Sorry, updates will come...

To anyone still wondering what we're up to and where we've gone - all is good, just adapting back to the UK, but I do intend to finish up the blog with the final leg of the trip etc. In the meantime, check out this article. Its been an amazing week for UK climate activists!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2009/oct/12/climate-activists-campaigns-greenpeace

11 month trip around South America completed...without setting foot on a plane!

After 15 days and a combination of cargo ship, bus and ferry, we arrived safely in the port of Harwich, UK, on saturday the 19th September. Expect full updates and loads of new photos very soon...x

Bullock's bollocks

The Labour party MP and Mayor of Lewisham Steve Bullock recently wrote a load of old bollocks about The Camp for Climate Action on his blog, comparing climate change activists to football hooligans:
http://www.labouronline.org/wibs/167209/?PageId=2a815d3a-a0ad-aa24-01ec-ceb6b6bbd069

I felt obliged to respond with an email direct to Sir himself. Here's what I said:

Dear Mr Bullock

I am writing in response to your recent ignorant remarks about The Camp for Climate Action. Your comparison of climate campers to violent football thugs is an absolutley disgraceful insult to the diverse, caring, well-informed and peaceful people who make up this extraordinary movement.

Would you have said the same about the Sufferagette movement had you been around to witness their 'selfishness'? And how about the civil rights movement, with that thug-like Martin Luther King?

You say that you believe that the climate change activism movement is counter productive? In what way? Did you miss the last few years worth of positive media coverage about the camp? Did you fail to see how each year the camp has brought the atrocious desicions made by your party into the limelight, such as the expansion of Heathrow or the breath of new life delivered to the coal industry?

Or maybe that is the point. Maybe the fact that these pesky environmentalists are continuosly highlighting the absolute double standards and hypocrisy your party demonstrates in it's climate change policy is the cause of the bee currently residing in your bonnet. You claim to be 'desperately worried' about climate change. So desperately worried that you continue to represent a party who wishes to continue business as usual, with total expansion of airports and building new coal-fired power stations? Are you aware of the work of the world's body of climate scientists?

And please tell me, how will the camp be seen as 'self indulgent' by those currently 'struggling through the recession'? I imagine many of the those affected by the current economic situation may feel some sympathy to a movement which is highlighting and criticising the flawed system which put them into that situation in the first place.

And finally, as if to prove your lack of knowledge about the camp, you air your concerns about the 'repair of the Heath' and collection of rubbish. The carefully organised waste sorting system will make recycling a straightforward affair for the local council, and will serve as a demonstration of good waste management to those visiting from the local area, therefore helping to meet local recycling targets. Locals will be encouraged to visit the camp and participate in a wonderful range of environmental workshops and activities, including activities for the children, making for a great local bank holiday event. So far, after every climate camp, the land has been left in an equal, if not better state than it had been found. This has been noted upon by the landowners of previous camps.

I do hope that you plan to visit this year's camp. You never know, you may learn a thing or two!

Kind regards,

Lewis McNeill

Ps. In further posts you may like to consider using a spell-check. Peopel may pick up on it.

The end is nigh; homeward bound.

I must apologise for my recent slackness in writing anything. I'm way behind, and am once again writing from Colombia, having swiftly traversed the length of Ecuador. The reason I've not written much has not only been our recent push north, but also because all our internet time has been spent applying for jobs back in the UK. With the end of out journey in sight, we've been looking for answers to 'what next'? I applied for a Climate Change Co-ordinator position with an organisation in Leeds. I spent a fair amount of time on the application, and the presentation I had to prepare once I was short-listed for an interview (which was conducted via Skype), but didn't get the job. Undeterred I've appled for two more since, and am waiting for replies. Colette also spotted an opportunity; a placement with Amnesty International. Her application won her a phone interview, and again we await the result.

So really we've been planning the next chapter of our lives, and as a result our minds and hearts have not really been in the 'here & now'. A couple of months ago we'd begun to miss home a little, and even though we've had great times since, the feeling hasn't really subsided. I suppose there comes a point in all big trips where you just feel like you've run out of steam. The thought of a 30- hour bus ride to new lands just doesn't hold the same appeal it once did, the new landscapes and scenes no longer seeming so new.

