded.

Friday night was the kickoff of the weeklong town festival --the opening event being the election of the Reina de Tena (Queen)...a beauty pagent. One of the family members was a candidate, so I attended with the guy and a bunch of the cousins. Pretty funny. --happening spot in town though, I can assure you.

Somebody Else´s Story

I spent a few days slightly farther into the jungle when I was in Puyo. --It is totally different, by the way then the jungle in the north, near the border of Columbia. Near Puyo it is much flatter and much, much denser. Very rain-foresty, if you will. This is not the point of the story in any case, though, and lord knows how much I always digress. So anyway.

On the way in (via trail and canoe), we passed a community of a few houses, three, I think. A Belgian guy, married to one of the older women, had been living there for a couple years and we got to talking for awhile, him asking me my plans, etc. When I said I was heading to Guatemala next, he asked how the political situation was there, and I said fine, more or less. It is not as safe as Ecuador, but is stable and has been attracting a lot of tourists the last few years in particular. And I was asking him how he came to end up here.

It turns out that he used to be a sound engineer for world tours of major groups like The Stones, Pink Floyd, etc. Usually how it goes is that after the tour stops, the group (assuming they want you again) mandates that you take 6-12 months off (paid for of course), but during which time you can´t work for other groups because being on the road takes so much time out of you they don`t want you having any kind of nervous breakdown or getting rundown or sick for the next tour. Anyway, one time, the last concert was in Mexico and so Mario decided to travel during his time off, starting there. He had a lot of Mexican contacts and friends from all the crew that he worked with and so was just making his way south. He ended meeting a women in the northern Chiapas region of Guatemala (the Mexican south and Guatemalan north are blurred as simply being Chiapas region more or less, to my understanding). Anyway, so he met this women and ended up staying there for the remainder of his time off and returned as well after then next tour, and eventually they got married.

Eventually (and now I don´t remember how many years into the future this was, but I want to say 3 years or so) she was getting increasingly worried because it was so unsafe and all of her family was in danger. Essentially, a guerilla soldier (supported by the CIA) would come into a community, demand to see so and so, and if they weren`t there, then somebody had to go find them. The person in question may be out hunting in the jungle, or fishing or doing something of the like, however, so not always the easiest to find. They would generally have 30 minutes until the first person got killed (wife or child), another 30 minutes until the next and so on. So the wife was worried, obviously because so many of the people in the surrounding communities had already had this happen and it was only a matter of time. Mario had a passport with so many visas and all these rights of way, essentially, from the concerts, it was pretty easy to get his wife and her family across the border into Mexico. Well, as they heard of more and more children, children they often knew, being shot they couldn´t stand by and not do anything, so for a couple years they helped kids cross the border. Eventually, somebody tipped somebody off (most likely), and Mario, his wife and the children they were with were stopped. They shot everyone except for Mario, who, of course, had the pleasure of watching. They couldn´t shoot him because he was white, but instead was tortured for a week. --You can still see where his nose was broken, his jaw, etc . He has an artifical hip becuase a nerve was cut off when they broke his hip and ceased to be functional. Anyway, you get the drift.

It´s amazing how you hear of these things all the time, and they are horrific and impossible for me to even imagine taking place. Then you are standing there listening to someone this actually happened to, and it is just incomprehensible. But then so much more comprehensible at the same time, as you can actually begin to picture the people and their families, and the places. Stories like this make me so ill. And then it gets worse that our foreign policy supports it. I really don`t understand why we are born so privileged in life.

Photos, Technology and the Like

So I have always said that I am not a huge fan of technology. But I don´t think that I can say this anymore. Other than Jake, I am deeply in love with my digital camera and my iPod. And I have a blog. This is all deeply confusing to me.

I am concerned though in as much as my iPod is frozen (I implore you to feel my pain on this), and I didn´t bring the computer cord, only the power cord. Damn. The other think that has just let me down, however is that I just attempted to post a bunch of pics (well 5), but only one posted. Mostly because I wasn´t patient enough for the computer, and the fact that it was in Spanish so I wasn´t absolutely sure. But now I really do need to depart. Off to Tena tommorrow-- a completely unpaved road which is pretty knarly. I rode in a pickup on it yesterday, and think I have quite a ride ahead of me (without iPod!). It is about 130 Km. A couple people estimated that they think I can do it in a day, but I think it sounds like a lot. Depends how it goes. I will say that they call the rainforest the rainforest for a reason...it rains a lot! Until next time my friends. Until next time.

