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Hello from the jungle, actually we are writing this from quito as we have been cut off from technology for three weeks. We have been staying in a small community 51 kms south of Puyo in the middle of the jungle at bout 3000ft above sea level so the days are really hot but the nights are cool.
The journey here on 31 Jan took more than 8 hours and involved two buses with the last hour being on unmetalled roads and we arrived in the middle of a thunderstorm. The bus journey cost $7.5 each!
Tsuraku is a native Shuar community which has only existed for 30 years since the road was built. It has had electricity for only 5 years but this is rather intermitant. The volunteer house where we were staying had water when the well wasnt dry. All drinking water had to be boiled but it did have a toilet and a cold shower 50 yards from the house. Tsuraku is so isolated that there are only a small group of volunteer, a couple of german lads and a couple of american girl scouts. They were all in their mid to late 20s. The centre is run by a couple of ecuadorians and they used local shuars to help with the work. The daily work for volunteers is a mixture of sowing seeds, tending the tree nursery and medial plant garden and planting mahogany saplings. The idea is that the community will benefit from the fully grown mahogany trees in 20 years time. Lots of digging, machetying and fork work.
We also went on a four day stay in the jungle to a remote shuar community where you washed in the river, slept on the ground and the toilet was a whole in the ground and of course there was no electricity. It took a day to hike there and a day to hike back which was hard but interesting. The whole community came together to do some work that benefits the village. This was really good because we experienced the jungle at first hand and lived with the native community eating and sleaping and working as they do. This also included a five a side international football match wearing wellies on a make shift pitch. The Shuar community took on the rest of the world with Harriet playing a blinder in defense including nutmegging the opposition and mike kicking everything in sight including a set of steps. Sometimes he even got the ball! The locals one 7_6 but the brits and germans put up a good fight.
During our time at Tsuraku we also had a couple of days off to visit Macas a small quiet town further into the jungle but in a superb location underneath a volcano. We also visited Banos which is one of equadores major holiday resorts because of its hot springs. We went on a hike and saw some fantastic waterfalls.
Harriet was very brave and went on a night hike into the jungle and she saw lots of wildlife especially very large insects including a cochroach the size of a hand! She also saw a jaguar footprint, we are still looking for a one legged jaguar!
Our maincontribution during our stay was to sort out the tree nusery which had been neglected a bit. We carried our a full audit of plants which appealed to Mikes mathematical brain.
One thing about Tsuraku being a realively new community is that with the arrival of electricity the locals have discovered TVs and sound systems, they play their one cd over and over again at high volume and at any hour of the day or night. Also the roosters crow at anytime of day or night and the dogs like to have barking competitions. So what with these activities and the animal noises of the jungle at night we cannot say that it was a peacefull stay!
However it was a fantistic experience although quite hard at times and we are glad to be back in Quito for a couple of days to recover_ Mike has a black and blue toe from the football match and a bruised rib_before going iff to do a similar thing in the cloud forest for the next three weeks.
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