My first 'Logging' Jungle Adventure...

The task was simple; to go with the master carpenter 'Piña' (yes his name is pineapple!) to get some wood for building, and pick up some locals on the way for extra help. However, the reality was an incredible and crazy calamitous jungle adventure that I will never forget. We set off at 7am in an old boat and cruised down the open river in glorious morning sunshine. We pulled into a Warao home and picked up an old man, then continued down the river. I was sat at the head of the boat capturing the amazing views with my camera, when we turned down a narrower tributary. Piña expertly threw the rusty boat around endless meanders and blind corners of the gradually narrowing river for almost an hour. We were deep in the jungle, and it was obvious. The foliage was dense, the air moist, the trees enormous, and wildlife abundant. I saw a Toucan fly from a tall palm, tropical birds of all shapes and sizes, colourful butterflies bigger than my head, and the jungle sounds were loud.

This has got to be the most remote I've ever been, and I couldn't help but think that my life depended on this smoke-puffing old boat engine to get us back out; if it failed we wouldn't stand a chance. Anyway, we started searching for ideal trees to cut down, and pulled up to several spots before settling on our first one. Armed with just a hand axe and 2 machetes, the 3 of us got off the boat, and the work begun. After slashing our way through the dense jungle, Piña picked out a massive redwood, over 100ft tall, wrapped in vines and alsorts. Some machete chopping cleared the tree, then he started swinging the axe. Piña was a machine, in less than 5 minutes the tree began to fall. First, the earie creaking and cracking sounds of the trunk splitting, then the almost slow-motion lean towards the inevitable. The falling tree picked up speed fast, and because of the shear size it destroyed everything in its dying path. Branches, smaller trees, and vines fell everywhere and after a quaking thud, the sunlight poured through the open hole in the canopy, illuminating the still-falling leaves and debris. After a gasp in awe and a brief silence, the machetes were swinging again, as we cut away some of the mess we made. The job was far from done

Piña started axing about 40ft down the fallen tree, so we would have the cut log we needed. I had a few swings of the axe, but in truth I was useless, so i let the pro handle it. Then we cleared a 'path' from the trunk to the river; essentially swinging machetes to bring down anything that it may catch on. A long rope was tied to the trunk, fed through our path to the river, and tied to the boat at the other end. This log was enormous, a few hundred kilos at least, and the jungle floor rough with trees and debris everywhere. There's no way this old boat could pull a log of that size some 100ft through the jungle.  But, with some difficulty and several attempts, it did, and Piña strangely made it look routine. The last step was to somehow lift this mammoth log into the boat. By some unorthodox method using rope, wood, and 3 men at full exertion, we got the log balanced on the front of the boat, and with a lot of effort, pushed it into the hold. After an incredible hour, I smiled in a 'job-done' manner, and perched on the log sticking out of the boat. It was then I found out we needed 3 more...

So, the whole process was repeated, 3 times, and each tree happened to be more problematic than the previous. I think the last one took 2 hours, almost everything went wrong but Piña was resilient and used many unconventional methods to get the job done. Unbelievably, by 2pm we had 4 logs balanced in the old boat and held in place by a network of ropes. We'd fucked up a few spots in the jungle, but we got what we came for, no-one was hurt, nothing lost or broken, and the smokey engine still proving to be reliable. We set off down the narrow waterways, with our new cargo seriously weighing down the front of the boat.

Even with 3 men and all tools sat at the rear, water was thrown up from the front on both sides, relentlessly showering the whole boat. It was a long cold wet journey back to the lodge,  but we made it before sunset, the job was done, and I was exhausted.

Oh and by the way, we had to unload the 4 heavy fuckers when we arrived, which was not easy at all...Read more