Saving The Planet By Lesley and John (Mysterious Journey)

Now then, we have had many a bus trip in developing countries and on the whole they are very enjoyable. They are usually quite uneventful and you get to see huge chunks a country for very little cost. (Scottish you understand!)

Well, this one started very well and it went very badly wrong quickly and severely even before the journey started. As we arrived at the bus a young South American looking man took our bags and put them in the hold. He wore a nice 'uniform'; pressed trousers, blue tie and crisp, white, pressed shirt. We got onto the bus about 20 minutes before departure. The coach/bus was sort of nice too, by South American standards. We were sitting in the second ‘row’ of seats. A good seat, I thought, until I noticed what was going on in the first row of 4 seats. There were three adults and four of the most loud and unruly children I have so far seen in S America. The kids, from about 18 months to about 6 years of age were loud, screaming and jumping around all over. The 7 of them were sharing 4 seats. (It seems that kids do not get there own seats.) Then about 5 minutes before we set off a young woman got on with a ticket that assigned her to seat number 3; right in the middle of this rabble!!! So, now there are 7 of them in 3 seats and a poor unrelated soul in the middle of them. I never got a look at this young woman's face; it must have had the look of fear and terror.

At 7.00pm, all, apart from the loud family, were settled and the bus moved off. We went down a ramp and out into the street just outside the station, whereupon the bus stopped and picked up 2 more passengers........... but also 7 got off! They say that travel broadens the mind; I would agree with this but I would add that it also deepens the mystery. It’s like boarding a bus in Victoria bus station bound for Aberdeen and then getting off just as it turns into Buckingham Palace Road. Why? (I know me and Lesley have asked this ‘Why’ question many, many times before.)

As we left the mountainous Quito, its beauty was laid out before us like an inverted sky twinkling below us. After about 10 minutes they turned off all the lights and I thought we could all get an early night, if it wasn't for the mayhem going on in the front row. Then about 20 minutes into this 12 hour journey the lights came back on as we pulled into an eatery. We stayed there 20 minutes for people to eat, drink!

Back on the bus, instead of the lights going out again, our conductor appeared with plastic cups and biscuits. He proceeded to give these out to each passenger (right after he picked his nose). All the passengers had a plastic cup and biscuits when the conductor disappeared and then reappeared with a huge bottle of coke which he seemed to be getting ready to go around the bus pouring into peoples' plastic cups!!! We were still about 8,000 feet up a mountain and twisting and turning. The bus driver made no allowances for the plight of his colleague as he sped down the mountain.

But, the conductor proceeded with his foolish task!! He went around in a very comical way trying to stay upright and pour coke into small plastic cups. (Imagine……… Instead of the conductor, in your mind, replace him with by Charlie Chaplin – get the picture?) (Mystery: who thought pouring coke on such a journey was a good idea?) That crisp, white and pressed shirt is not going to stay like that, I thought. I wasn't wrong.

Throughout all of this they had Latin American music playing very loudly. I only noticed this when the kids were quiet for a second when they were drinking that part of the coke that had arrived in their plastic cup. Feeding number 2 over with, the conductor put on the ‘big film’.

It was a Bruce Willis film, Die Hard 4. The conductor turned the volume right up because otherwise no one would have heard it over the loud Latin American music that continued to play throughout the movie (Why?) - and of course the noise from children from hell. At midnight as the film finished, we stopped again for food. It was raining hard but we got off the bus and stood in the rain. What a welcome relief from the turmoil of that bus.

We were back on the bus by 12.30am and some peace descended on the coach until about 3.15am when most passengers got off at some God forsaken place in the middle of nowhere, where not a building stood. But then another load got on.....at that time of night…..where from? (Mysteries)

It was just after 4.30 when the bus pulled into Puerto Lopez, our final destination!!! Ughhhhh!! We should have been arriving at 7.00am. We stepped out into a street which had an inch thick pool of mud all over it. Of course, it had been raining here too. But here we were in the middle of the night, all the other passengers disappearing into the pitch dark and we had nowhere to go until things opened in the morning! We found a very hard road side kerb to sit on until a café opened at 7.00am!!

It felt very safe doing this in a South American town …………………..NOT!

Good Bye Costa Rica, Hello Ecuador

HELLO ALL!!

Well, worry no longer, Costa Rica has now been saved, although I do wonder if we should've just let the toucan species become extinct....(that was Andrew's idea - nice one, Andrew....) The work was lovely, the animals were very marvellous (well nearly all of them), though we did have some very naughty escapees during our time there:-

• 2 monkies came strolling down the path one day....
• Louise the tapir ambled into the food storage area and ate all the papaya.......
• A wild pig ate through the gate 3 times and terrorised all the other wild pigs that hadn't had the good sense to chew through any gates.......
• 2 Pava Crestadas (remember the 12' high ones with talons like shovels) ate through their netting and were never seen again.

FREEDOM!!

The other volunteer would worry lots about these episodes. I however was always hugely delighted when a break out was announced.

