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Published: November 13th 2006
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It's Chris's shtick, on land and at sea Nothing reminds me of the Galapagos like the sounds of reggaeton. Of course, now that I am in Fiji we don't get much of it. As you can tell, I have once again gotten to far behind in my blog. The main problem now is that I feel I won't do justice to what a great experience I had at Jatun Sacha. So bearing that in mind, here's what I've got. It was far better than my clumsy prose are able to express.
So where to begin? Well, in the last few days at JS I started to notice all the little systems and routines that I had developed for living in these difficult conditions. The first and most important routine was the shower routine. Everyday we would get incredibly sweaty, filthy and just all around nasty so showers were mandatory. The problem is the showers are ice cold so you while you want to get completly clean, you also want to spend the least possible time in the water. The system I would use is as follows: wet only your hair quickly, turn off the water and then shampoo, turn on the water, rinse shampoo and get entire body
Looking Regal
If I never see another one of these fat noisy animals again... wet in a hurry turn off water, apply conditioner, soap up, apply face wash, turn on water and rinse as quickly as possible. In that way you probably only spend 30 seconds iin the water and not only are you saving yourself from hypothermia but you are also helping to conserve water. Conserving water was not really an issue while we were there because it was the rainy season and they get all the water from the river. In the dry season however, that river disappears and all the water for cooking, drinking, showering and everything else has to come in on trucks. Expensive.
Another system I devoloped had to do with clothing. As I mentioned and as you can see from some of the pictures, during work we would get filthy. Since it only takes a few hours to completly defile whatever clothing you are wearing it seemed silly to wear something different each day. If you did that you would ruin all your clothes. I set aside one outfit as my work outfit. It was all quick dry lightweight Colombia stuff that you would never where if you were anywhere near a population center so it was
Hangin' loose at the Iguana Rock
So who is having the better time on Beth's birthday, Beth or Chris? perfect. So anyway, when I woke up at 630 each morning I would put on my filthy work outfit that was probably still damp from the day before and then headed over to breakfast, that is of course, after applying loads of deet to the few bits of exposed flesh. After breakfast we work from 8 to noon then lunch and then a break until returning to work at 2. We work again from 2 to 4 and then you must rush to the shower while still perspiring from work so that the arctic flow will soothing for at least the first 2 or 3 seconds. After showering, obviously the work clothes aren't going back on but pants and long sleeves are a must because of the mosquitos. Sock as well, be it with shoes or sandals. Fashion doesn't exist in the highlands. I only have only long sleeve shirt, a sea green Gap button up that is perpetually wrinkled. So it was that shirt and so REI pants along with socks and Chaco's (similar to Tevas). I always went with the sandals because you have to give your feet a chance to dry out. After 6 oclock dinner we
Casa Viejo
Here's a shot of the old house, where Beth and I stayed would usually sit around and chat for a while. (Side note: It got dark at 6pm and there is no electricity so we ate dinner by candle light but after that you were on your own for light. Luckily Noah hooked us up with the best headlamps around. Literally. They were better than everyone else's. Thanks Jah.) When it came time for bed, you have to wear a shirt because otherwise you are hot and stick to your perpetually damp sleeping bag. I had one tshirt that I designated for this. And so for the working week I had three outfits.
On a sligthly random note, I have updated my bookclub site. I added a ton of books, the highlight of course being "East of Eden". If anyone is interested, the website is http://groups.myspace.com/aaronsbookclub .
The problem with waiting this long to do a blog entry is you forget the specific things that you wanted to mention. I think the most important thing for me to get across though is how much the people really made the experience. I will refrain from naming everyone but each person added to the whole experience. Well, all except Frodo but we
Casa Viejo Hangout
And here is the famous hammock lounge, not that we ever called it that or that it was that famous, just spent a lot of time there won't dwell on that. On one of my last days working there, Emily, the volunteer coordinator, brought up an interesting point that is completly obvious but that I had overlooked. When you meet a new person back home and you have known them for a month you have probably only hung out with them for a few hours having dinner or drinks say once every weekend of that month and that would be alot. At Jatun Sacha, you wake up and you are surrounded by these other people. There is no electricity so there is no TV, no radio, nothing like that. All you have to do is either read a book or talk to someone else so in a month a Jatun Sacha it is like knowing someone back home for almost a year. And the best part about it is all the people that would subject themselves to the punishment of our daily routine instead of just visiting the Galapagos as tourists have an interesting story. Everyone was so friendly and open. It is a unique situation to throw a buch of people into and it is nice to know that despite what reality tv would have you
Oh Monica
After a rough day who doesn't want an entire bottle of rum to themselves? believe random people from all over the world can get along just great. I can't wait to visit Pablo in Barcelona, Pooja in Sydney, all the Germans in well Germany, we hope to see Chris again when we volunteer in India, and really I look forward to a life where I know we have friends all over the world. And of course if any of them should ever want to come see what the best city in Texas is like, they've got a place to stay.
Oh yeah and, I'm really exagerrating how bad the showers were. They were really cold but it wasn't that bad. By the end of it I barely noticed.
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Jesyka
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Daily Routine
You know, surprisingly enough, it's really interesting to read about what your daily routine was like there. It fills in those gaps of when imagining what it must be like.