30 September 2004
Things are starting to fall into place.
A hectic trip to London last week yielded some positive results. I found a nice room in a flat in Putney: the room is nice and big; has a door out onto the apartment block’s roof; and is conveniently close to the train line out to Windsor for work. I’ll be sharing the flat with three South Africans, I haven’t met all of them yet but one is a graphic designer and one of the others apparently works for e-bay. The only problem is that I can’t move in until the 11th, so I’ll be crashing on floors until then. I start for proper on Monday.
Yesterday, I got back from a week trip to the USA. Michigan is cool, if very flat and a little strange.
Things I want to do when I get down to London for real: start Spanish classes, join a gym, find a martial art dojo (Ninjutsu, Capoeria, or something new), renew my first aid qualifications.
17 September 2004
Micha?l van Ouwerkerk, the co-founder of our extinct project Thirteenth Parallel, has set up a sweet looking portfolio site that he’s calling Speeding Rhino.
16 September 2004
I’m currently sitting in Starbucks, on the London Embankment, using the wireless Internet. I’ve been back in the UK for a week now and I’ve fallen back into the real world with a crash. I came down to London on Wednesday to look for somewhere to live and meet the people I’m going to be working with. As of 1st October I’ll be working in Windsor with Tim Scarfe and Thomas Brattli, among other people. While I can?t discuss anything here, the project I will be running sounds very interesting. The only pain in my ass is trying to find somewhere to live; I?m looking for a flat-share in Putney FYI.
I’m still sorting out the 2000+ photos I took in Honduras, but rest assured I have plans to make a cool little mini-site to display them.
10 September 2004
Jet lagged; tired; and pretty weirded out.
1 September 2004
Hola,
It has been about a month since I last successfully sent an email and the project is now close to an end. Today I have taken a break from the inventorying and decamping of Base Camp to drive down to San Pedro Sula where I have just set up one of Opwall’s computers at The Fundacion Ecologista H.R Pastor Fasquelle, a NGO that is working closely with us here in Honduras. It is a welcome break from the decamping process that has been going on for over a week now. We started when the majority of the remaining scientists and volunteers left for a week long reconnoitre in another national park called Pico Bonito. Most are now back and carrying out further reccies in the vicinity of Base Camp for a new jungle training camp and a new satellite research station. It is strange that only a few weeks ago we had over 100 people based here, now you can rarely count 10 heads at any one time.
When I returned from Cayos for the second time I took on the role of Co-Camp Manager for Base Camp. I had a week long brain dump with Ed where he trained me up in vehicle maintenance and emergency 4×4 driving, explained the ins and outs of the payroll, and generally imparted as much knowledge as I could absorb. I learnt a lot. And then in the middle of week-7 Ed left. Since it was a very quiet week I squeezed in 2-days leave, my first break since arriving in Honduras. I went to Tela, a pretty little beach town on the Caribbean coast. I phoned home and tried to send emails, but unfortunately my Inbox was swamped with several thousand spam email messages and I spent most of my time deleting them.
The last three weeks have been very hectic here at Base Camp, yet I feel I have settled into my new role fairly well. We have had some problematic times with several political and emergency situations, which I have had to manage. As I am writing this I am struggling to focus my memories on specific events that I can talk about. My time here has been incredibly interesting and memories of only a few weeks ago seem lifetimes ago. It is a blur.
But, the project finishes next Saturday and by then we have to have every piece of equipment inventoried and off the mountain in storage. It is a hell-of-a-task, but when it is done there will be a hell-of-a-party in San Pedro Sula for those few people who are still around (that is unless we fall asleep by 6pm!). I had planned to do some travelling after the expedition and return to the UK on the 14th September. However, since I have a new life to organise back in London I will now be coming home on the 8th in a potentially vain attempt to sort things out well in advance of 1st October.
Get in touch if you want to meet up on my return, I’ll probably spend at least a couple of weeks in Sheffield before moving more permanently to London. And a reminder to all of you: if you know anyone with a spare room — preferably central(ish) — I may be quite interested in taking it, at least for a short while.
Take care
Dan
PS More photos have hopefully been uploaded!?
