So I’ve been in Honduras over a week now, but the clocks are ticking slowly and it seems a lot longer.
After leaving Sheffield at 2am two wednesdays ago, my flight troubles started as soon as I arrived in Heathrow. British Airways were checking in for Iberia’s flight to Madrid, but no one at the BA desk knew how to handle my further flights to Miami and then on to San Pedro Sula. So I was ushered around from counter to counter by various supervisors before finally being able to check my luggage in.
The flight from Madrid was delayed by 2-hours, and another half-hour was lost in Miami. When I finally touched down in Honduras I hadn’t managed more than 3-hours sleep in 36 hours and walking through customs I had a sense of foreboding. Low and behold one of my bags had gone missing. Luckily it wasn’t my clothes bag, but instead contained computer equipment and supplies for Op Wall, even so there are several extra things in there that I wish I had access too!
After much faffing around I finally managed to meet up with Justin, the coordinator who had been setting up the infrastructure for Operation Wallacea in Honduras, and a few other members of staff.
The main control centre for the forest operations is in a town called Cofradia, 1-hour outside San Pedro Sula. Problems with the generator and supplies meant that instead of being taken straight up to Base Camp on the Thursday, I stayed in Cofradia for several days.
I spent the days helping organise incoming volunteers and buying supplies. The scientists already up at camp have a tendency for asking for weird and hard to source supplies. For example: 75 10-gallon buckets, 10 sheets of 15mx15m plywood, or wellies (Disculpe, a donde puedo comprar una Botas Goma).
Now, buying all this stuff along with food for 60 people (soon to be 150) is hard enough in a 3rd world country like Honduras, but to make it worse our two 4x4s kept breaking down. On one occassion I ended off pushing the Toyota 7-blocks to the mechanics.
Last Monday I was finally due to go up to Base Camp to stay. The electricions were finishing the wiring, I had sourced the final computer equipment we needed and the vehicles finally seemed to be running smoothly.
Alex (the Cofradia manager), Joe (the head butterfly scientist) and myself left Cofradia at 2pm with much needed water supplies for Base Camp. Everything seemed to be going fine until the chevy 4×4 started struggling. We stopped and opened the bonnet to see it smoking and nearly on fire. We waited 30-minutes for the car to cool down and then topped up the radiator with nearly 3-gallons of water that should have been destined for Base Camp. We tested the car for 10-minutes but to no avail.
Now, Base Camp is at 2000m above sea level and a two hour drive along an incredibly rough, cliff edge track from Cofradia. The radios had not yet been delivered and of course mobiles dont work so we were kind ‘a’ stuck. Since Joe is fluent in Spanish we decided to leave him alone with the car to guard the supplies. Alex and myself then walk-ran back down the mountain to Cofradia. A very hot hour-and-a-half later we arrived back at the office, much to the suprise of the people still working there. We took the Toyota and a mechanic back up to met Joe, but even with a mechanic we were unable to stop the Chevy from overheating and by now it was getting close to dark so we needed to get off the mountain. It took another 10-gallons of water to get the Chevy back to town — it is still in the shop today!
The next day I finally made it to Base Camp. It is increadibly stunning up there. The camp is situated in a clearing amidst a forest of towering pine trees. There are two wooden buildings and tents for all the staff and volunteers. Within minutes of arriving at camp the bird team had brought in three species of birds that had never been sighted in the national park before, and the enthusiasm is really contagious.
Over the last few days the electicions have been finishing up wiring the buildings to the generator so I have been unable to do my proper job. Instead I have been helping the camp management team, building shelters for firewood, digging trenches and carrying supplies to the sattelite camps. Its pretty amazing out here (and no leaches, so it seems!).
It tends to rain several times a day, but when it’s not raining it’s bright sunshine. Even at base camp there are animals all over the place — snakes, butterflies, lizards and birds — and several times a day one of the science teams will bring back something interesting.
The first wave of volunteers has been out on jungle training this week and arrived back last night. All the staff were not looking forward to their return as it had been really nice chilling out with only a few people, but last night we had a few beers, some rum, a bit of a gang-show, and a bonfire under a fullmoon. It’s all looking prety good!
I?m down in cofradia today to see if I can fix some problems with the computers. Unfortunately the crap internet connection means that the 14mb download isn?t working too well!!
I hope to stay at Base Camp for a while longer yet, but soon I will need to move over to the white sand and sea of Cayos Cachinos, where the marine research is based. Its a hard life!!!