Saturday, February 13, 2010

Coconuts and Sour Oranges

Survival week started out with the wrong kind of meal. We had breakfast at Carlitos which consisted of too little of gallopinto (rice and beans), eggs, and coffee, in other words not enough calories to start off a week with very little to eat. We took a boat around the island to a deserted beach and unloaded all of our gear plus our water (despite it being survival we had to guarantee the water source apparently). Since it was jungle survival first we hiked right past the beach and into the jungle where we would spend the next two days roasting and ignoring the water mere yards away.

The first afternoon we focused on learning how to build a shelter and learning a little about our environment. One of the skills we had to demonstrate was opening a coconut without a knife and this was quite an operation. For those who don't know much about coconuts they usually reside 30 to 40 feet up a tree with no branches. Climbing is an option but it can be kind of nerve wracking especially in a calorie depleted state. Our next option was to build a three high and see if the guy on top could reach the coconuts, but this also proved futile. Our next attempt was to chop down a tree about the same height as the coconut tree and use it as a massive pole to knock the coconuts down. This proved to be more difficult than originally anticipated because the tree was quite heavy and required three people to operate. We ended up jerry rigging a snare at the top of the pole which we tried to wrap around the coconuts and yank them down.

We also found what looked like an orange tree and were pretty excited until we found out that they were really incredibly sour lemons. Even so I probably have eaten about 10 in the last three days. We spent Tuesday night in the jungle and Wednesday morning I definitely felt very weak and probably didn't move more than 30 feet from my tent the whole day except to get water. They had told us that we would get a bowl of rice and beans every two days during the survival week but that we were going to have to walk back to Carlitos to get it. So Wednesday evening we all marched the 30 minutes back to the beach resort to take the jungle survival test and get our meal. I had almost decided not to go since I thought the calories expended by the walk wouldn't be made up by the meager rations I was expecting to get at Carlitos but I decided to go anyways mainly to get out of the jungle. I was also wondering why we couldn't just cook the rice and beans in camp but I chalked that one up to the typical disorganized nature of these kind of operations. We got to Carlitos about 5 PM and got the test out of the way and got in the ocean to try and feel a little bit cleaner. I knew something wasn't right when Jeff let us use his shower to clean up afterward and people were getting to clean their clothes and put on new stuff. When we sat down for our rice and beans it turn out that we were actually eating fish, grilled chicken and spaghetti and that the whole rice and beans thing had really been a rumor to motivate us to seek out and try the jungle foods near our camp. Even though I loved the food I could have eaten three more plates the same size.

Thursday morning we transitioned to coastal survival by moving camp 100 yards down to the beach. Some of the objectives for this evolution where to catch a fish with a hook and line or a spear; both of which are a lot harder than they sound. I promptly headed out to the reef with snorkel gear and spear with every intention of coming back with a nice fish on the end of my spear. I returned to the beach very discouraged after watching my spear bounce off two or three fish. I spent the rest of the day trying to fish with a hook and line but only managing to feed a lot of bait.

I woke up Friday morning feeling extremely weak despite getting almost 10 hours of sleep. I barely ate on Thursday and used up a lot of energy on snorkeling around the reef so I was pretty out of it. It took all of my energy to walk 40 feet back from the beach to pick up almonds to get enough calories to make it through the rest of the day. I spent most of the day trying to fish some more and working on a beach shelter and a raft made from plastic bottles. Friday evening we marched back to Carlitos, this time with the knowledge that we were getting a full meal. Even though I knew I was gonna get fed, Dan, Matt and I stopped by a store on the way and I got a package of ritz cheese crackers and managed to consume just over 700 calories before I even got to Carlitos.

Saturday was a day off and we went to the small SDA church on the island in the morning and just lounged around all afternoon. Around noon on Saturday the wind really started picking up all over the island making walking around kind of difficult because of blowing sand. After dinner we went back to our beach to find a disaster area with several tents almost sideways. Some people had stayed behind and had managed to stake a lot of the tents down but it was still a pretty interesting night.

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