Now I'm not going to take a long time with this email....no really I'm not. Basically because I'm on a free internet in a hostel in San Jose ('cos I'm very poor and can't afford to go to a proper cafe that charges 40 pence an hour...) And because it's free there are many other poor travelling types standing around waiting for their chance to use something for free, so I must be a fair and nice person and give them a go (even though they are very young and very beautiful and very skinny).

So it just leaves me to say have a WONDERFUL festive time, whatever you're doing.

We're moving off to Ecuador shortly, to sort out a bit of a Galapagos cruise before working on saving their country, like we've just saved Costa Rica. It's a dirty job, but somebody's got to do it....

Lots of love from me and the wee fella xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

REST EASY IN YER BEDS....THE PLANET IS BEING SAVED - AGAIN!!

Yes folks, we´ve actually been saving it for 7 WHOLE DAYS now....7 excrutiating, painful, agonising days of getting up at 6.00AM, getting a beat up old bus to work, having only ONE HOUR break, before leaving at 3.30....This is indeed a tough life we are leading...Let me explain...

Now then. what does our new job entail? Well, in a nutshell, we´ve been up to our EYEBALLS in shit and filth and rotting papaya (pigs love that) and cleaning everything is sight - pathways, cages, walls...feeding all sorts of lovely creatures - some I´ve never seen or heard of in my entire exsistance....I mean have YOU EVER heard of a Tepezcuintles, eh eh?? Well let me tell you they´re just wonderful little creature things with huge eyes and spotty backs and long licky tongues and they like to stand on your welly boot and try to bite the buttons off your shirt when you´re hosing down their shite. I LOVE ÉM!! Wot else we got here....tapirs (4), a capibara (biggest guinea pig in the world), crocodiles (3), turtles (lots), spider monkies (lots) 3 jaguars, a puma, pigs (too many to mention), 2 lions, the most amazing birds and parrots you ever saw (ever clocked eyes on a Zopilote Rey? King vulture to you...bloody fantastically enormously wonderful thing it is)...a deer and her baby that wanders around, pinching your bananas out of your bucket when you´re trying to feed the parrots, an otter called Olly and 54 macaws that fly freely in the trees and some other things that pop up now and again, that I have no name for yet.

We also have killer birds here. Just the 2, but lethal things they are....One is a toucan who just flies around the project wherever the hell he wants, and the other is a Pava Crestada. This bird is at least 12´tall and has feet the size of shovels. Well anyway, this frigging Pava thing escaped the other day and appeared in front of me when I was very happily hosing down a pathway (such is the excitment of my job)...He started to make very funny gutteral sounds and then chased me down the path. ´Ha!´, I thought, ´this is only a mere bird, whatever can it have against me and whatever harm could it do´? Well, I soon found out. This bird obviously did have something against me ´cos it penned me into a corner, then jumped on my head and started pecking any piece of flesh it could find. Oooooer, it didn´t half hurt...
So I did the only brave thing that I could think of..I ran and hid in the toilet. It followed me, still quacking or clucking, whatever the hell it was doing, and stood guard outside the door. I was able to open the door about 2 inches to inform some passing visitors (with a small child), that it was probably best if they ran away from this spot as quickly as they could (all this in my very best Spanish, you understand). When all went quiet I opened the door again. The bird flew onto by back. I knocked it off and ran back into my haven. More visitors walked by. This time I didn´t warn anybody about anything. Hell, anyone who comes to a place like this has got to be prepared for unforseen consenquences. For a split second the bird´s attention was diverted by these new potential meals and I made a run for it. You´ll all I´m sure be most relieved to know I escaped relatively unscathed....
That is until the following morning when I was cleaning out the parrots. Aforementioned toucan would indeed be sectioned, if you could section toucans. ´Cos he likes to divebomb people. I put my head down for only a moment and, crash, his enormous beak came into contact with my head. A Tom and Jerry-like lump appeared immediately, playing havoc with the very attractive hair style I like to keep when I´m travelling. Yesterday, the very same toucan smashed into my forehead, this time producing blood and another very impressive lump. John´s been got only once, lucky bastard.

Apart from that, the job really is very lovely, honest it is...

As for the family we´re staying with...love and happiness oozing out of their every pore - we were smothered with kisses from Bella (mama) as soon as we arrived, who repeatedly tells us how much she LOVES volunteers, then kisses us some more. She force feeds us round the clock and watches as we take every mouthful, saying ´rico´(mmmmmmm - kind of), and ´lindo´ (lovely) at every available opportunity. She is one happy lady. Her husband laughs a lot. Her 9 year old daughter and 3 year old grandson jump up and down on my bed from the minute I get home to the minute I go to bed. No-one speaks ANY English - this applies to EVERYONE at the wildlife centre as well. John sits quietly throughout this mayhem. He says the very minimum he can get away with, takes to his (very own) room when the jumping up and down on my bed begins, and obediently eats everything put in front of him. He had porridge for breakfast this morning. He is a happy man. I however think my head will explode before next Tuesday.

Ok people, there you have just a bried summary of the trials and tribulations of what it is to save the planet.

Keep yourselves pure and enjoy the weather.

Lots of love and kisses and hugs from me and the funny fella.

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