Well i am now in Tena, and have thus left the jungle for good, and I am feeling rather sad. I have had a brilliant time here and will really miss it, when I´m sat at home on my own in my house, or when I´m stuck in a traffic jam in a concrete city, or when I´m fretting about writing reports and meeting deadlines and whether people will pass their exams.... it seems a world away, but it will all be real soon enough.
In this last week, there haven´t been any surveys; we just went on walks and had fun, chilled out, and tidied up the camp.
One thing that was really good was the Fun Day (ok, a Fun 2 Hours) which me, Lucy, Tim and Steve (and Jas) organised for the kids at the school we teach at in Puerto Rico (no, not the country, it´s a nearby village!) We organised and planned the games, then nearly all of the volunteers (12 of us) and 3 staff went down to the school, and we had a couple of hours of brilliant fun. we divided into 4 teams, each team having different coloured headbands made of coloured plastic flagging tape, and each team had 3 volunteers and about 5 kids (aged 4 to 10 ish) in it ... then for the events. the first event was the tug of war, when the entire team took hold of the rope and tried to pull it past the welly marker. it was great fun, and all the teams played against each other; my team came third but we dished out high fives nonetheless :D. Then was the welly throwing; we threw a welly, then the next team member had to pick it up from where it lay, and throw it, till everyone had had a go. We had the mischieviously overzealous Sebastian on our team though, and he grabbed it and threw it about 3 times when he wasn´t supposed to, so the scoring was probably way off! never mind. Then we made a big circle and threw water balloons between ourselves at ever-increasing distances till they´d all popped - that was fun! The multi-legged race was next where the entire team tied their legs to one another in a line, and then attempted to race another team to the finish line... we were thwarted by mud and had people falling all over the place, which was really funny. The last thing was the most fun (but not a competition) where we got a load of plastic sheeting about 6 metres long, covered in in shampoo and water, and then took turns running up to it, throwing ourselves onto our fronts, and skidding the entire distance along it - the kids loved it (and so did we!) and only about 3 of them wanted to play football instead - you know you´re onto a winner when they choose it over football! it was really good, and finished up in a big pile-up of everyone - adults and kids - throwing ourselves down it and rolling around! it was great fun, and a brilliant way to finish our time here. Unfortunately for the kids (and the teachers!) they had to carry on with normal lessons in the afternoon, despite their school uniform being drenched and soapy, and them being hyper! So the kids loved Fun Day, but the teachers maybe did not!
Other fun stuff we did this week was to go on a stream walk, where we waded in up to our waists, and kiwi Lucy was on top form, spotting snake after snake, and frog after frog... cool! we saw one that was little but venomous, and two others that were non-venomous, and while Maxine and I were in the water up to our knee level, Olly went "Snake!" and we said where, and he pointed in the water at our wellies, and we saw it there and freaked out and ran for the land in a 3-second mad panic, which was really funny. Olly said it´s a bad idea to splash around like that as they are attracted to the splashing, but sod that, a snake in the same water that i´m in is the stuff of nightmares for me (and Max!) and we panicked and ran for it - ha ha!
I also went on a walk down to the Waterfall (cascada) with Jas, Bells and Max, and we covered ourselves in clay,and they pretended to be cave people. The following day, I went to the waterhole, with Max, Phil and Grant. The waterfall is small, with cool water that is crystal clear, and it´s really beautiful. The waterhole is much bigger (it flows into the Rio Napo itself) and the water is warmer, but filthy brown in colour (from silt), and you can feel all the gooey muddy sandy silt underfoot. The four of us had running races, running along in the shallows, where the ground is so uneven that you fall over all the time... we also floated / walked / swam over to where it flows into the Napo, and you could feel the water get colder and the current get stronger. It´s really beutiful there, with massive trees and forest vines hanging down into the water, and caciques and oropendolas making noises you didn´t think it was possible for birds to make, and a few parrots flying overhead maybe - not close enough so you can see what species, but their noisy squawking and inelegant flight gives them away. It was a really good time, and something I´ll remember about the beauty of the place.
What else? umm... we spent ages tidying up and cleaning the camp. That was not fun though. Nor was packing. I've ditched as much stuff as i can - crappy Primark Tshirts i bought for this purpose, disposable clothes that are battered from six months of wear, or things that are useful in the jungle but probabaly not elsewhere... but a few of the interns wanted more stuff, as they are staying on for anoher 3 months - Nicki took a Tshirt and some socks; Ella took some bug spray, the staff took some string, hand sanitiser gel, and plant ties, and Phil (yes, he is a guy!) took my luminous pink crocs... no wonder people think he's gay sometimes!
Well that's about it for now. I am in Tena at the moment, which is a city between Camp and Quito. Tomorrow morning we get the bus to Quito. The journey takes five hours, but would probably take over six if you could convince the bus drivers to drive safely along mountainous switchbacks and potholed roads, but no, that is not going to happen. If you are asleep you are not so scared, but you miss all the beautiful misty mountains and rainforest scenery, which is gorgeous, and will be a lasting memory of the beauty of the country. I then have a spare day, during which a few of us are going to Ottovalo to go shopping (it's nice, they say) and then the day after that, I fly back to England. It´s all over now, and i won´t be back in the jungle again for a long time, and I´ll miss it, as i miss Costa Rica.
But the Christmas beckons, and it´ll be good to see family and friends again. I haven´t missed England or work at all. And I haven´t missed family, friends or Barney nearly as much as I thought I would, probably beacuse I've always been with friends. Except in Mexico, when I did feel quite lonely at times, and I missed them more then. But it's been good to keep in touch as often as I've managed to, and so hopefully others haven´t missed me too much either. In some ways it seems a very long time ago since i was in England, yet I'm sure once I'm back it'll feel like I never left, and all this was a strange dream, or like it didn´t really happen, or like it went by in a flash.
Love to you all.... I may write again from Quito, but if not, I´ll write another entry when I get back to England!
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