I really thought that I'd got the job, and had begun planning the journey home. Despite being unsuccessful, I feel that there are too many opportunities for a job passing by at the moment, and being so far away without the power of flight may be hindering my application. Hopefully Colette will get her position, but it would begin in September.

We feel ready to return, and so we've booked our cargo passage home. We will board the ship on September 6th in Cartagena, Colombia, and 13 days later or so we should be back in the UK. We're very excited!

I've still got a bit of catching up to do, so I'll be writing a few more posts, including the advice on cargo ship travel that I've been promising from the start, as well as the 'very incomplete guide to vegetarian eating in South America'.

In the meantime I'm planning to leave civilisation for a few days to enjoy our final week in Colombia; we're off to the beautiful Playa Blanca to camp, swim and laze around in hammocks drinking rum. And then we take the ship to the Dominican Republic for some final Caribbean fun before crossing the Atlantic once more.

The clean-burning stove project: life in the Peruvian sticks (Soundtrack: Santiago, Santiago, Santiago)

The clean burning stove project was one of the few projects that we'd known about before setting off and had wanted to take part in. The organisation builds highly efficient eco-stoves in the homes of the villagers of San Juan del Iscos, near the city of Huancayo. The idea is simple: the stoves both reduce high rates of respiratory disease sustained by the villagers (due to smoke-filled cooking areas associated with cooking on an open fire in an enclosed space) and reduce local deforestation, as less fire wood is required for the more efficient new stoves.


We were fortunate with our timing. The day we arrived in the little village was the first day of the year's biggest event, the Fiesta of the village saint; Santiago. The men & boys of the village were all dressed in a unique uniform of knee-high Maralyn Manson type boots, combat trousers, blue blazers, yellow capes and perculiarly hats adroned with colourful feathers.


They wandered around holding what could be described as mini whips, swilling beer from little plastic cups and emitting manic, high-pitched laughter (this 'Santiago cackle' became a tad tedious during our stay). The Cholitas were dressed in their finest home-spun dresses of amazing colours and their traditional hats. They were all so warm and welcoming. Before I knew what was happening I was adorned with my very own yellow cape, a whip was shoved into one hand, a beer into the other and it was demanded I join in with the general cackling and dancing. The dance, like those we'd experienced of the indigenous people of Bolivia, consisted of steady shuffle around in pairs of two, with the occasional 360 swirl. It's slightly less challenging than, say, Tango, but nevertheless the locals seemed impressed with our natural ability! One tradition involved a local youth climbing a 40 ft tree trunk, dislodging the fruit and beer that had been hung along its length, to reach the basket of goodies that hung at its zenith. I was so releived that no one asked me, the visiter of the village, to get up there myself. At one point, different groups of visiters battled each over in the main square. It was a bizarre event, and we still haven't worked out its trus significance. They wore very non-PC masks meant to resemble the African slaves who were brought over by the Spanish, and we gathered that this was something to do with the whips. The men from different villages entered the centre of the square in the uniforms and masks, fooling around in a very slapstick manner pretending to be bumbling oaths, much to the amusement of the hundreds of onlookers. Then, a 'referee' would appear inbetween them, before they began thrahing each other with the whips. After a brief tussle which each time looked like it might boil over into a full on braul they would give each other a manly hug, and walk off together, leaving the next two in line to begin. For the second time that day i was glad to have been left out of tradition.

It was clearly quite novel to have a few gringos present and everywhere we went people invited us to sit down and drink with them. There's a bit of an etiquette involved. Take the bottle of beer and fill the communal plastic cup provided. Pass the bottle to whoever you select to take the next drink before nodding in their direction and saying "salud pappi" before downing the beer, flicking away the foamy dreggs and passing them the cup. A few people we'd come accross in parts of Peru seemed to associate foreigners with swine flu. It certainly wasn't an issue here as the foamy little cups circulated from mouth to mouth.

The people were some of the friendliest we've met on the trip. They would tow us around making sure we'd met all of their families and several even invited us to the dances thay were holding at their houses as part of the festivities.

