No Electricity, Composting Toilets and Baths in a River: the nueva cabanaOne of the things that all of the volunteers have to do is go to the new cabana, which is located on the opposite side of the Jatun Sacha reserve from where the big building I already described is. It is about a 3 hour hike up and down mountains to get to the new cabana and you have to take all of your clothes, food and sleeping material for an entire week so the bag is not exactly light as you walk. Completing that walk is probably one of the most gratifying things that I have actually ever done in my life! A real physical and mental test of whether you can keep going to make it home.
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| Above is a picture of the new cabana that I stayed in last week. No electricity, in the middle of the jungle, with primary forest to one side, and secondary forest to the other. This cabin is meant to provide a place for forest rangers and volunteers to stay and to ward off illegal loggers and poachers, etc. As you can see, there is no electricity, and you are looking at the kitchen. |
The new cabin itself was cool. I was there with 3 of the guardabosques (forest guards, or park rangers), and two other volunteers. The forest guards are pretty incredible people. It is a big deal to be a forest guard here, and there are only 4 of them for Jatun Sacha. One of them is named Don Gabriel (Don is the title for a respected male elder) and he is literally one of the coolest people I have ever met. He only speaks Spanish but when he speaks it is like he is speaking English, it is the strangest thing. He is the leader of his community (a community is basically a big family, and boy does he have one - 8 kids, each of whom also have 8 kids, so there are about 64 of them in the same community). I have placed him as being between 50 and 60 years old, and he hikes around the forest all day long, with his machete in hand, and can work in the organic garden for twice as long as the young volunteers can, in the boiling sun. On one of our days at the new cabin, we did a forest hike with Don Gabriel - the first time I have really seen the primary part of the rainforest from within. At first, the forest seemed like a dense mess of trees and plants, not at all like how it is depicted in movies (specifically I am thinking of Fern Gully..). But, on the forest walk with Don Gabriel everything seemed to jump out at me - all of the different species of plants and flowers and insects. He can spot a grasshopper from like 20 meters away and knows everything about all of the plants in the forest and what they can be used for. The forest walk with him helped me get in touch with why I decided to come here (because to be honest, early on in this trip .... in fact, for the first 10 days or so ... I was getting pretty overwhelmed and confused with my current situation). Anyway, I feel like I learned a whole lot from that walk and have a new understanding of what it means to walk through the forest, grow up in it, and just why it is worth preserving.
The title pretty much describes the rest of the aspects of the new cabin - we had no electricity, ate by candlelight each night, took baths in the river in our bathing suits, and went to the bathroom in a composting toilet. I won't go into detail but I would really prefer not to repeat that experience ever again, ahah! Overall, it was a good trip though.
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| The river, and bathtub at the new cabana. Nearby, residents collect drinking water, which is why it's so important to use eco-friendly, non-phosphate soaps when we bathe here. |
Above, one of the butterflies that flies around the reserve. This is actually one of the more 'boring' ones if you can say that...lots of them are green, blue, red, etc. Hard to take pictures of though because they seem to always be on the move.
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