Be The Jam

I'm off to work at the Glade Festival for a week so I won't be logging in until at least next Wednesday.

About a year ago I took the morning off work, claiming to have an appointment at the dentist's, and went off to be interviewed by Fern and Phil on that there television like what you house dwelling types live in. Not only did they send a Mercedes to pick me up from the woods, give me breakfast and a massage but they also gave me a 10 litre solar shower. For all you uninitiated types a solar shower is a big plastic bag that you fill up with water, leave out in the sun to get warm before tying to a tree or some such thing that is taller than yourself and showering using the appropriately attached shower head. I had had a five litre version years ago that I took to a festival only to discover that when the sun was hot it was too hot to want a warm shower and when there was no sun the water was too cold to want to go anywhere near, I remained a member of the great unwashed. The other day I was rummaging around in a friends garage where I keep all my possessions when I discovered the shower, "aha" I thought. Did I think "aha", does anyone actually think "aha"? Anyway, I'm not sure what my precise thoughts where on discovering the shower, "aha" will suffice. Having thought "aha" I put the solar shower into the ever growing pile of things that I had just realised I couldn't possibly live without and continued with my rummaging.

On Saturday night I decided that I had had enough of sponge baths and it was time to go up in the world, it was time to install a shower into my abode. I walked the mile or so to fetch about 20 litres of water stoked up the fire, got out my largest saucepan and sat back and waited for the water to heat. Sitting back and waiting didn't last long, not when I had a wind up torch, lent by a friend, to play with. A few winds of the torch and an instant of bright light later I was presented with a problem; the water I was heating was full of little bits of leaf, nothing too big but big enough to block the shower head attachment. I tried in vain to scoop the trespassing material out of the pan but succeeded only in stirring things about. So now instead of sitting about waiting in the dark as I had intended I found myself pacing up and down puzzling with a torch. Eventually I hit upon a solution; once the water was heated I would scoop it out with my mug which I would then poor into a milk bottle via a filter (sock) that was stuffed into the end, when the bottle was full I could then safely poor the water into the shower and start again. The whole operation only took about five minutes.

Then I tied the shower to a handy branch, placed some clean waterproof tarp on the floor beneath it (no point having a shower if your feet are going to get muddy), got a bit undressed, looked about the place to make sure no one was lurking, got a bit more undressed, looked around again, got completely undressed and feeling very self conscious started to shower. It soon became apparent that I had tied the shower to far too low a branch as I had to kneel down to wash any bit of me that was above a meter from the ground, apart from that though it was absolutely luxurious. Absolutely brilliant.

I'm slowly getting fitter, I have been for six runs now and have knocked about two minutes off the time it takes me to cover the first mile and a half. I find a cold shower when I get back really brings me to life.

The Jungle is Neutral

F Spencer Chapman.

Things are moving on.

Yesterday I had a chat with Nick from Off-grid and it was decided that Off-grid would host this blog as of sometime in the not too distant future, I suppose it is a bit of a merger / buy out by Off-grid. The really good thing about this is that this move is going to generate some income for the expedition and will at least cover the costs of connecting to the internet via a satellite phone from the middle of the jungle, it might also cover the purchase of some equipment as well. This is a great leap forwards. The purpose of setting up the travel guide was to generate income to cover communications costs, but so far it has just been using up my time and not paying off to any meaningful extent. So whilst things may not work out exactly as planned (and when do they?) one of the major components of the trip is now in place. This now means that I can use my time more productively, training, getting a full time job and hopefully writing some much improved blog entries.

Huzah.

On the subject of blog entries I guess I should try to fill you in on the latest developments in training and preparation for the jungle.

I appear to be taking a crash course in how to sleep despite all the weird and disturbing noises of the jungle. My lecturers are, to my best guess, three young tawny owls who are fighting a territorial battle by screeching at each other all night long, silent killers my arse. Either that or three very loud mice are stuck in a tree and require someone to call the fire brigade. Last night, as every night recently I didn't get to sleep until about three am and then it was the result of sheer exhaustion rather than a cessation in noise from the neighbours.

