Friday 14 April 2006

Adding to my brain

I have been learning stuff. Not by choice really, I really think there is enough in my brain already and adding more stuff is just liable to confuse matters. It is necessity really that drives this learning, Mike and I are going to live in the Rainforest and so it seemed wise to learn something of the place. My learnings are not all happy. Last night when I was walking home with my rucksack I did feel a bit hot, I don’t like being hot. I ended up stripped to the waist as I was feeling uncomfortable. It was pretty grim in the summer, people think sleeping out in the summer would be nice, the sleeping out bit was but the lugging the rucksack about was not so good. I was constantly hot, sticky and drenched with sweat, this I did not enjoy at all. As I say my learnings about the Rainforest we are going to live in have not all been good. Ecuador is so called because it is on the equator; if I remember my schooling properly the equator is the really hot bit in the middle. In the UK if it gets too hot in the summer the woods are the perfect place to go, they are shady and nicely cool in comparison to the glare of the sun or the baking heat of the cities. I was talking to Ralph from Aqua Firma the other night, he is arranging our introduction to Ecuador and the Rainforest, apparently the atmosphere in the rainforest is very hot. Not only that it is 90% humidity, that sounds absolutely horrible apart from anything else how is it possible to breath air that is 90% water?

There are other things to be worried about as well

Mosquitos – millions of em, everywhere all the time
Snakes, poisonous ones
Snakes, big ones
Spiders, big ones with hairs all over
Poisonous frogs
People with spears and definite views on ramblers
Drug dealers with guns
Oil companies with dim views on environmentalists
Logging companies
There are no bars deep in the rainforest
It might also be tricky to find somewhere to get a cup of tea and a newspaper on a Sunday.
Various creatures with teeth


I think perhaps what I meant to say was that Mike and I were going to go and live in the Rainforest for an afternoon and then we were going to go surfing, somewhere with cocktails and girls. Arduous business the surfing and cocktail lifestyle.
The thing is that I think I might actually have given Mike the impression that we were going to go and live on the beach; you know, sleep in hammocks, catch fish, surf, chase girls and drink Mojitos. Ralph is organising a survival course for us and some treks into the rainforest to see some of the work that Rainforest Concern is doing and Mike is very keen on doing this but I’m not sure how pleased he will be when we end up staying.

Does anyone know where we might get a waterproof laptop from? Apparently the humidity plays havoc with electronic equipment.

3 comments:

Stuart Robinson said...

What you want is a ruggedised laptop:

Try
http://www.terralogic.co.uk among others.

On the subject of humidity: 90% humidity means the air is carrying 90% of the moisture it possibly can at a given temperature. This is called relative humidity. It's a common but mistaken belief that 100% humidity means its raining - it's not: it just means the air is carrying 100% of the water it can possibly carry. When the air is fully saturated water vapor starts to condense into water droplets.

Lexa said...

be careful of those illegal loggers in ecuador. angus sent me some scary stuff about how they attack tree-friendly monks... maybe you need to take some knuckledusters with you, or at least, a very big stick.

Hugh Sawyer said...

But where would I find a very big stick?


I have written to terralogic, it could be just the right bit of kit.