Day 4: Part 2 - This is how you use a machete!

The volunteers are a friendly bunch but as we mingle, it seems we are "us" and they are "them". This is to be expected of course, and I´m sure when the next newbies arrive, we´ll feel exactly the same, as if we´re old hands despite only being here a few days.

After lunch we are taken on orientation with Cesar, the station director. Apparently, we are lucky to have him as Matt, the American volunteer co-ordinator is leaving on Friday after being here for three months and they don´t yet have a replacement. So Cesar is taking us for orientation.

He is extremely knowledgeable, as I guess he has to be given the nature of this project. There is a lot to learn and retain. We spend the next couple of hours learning about the re-forestation project and how Jatun Sacha station works with the National Park and its neighbours to eradicate invasive and introduced flora. The Mora is the most invasive, choking all the endemic/natural species.

The plant nursery: we learn about the different plants that are grown from seeds or cuttings and are then planted out once the land has been cleared of Mora by the volunteers. Poison apple is one such plant and must be handled with care because although it´s the favourite food of tortoises, it´s not so good if you get the sap on your skin or in your eyes.

The whole point of this project is to bring back endemic species back to San Cristobal but it won´t happen until large hectares of land is cleared and it stays cleared.

The Mora looks like a cross between a blackberry and a raspberry. The young canes are upright and are covered in small thorns and a waxy white substance, like the UK raspberry, but as it grows, which is very quickly, it twists around everything in its way, choking the plant it is growing around and as it matures the thorns are even more vicious than our bramble.

There is no dormant season - it grows all year round - the berries are pink going into black and apparently taste delicious. But they have to go.

We are shown how to use a machete which is the most effective way of controlling these invaders and is least destructive to surrounding species. Those back in my home village will worry about my skill with a sharp object but as long as I follow the rules: "Never cut towards you, always cut away and make sure nobody is working within a full arm-swing´s reach of you" I should be fine.

It is brushed over that one of the German volunteers meeting us at the airport this morning had just been to the hospital having cut his foot with a machete. Apparently, his machete hit a rock and bounced back onto his foot, despite him wearing wellington boots. Wellington boots? How are they going to protect my toes from this dangerous weapon? I need steel-capped toes, don´t I?

Chopping off the Mora close to the ground and then again when/if the plants regrow will go on until the plant eventually dies. When the land is clear enough to replant, the native flora being nurtured in the station´s nursery will re-generate the area and eventually the native tortoises can be re-introduced.

Cesar shows us around the station but I get confused and don´t know where any of the paths lead. I´m sure I´ll soon find my way round.

He gives us a treat and firstly cuts down a papaya for each of us then some oranges which are good to eat together with the papaya. We are told not to swallow the papaya seeds as they do "bad things" to our intestines. Then we eat a passion fruit fresh from the vine.

The passion fruit, maracuya, is an introduced species and although it climbs over everything, it doesn´t strangle the native plants like the mora does and it provides food.

We then have 2 hours before the evening meal so head off to our room. We have no electricity in our room so it´s important we sort out our bags before dark. I´m very annoyed as I needn´t have brought my mozzie net. All the beds already have them, except Belinda´s. Using my emergency gaffer tape (the 2nd thing I´m really glad I packed that I wondered if I would ever use) we rig up her net using that and a very complicated system of string from a washing line elsewhere in the room in order to hook it round a very small nail above her window.

I don´t have a pillow on my bed so I make one out of my fleece and sleeping bag bag. I´ll be amazed if I need to use my fleece here, as despite being colder than in Puerto Baquerizo Moreno, known as "Port" San Cristobal, it´s still pretty hot. But it makes an effective pillow.

In the end, we don´t eat until 7 pm as the American students have to eat first. They´re leaving tomorrow when apparently normal service will be resumed.

After our meal, which is yellow rice, red onion and tomato salad and potatoes with sausage, followed by an orange sponge cake (we shouldn´t get used to cake as we´re only having this because of the Americans and because they have paid a lot of money to the Foundaçion) washed down with freshly squeezed orange juice diluted with boiled water (you can´t drink the water but there is plenty of water on this island despite two rivers being dried up at the moment).

A camp fire is lit, Cesar produces a guitar and the Americans and established volunteers sing folksy songs and sway. I´m not in the mood for swaying so head off to bed.

However, I change my mind about bed when some local musicians arrive to perform for the Americans (sadly nobody buys their CD). We stay around the very hot fire until about 10 pm then head to bed.

Belinda´s mozzie net collapses on her almost immediately. She is almost delirious with jet lag having just travelled non-stop from Melbourne the wrong way round the globe and both she and Irina are quickly asleep.

As the toilets (2) and showers (2 - cold) are in full view of our room, and the toilet "building" has a light, there is a lot of noise until everyone settles in for the night. Although I'm tired, I'm still so excited that I'm actually here in Galapagos. It's like a dream come true.

It is very hot and although I wriggle into my lightweight sleeping bag, I eventually stop struggling as I don´t think I´ll need to be inside it.

First impressions so far:

Jatun Sacha station is rustic - the buildings, the Old House and the New House (Casa Neuvo) are made of heavy mahogany-type wood indigenous to Galapagos but it´s illegal to cut these trees down now. Everything is very peasant-like, the stairs, benches, beds, tables, shelving, all made out of this wood.

The set-up is very laid-back but there has to be discipline - no alcohol, no music to disturb others, no toilet paper down the toilets (as it is in all over Ecuador), turn up on time and work like everyone else unless you´re sick.

The food is excellent though long-establisheds seems to be sick of rice, but I´m sure I´ll cope.

Most of the volunteers are under 30 and apart from a couple of American students (maybe they are teachers?) I seem to be the oldest with another "oldie" who arrived with me but is over-nighting at San Cristobal.

The work done here is as I expected, unlike others who thought they´d be working with animals (not sure how as there are no animals around - some wild tortoises but nowhere near the station?)

There might be work available in the form of a personal project to check the Petrel nests, counting eggs (as rats eat them) to check for activity. Although I´d like to do that, I don´t know if I have the right experience. If there's time, Cesar might let me and Marten do that.

But for now I´ll just be doing the same as my fellow newbies: learning on the job.

I use my first machete tomorrow!

(More next weekend, as I´m back off to the station in 5 minutes and will remain there until then, so no more internet cafes!)

Hasta mañana!