That was our introduction to San Juan de Iscos, and we were promised that the best of the partying was still to come. We were introduced to our host family of the week, a stout Cholita called Maruha, her elusive husband whose name I forget and their daughter Katty.

The accommodation was just as traditional as we'd hoped; a modest farm house made from adobe mud bricks, complete with two cows, two puppies, a pig, a sheep, and about 400 guinipigs, all of which were bundled into the small yard every night for safe keeping. We shared our bedroom with another volunteer. I had the top bunk, which lay about a metre underneath the bare wooden beams and broken tiles which let narrow streams of light penetrate the otherwise dark room during the day. Sometimes I'd wake to find little piles of brick dust on my pillow, dislodged by a mouse or early morning bird on the roof above.

We happily settled into the daily routine of life on the farm. Each morning I'd wake at about 5am to the hideous sound of a local donkey who quite clearly thought it was a cockrel. I'd hop out of my bunk (whilst Colette slept on, being the earlybird she is) and wander out into the fresh morning air to visit the toilet; an outhouse accross the lane with a classic squat-over-the-hole-in-the-ground model loo. Then I'd shovel up the impressive quantity of offerings left by the cows on the yard floor during the night, before feeding the ungrateful, squeeling guini-herds. Of course guinipigs are a delicacy here in Peru and so our family have a bit of a scheme going on with around 10 pens of the little blighters.

Then, after a carbohydrate-packed breakfast (sometimes consisting of chips and rice!), we'd attempt to milk the cows. There's definately a knack to it, its all about the rythm 'n' squeeze. After that we sometimes helped to cut some grass for the animals, using little hand scythes. The tools used in these parts are all manual, including the ox-drawn ploughs. I'll definately be purchasing one of these effieicant little scythes for future allotment adventures.

By 9am we'd be finished with the chores, and ready to meet with the local primary school kids for classes. The schools had been shutdown due to the old swine flu, so the organisation had agreed to hold classes in a little eucalyptus wood nearby. From 9.30-12.oo we'd teach environmental education and english, and sometimes play a bit of footie. It was really good fun, and the kids loved our recycled craft activities. I came up with a deforestation session, aimed at backing up the stove project, which involved an adaptation of musical chairs where another tree had been chopped down each time the music (my harmonica) had stopped.

In the afternoons we'd get down to the nitty gritty; making the stoves. We'd walk to the home of whoever had arranged to have a stove built (there was a list in order of priority - those deemed to need a stove most urgently would be selected first), carrying a couple of sections of tin chimney and a steel 'counter' which forms the upper surface of the stove. All the villager had to do was be ready with a pile of 'barro' (mud made from clay-like mud and donkey crap), a couple of large adobe bricks, and about 20 normal bricks.

Making the stove first involved the destruction of the existing stove. this could be pretty hard work, as the kitchens were generally cramped and dark, with little ventilation. Due to years of cooking with no chimney, the walls and ceiling around the stove were caked in thick soot which formed stalacmite-like formations. We'd have to use a mattock to break up the bricks, many of which were still hot from lunchtime, making the still air thick with ash and soot. We'd be blowing black dust from our noses for days afterwards.

Then came the fun bit. After levelling out the ground you must grab handfulls of barro and slap it onto the ground before placing the adobe bricks on top. Each new layer of bricks needed a new layer of barro lobbed on, sending splatterings of mud everywhere. We'd come away caked in the stuff. Finally we'd add the counter, fit the chimney, and then use the rest of the mud to seal any gaps and smooth the whole thing over. They look amazing. We hope to bring this skill back with us, with Colette's mum being the first in line for a free installment in the garden!

Usually the owner of the house would put on some tea or pour us tin mugs of homemade Chicha, a drink made from fermented maize. We'd clean ourselves up, sip our drinks and admire our new creation, each stoves being slightly different in structure from the last.

