Phase 2 - Environmental project in The Tamango Reserve

This phase was a lot of fun. It all started off with a bumby nine hour bus ride south from field base. After a soaking on the first night we set about our work. For the first 4 days we were working on a path in the reserve, building small bridges and drainage ditches, widening, repairing and building foothpaths throughout the reserve. This work was lots of fun and very varied. The next 5 days we were working on building a section of road for the park guards. This was really tough and i hated this part as it wasnt really essentail to the park, just seemed like they were using us to get the work done... However, the campsite we were at was great altough we did have to walk for nearly an hour each day to work.. I also built some crazy sculpture things out of wood and stone on top of hills with the expedition artist.. Sounds odd but they looked reall cool!!

The final part was a boat ride down a river and across a lake, so we all donned pirate costumes for the occasion only to be greeted by a very small boat and very un piratey life jackets.. We soon arrived at possibly the nicest campsite ever for our final 5 days. These five days were spent walking through thick, thick spikey undergrowth looking for the illusive and endangered andean deer called Huemul, of which we saw none. However, it was lots of fun ad the scenery was stunning... It was also a guys birthday while were were there so we had lots of cake, ballons, a game of home made twister.. much fun was had by all!!