Who needs coffee?

I can assure you that coca (as in same used to make cocaine) tea give you a hell of a lot more zip to start your day. Zippety doo dah, zippety eh, my oh my, what a wonderful day.

You are what you eat

I will always wonder what makes different cultures eat different animals, while we find the idea of other animals repulsive. China, of course, is infamous for all the different meats available there. I was offered cat, dog, horse, and a bunch of others that I have no idea what they were due to my limited (i.e. non-existant) Chinese. One of my co-workers gave me the low down, however, on the intricacies of skinning and preparing a cat. That was just fine, though I am glad that prefer to have dogs as pets.

I must say, however, that during my time there, I never saw any animal, such as a guinea pig, skewered lengthwise, skinned (de-furred as the case may be), with head and teeth still attached, slowly roasting over open flames in front of every restuarant. I haven´t tried any yet. Though, for the record, I did eat some insect. Apparently high in protein and possesing 3 vitamins.

Welcome to the Jungle

I had a tarauntula crawl up my arm...apparently it was not dangerous becuase it was young. It´s amazing how much you trust your guides with these things and their knowledge.

Anyway, I went on two jungle trips, both pretty short (5 days and 2 days). One in northern Ecuador, near the Columbian border in the Cuyabeno reserve, and one in more central Ecuador, near Puyo, accordingly.

Amazing how much it varies -- the northern bit that I was in was really open, as in not very dense forest, and was really flat. Here was basically a canoe trip -- I wish I had the time to write more about it! It´s an area that is rich in petroleum, which is easy to tell by all the development and contamination. This aspect is pretty depressing. Interestintly enough, it is also the place in the jungle by far most popular with tourists in Ecuador. I opted for a tour that was not in the more touristy part of Cuyabeno (the big lagoon), for better or for worse--you never know what you are going to get. We had lunch at a house on the river (Rio Aguanegro) before launching off in the canoes. The house was somewhat similar to those that I saw around SE Asia-- made of plywood more or less, raised off the ground enough to stand underneath (to prevent flooding mostly, and also to provide a cool place to rest), partially walls, partially open, thatched roof. Unlike many Ecuadorian houses, it was not painted any whimiscal color --I don´t know if I have noted before but a mint green seems to be the favorite. I like it --adds a softness to the countryside. From the yard, we sampled cocoa (does not taste like chocoalate until toasted, but the encasing of the seeds, which is soft is sweet and soft, kind of like butter caramels but not chewy), guava (which is long and thin , and coca.

I wish you could have seen the canoes pull up in the small lagoon where we were waiting. --simple wood canoes and paddles made of canola wood. I am not sure if it was the light, or the fact that the paddlers were standing, or really what it was, but it somehow reminded me of some Vietnamese movie from the early 70s. By the way, I think I have that right about the type of wood... I was on a 5 hour walking tour this morning, all in Spanish, learning about all the different plants and their medicanal and other uses, so my vocabulary was increasing pretty rapidly. Also leaving room for a lot of error in my memory! Ahh. I get ahead of myself. Back to Cuyabeno.

There was snaphu (spelling?!) with the canoes, so we didn´t get started until a bit later. Once going, we paddled for a bit (I was with a group of four French) until we got to the house of Washington. That is his name, by the way, not to be confused with some landmark. He has some crazy Spanish, meaning difficult for me to understand, which does not in all honesty take that much. I am not sure if this was highlighted even more by the fact that he was quite visably excited that this was only the fourth time he has seen tourists after living on the river for 9 years, or the fact that he was missing a good quarter of his teeth inhibiting his pronunciation, that Quecha was his first language (not Spanish), or just that he lives in the jungle and is a bit of a strange cat. But very anxious to please. He lives with his son in a simple, completely open thatched roof house with a loft where they sleeep. He said it took him about 2 months to build by himself, working about 10 hours a day. The roof was pretty interesting -- I think to build it he must have cut each of the logs (very long and thin, though I don´t remember the kind of wood) in half lengthwise, and then put one half on each side of the the thatch bit. The windows were my favorite part. They cultivate a fair amount of plants (peppers, coffee, we planted some tomato seeds), they also have many herbs growing around (the lemongrass was great for tea), some cotton trees, lots of green banana and palm trees, some cotton trees, guava, and I can´t remember what else.


...ahh sorry. To be continued. Internet is closing.