I am though, becoming increasingly reliant on those things that are to be found naturally occurring in woodlands; wild raspberries, wild strawberries, birch bark, goose grass and of course, fire wood. I have cast a covetous eye over the increasingly tasty looking rabbits and deer with whom I share my eye and have considered renewing my acquaintance with some of the fungi and roots that are found in abundance about the place. At the risk of sounding a bit of a tosser I feel myself becoming more attuned with the environment around me and I'm starting to live with it rather than struggle against it. STARTED is all, there is a long way to go before I would consider myself to be in anyway competent at what I'm doing and I'm going to need to be competent to survive in the jungle. That's why I'm still living in the woods.

It's been raining, you may have noticed, it was on the news, floods - bridges swept away - damn almost bursting - motorway closed. Not really the time to be outside, without a tent. It has been particularly miserable. To make things all the more fun I ran out of money quite a while ago and found myself sat huddled from the rain in the one dry spot in my shelter with my last fiver burning a hole in my pocket, all my pockets already have holes in them but you get the idea, so as I settled down to yet another meal of lentils the level of despondency I was feeling grew to previously unknown levels. What was there to look forward to? Apart from having some dry clothes to change into before going to bed, not a lot. The idea of going to the jungle seemed further away than ever, how can I consider going away when I'm all out of money, food and work. "It's time to pack it in, start a career and forget about the whole stupid idea" I thought to myself, "this aint going nowhere". It would have been easy in that moment to pack it in, head back to the comfort of the parental home and forget about the whole stupid idea. However, I looked at my muddy sodden trousers, one knee torn open both legs rolled up to avoid the worst of the water held on the undergrowth and I began to grin. I realised that moments like these are character forming and that no self respecting jungle explorer is going to go running home just because of a little bit of rain and some hunger. What better practice can there be for surviving than being cold and wet and hungry and wanting to give up? None. It's best to find out what I'm made of here in the UK where there is at least the option of giving up than out in South America where everything is all a bit more serious.

Which is all very well, but the question still remains of how on earth to get to the jungle and, more importantly, how to raise the necessary funds for the trip. The brief answer to which is," I don't know". It seems that the idea of running an online business from the jungle is a non-starter as I lack the ability to make money from the travel guide when running it from Oxford. So with the help of Ian at Bushmasters I came up with another idea, well it's Ian's idea and I adopted it. It makes sense though, might as well make things harder for myself seeing as they are seemingly impossible anyway. The new idea is to walk across South America from coast to coast through the jungle, across the planes, over the Andes and to the sea. No worrries. This of course presents a challenge even more pressing than the "how to raise the capital" challenge and that is, how on earth am I going to get fit enough to pull that off? Well I went for a run and had to stop in order to catch up on breathing after 15 minutes, then got bored and went home and had a cup of tea. Clearly I'm not going to be much good at pushing myself to get fit. So I signed up with 4 Para (The Territorial Army Parachute Regiment) they should get me fit quick sharp and teach me a few useful things along the way.

In all probability it's going to take a year to get fit enough, tough enough and learn all the things required to have a good chance at making it across South America on the first attempt. A year should be plenty of time to save up the required amount, if only someone would give me a job.

This new found positive attitude is great, I rebuilt my shelter before breakfast on Sunday (admittedly breakfast didn't occur until midday) and now not only is it waterproof but I have space to stand up and walk around!

The plan is to

Find some kind of financially viable employment, for some reason no one will give me a job at the moment, and save lots of money.

Learn Spanish

Start collecting the equipment I will be taking to the jungle and field test it by using, that way by the time I get to the jungle it will all be second nature and I can get on with learning about the jungle.

Become as good at navigating as it is possible to become.

Pass P Company (entrance test for the parachute regiment - quite taxing).

Work on my bushcraft skills, lighting fire by rubbing sticks together, fishing etc etc.

Find an accomplice.

Any questions?