XATEROS

Greg has been ‘in the trees’.  That’s the expression Jen uses to describe being out in the jungle.  It clocks in my head.  I like it.  I know there’s something in it for my book.   We sit up late drinking coffee. Greg talks about my book.  I ask about his trip.  We go downstairs to the Operations Room and look at maps. Greg’s been visiting the Northern Group, whom he says has been making a slow start but has bonded well, both together and with their leader, Katie, whose slight stature belies her toughness [Jen describes her as ‘as hard as nails’].

We’ll be visiting this group ourselves, out in the remote Chiquibul Forest Reserve, which is part of the Meso-American corridor, the largest tract of tropical rainforest in Central America.   We’ll also be visiting the Southern Group, which is led by a gung-ho ex-army type called Sully, whose project, apparently, has attracted a number of the more gung-ho, extravert types in this year’s batch of volunteers.

The jungle trek down to them is going to be hard....

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19th FEBRUARY - TREKFORCE

Friendly Taxi-Mike - the driver who took us out to Black Rock a week or so ago, and picked oranges for us on the way  - drove us over to Santa Elena today to the Trekforce field-base.  After the last few days of thinking that everybody we met looked like a criminal or an undercover agent, it was good to see an ordinary, down-to-earth, friendly face. Good, too, to see people cooling themselves in the Macal River, kids splashing about, fishing, swimming, washing clothes. 

We drove down over the wooden Bradley Bridge, then up the other side, cutting through the streets of Santa Elena to the walled football pitch at the end of which stood the Trekforce fieldbase....

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