For the majority of the trip we are camping. Sometimes we do stay at a hostel, but these have all been 10 bed hostels – so facilities are generally cramped and shared with many others. For someone like me who is a very light sleeper – it means sleep has been hard to come by so far. I was very lucky because at first I was allowed to have my own tent. When the truck is full, 24 people can be accommodated. For the first couple of weeks, there were only 12 people aboard which meant there were spare tents – and I grabbed one. Having your own tent however is not all plain sailing. Taking the tent down by yourself is very difficult especially in the torrential rain and at half 5 in the morning – more on this later!
The first few times we camped, we were at designated campsites. This means the grass is generally cut and quite short and there is usually a toilet and shower block with varying levels of mosquitoes living within them. Sometimes there are also covered areas where you can relax, have a drink or two – maybe play cards. A couple of the campsites even had pools! The Brazilians do love to camp so these campsites have been very busy. They bring everything with them though, including electrical fans, double beds – I even saw one tent complete with a microwave! These campsites are great and we generally spend a couple of nights there, so there is no frantic rush to leave the following morning.
Bush-camps are a completely different story. These happen when we are covering long distances between destinations. It usually involves a full day’s drive – leaving at half 7, driving till 6pm with a stop for lunch. We pitch the tents, cook on the camping stove, go to bed, eat breakfast the following day at half 6am and try to leave by 7-7.30am for another long drive. There are zero facilities so if you want to go to the toilet, you have to go for a walk and maybe take a shovel with you to dig a hole!
The above is a best case example of a bush-camp. The reality has been far worse. The last time I was in cook group, we were due to bush-camp. We arrived at the spot we were aiming for by half 5 – the trouble was, heavy rain had washed the bridge away so the truck could not get to the designated spot. Not to worry, we continued driving. Unfortunately, there is hardly anywhere to bush-camp in South America. Along the sides of the roads are towns, houses or miles upon miles of cultivated farmer’s fields growing various produce. By 7pm we were still driving (bear in mind setting up the kitchen and cooking usually takes a couple of hours) and it was now dark. Eventually a dirt road was found and we drove up it. It looked as if we had discovered a long abandoned track. We knew it was abandoned as the vegetation was so overgrown – it was waist high. Then the truck came to a grinding halt and juddered violently. The truck was stuck in the sand! It was not going anywhere!
Cook group (me) was ordered out of the truck and told to start setting up. The vegetation was still waist high so one of the chaps had to get a machete out and began to cut back the jungle until I was able to set up a table and camp stove. I quickly changed my original plan of making a squash thai curry (far too time consuming) and began to knock up some easy tomato veggie bolognaise with pasta. As I was doing this, some of the others, only a couple of meters away were digging the truck out and getting sand-mats under the wheels. By the time food was ready, all the tents had been put up and the truck was back on solid ground! And the food was tasty.
The trouble with being on cook group is that you also have to make breakfast. That means you have to start preparing at 6am – which means you have to get up by half 5 at the latest to take your tent down – which takes even longer when you are by yourself. The morning after the tomato pasta, I was preparing breakfast. Then halfway through, the heavens opened and the most torrential rain I have witnessed came down. I was instantly soaked – could not have been wetter if I had thrown myself into the sea! Like a drowned rat I ventured onto the truck and changed completely. The joys of bush-camp cooking!
The bush-camps we do find are usually abandoned quarries, a train grave-yard, random slag heaps and sometimes we have to settle for the concrete floor of a large service station with a lorry park round the back. I do not have many photos of the bush-camps due to the fact we have been arriving and departing in darkness. Our last service station camp turned out to be an experience (or nightmare depending on your point of view). The grainy photos were taken there – if you squint hard enough, you can see the tents underneath a shelter. That night a storm came in. Not a problem we thought, we are under shelter and the truck is on concrete so it won’t get bogged. (Oh yes, I forgot to mention that the truck also got bogged and needed digging out in the train grave-yard camp). Then the rain started coming down horizontally. We quickly made sure all the tents had their tarps on them and went back inside the truck for shelter. Then the wind picked up. Then the tents were moving. Then the rain was so heavy we had zero visibility. We ran out of the truck trying to catch the tents as they were blowing away. Desperately, we were hitting tent pegs into concrete trying to stabilise the tents. Some of the tents, including mine, were flooded – all my sleeping gear was wet. By this time I was also soaked to the skin again. The Brazilian truckers were all videoing the service station roof as it was close to being ripped off completely – when the truckers are surprised by the severity of a storm – you know its a bad one!
When the rain began to subside, the spare tents were erected and I was given some spare bedding and I attempted to get some sleep. Unfortunately, I was still very wet, so sleep was next to impossible. I was up at 5 the following morning, walking around, trying to keep warm and dry off.
I do hope the bush camps are going to improve!
No comments:
Post a Comment