One grateful old chap invited us back for breakfast on the following saturday at 7.30. Unable to refuse the offer, we headed back there for the agreed time, after being w
I loved life in the country. We soon felt like part of the community and helped out where we could. Every Wednesday afternoon the community gets together to share out tasks, help each other harvest the crops oken up to the increasingly tedious sounds of Santiago music at 4am. Unlike the recorded music which would blare from the neighbours house from about 7am, this was a live band. Four o'clock in the morning! We anticipated that the breakfast may involve some kind of meat and so we'd decided that we would eat what we were given so as not to offend. I think we were both secretly hoping for some tasty free-range bacon, sliced from the family swine merely minutes before serving. It was not to be. We were sat down right next to the CD player which was pumping Santiago at full blast, manic laughter n all. And then he lovingly placed our breakfast before us; bowls of hot water containing pieces of chunky corn and what appeared to be some kind of internal organ. I identified the grey, papilated slithers as stomach lining. We'd seen many of them hanging on the washing lines of those we during our installation trips, drying out in the sun alongside other miscallaneous internal organs and smalls. Well I say 'smalls', but as a general rule the Cholitas are far from petite. Bravely we began to slurp, chew and gulp, with forced smiles and "muy bien"'s. Colette was in fact far braver than I, finishing every last drop. Lets just say I was happy at the arrival of the family cat...
from the communal land and prepare the goods for sale in the nearest town. All profitss are shared. Socialism at work.

Like in many of the more rural places we've visited, the rural folk of Iscos are very much aware of the rapidly changing climate. As people who spend long days out in the fields they are very connected to the outdoor environment and more sensitive than most to the change. Many told me about the times when they can no longer work during the day, due to the intense heat. They pointed to the distant glacier that sits above the city of Huancayo, telling me that when they were young you couldn't see any of the dark rock beneath the ice. Now about half of the visible mountain top has its rock exposed to the sun. Before, the light coloured ice would reflect the sun's heat and keep the glacier cool. Now the dark surface of the rock absorbs more of the heat, melting more of the ice around it in a self-enforcing process known as a 'positive feedback'. Other examples of these phenomena are of course being observed in sea ice, with the melted ice being replaced with dark ocean water which in turn absorbs more heat. It's the people like those living in Iscos, who live low impact lifestyles and have done the least to cause anthropocentric climate change, who will be the ones who first feel its brunt.

One day, as we returned to the house we were met by the sound of an ongoing, hideous scream. We identified the awful noise as pig. Realising it was our friendly pig Thomas, we rushed back to find him pinned down by three men, whilst another held a nasty looking sharp object. It was time for Thomas to bid farewell to his testicles. It was pretty grim. There didn't seem to be any anesthetic involved. We couldn't watch. Thomas was just not his friendly self for days. I understood completely.

Our last day just so happened to coincide with the final Santiago blow-out. People from as far away as Lima had come to witness the festivities. There was plenty more dancing and Santiago laughter. This time different families teamed up in their best threads to 'battle' each other with group dances in the square. One family that we'd befriended insisted that we join their family as part of their dance, as were 'good dancers'. There were no traditional costumes left, so they tied my hoodie around me like a sash, and popped a Cholita hat on me as there were no 'man-hats' left, and I was left to prance around in a distinclty less macho manner. The dance was a success, and our presence was enjoyed by the crowd, although we never did find out who won. Later that evening we had to take the bus to Lima. After saying goodbye to our family, and the many other lovely people who'd made us feel so welcome, we took the bus to Huancayo, and then the night coach to Lima.

Climate Camp - a video response to the London MET's request for information!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gKRl5lsPOA

Have you voted for this year's 'Britain's got direct action'?!

Have your say on which of our celebrity coal-fired power stations will get a visit from activistd this october!

http://climatecamp.org.uk/press/2009/08/08/activists-launch-public-online-vote-to-choose-a-coal-plant-to-shut-down

http://www.thegreatclimateswoop.org/?q=about

...and why? Because...

"Apartheid didn’t collapse, people got together and struggled, and sang, and persisted. Women weren’t given the vote, they joined with each other and made universal suffrage essential. And so it goes. It’s a well-worn argument, but that doesn’t make it less right. Most of the freedoms we enjoy today have been won by people stepping out of line to make the world a better place by taking back power. And this means confronting the powerful who wish to preserve the status quo. Climate change won’t just go away until we, that’s you and me, get together and create moments of resistance and celebration that break through this grey, complacent slide towards catastrophe".