The trip to the farm was a mini-epic adventure in itself. Tromping through the rainforest, getting covered and almost trapped by sucking mud, keeping an eye out for giant insects, traversing overgrown tracks, struggling to keep up with porters carrying way more things that we were…it almost felt like we were old-time explorers. After traipsing through the jungle for over an hour (sucking mud is a time eater), we came to a river, a tributary of the Mahaica River, which itself is a tributary of the Essequibo River. Here, we were introduced to the traditional dugout canoe. The canoe was about 5 feet long and can fit 4 people and some gear. It’s quite shallow and it sits low in the water. It is quite the balancing act to climb in and out of the canoe. However, its position in the river meant that it was easy to stick my hand in the dark waters, trailing it behind me as I was ferried deeper into the rainforest. As it fit into my idea of Adventure (capital letter necessary), I loved every minute of it.
Ah! Your feet! In serious need of some boots there!
It must be so tough farming in a remote location like that with limited equipment. I’m curious, did you ask the owner about transporting their produce out of there? Also, how many fields does it take for the slash and burn rotation to be maintained?
I enjoyed seeing the flowers on the pineapple, I’ve never really seen a pineapple growing before!
I hope some day you get to see or at least hear a jaguar in the wild! 🙂
if I remember correctly, ther is a long round about way of getting there by vehicle so I believe that is how they transport the produce. it’s quite the trek!
re rotation, i’m not totally sure. she had at least 8 or so fields so around that, i’d think, if one wants to have subtantial enough crops all the time to make it worth the effort. my own guess, though!