Gap year & Travel News

Hello from sunny Venezuela!

It’s Brendan here, writing from Caripe where I’m here with the group, I arrived here a couple of  days ago.

The weather up here is fantastic at the moment and the team are all looking very brown! The first week in Caripe was a bit of a slow one on the project work front as this is the first group we’ve ever had working here, but we’ve compensated for this by giving the team some freebie adventure sport activities…so everyone’s happy. Importantly we have also made massive ground-work to ensure much better and more worthwhile projects for future groups which a are little less dependent on the National Parks Authority (who are a bit disorganised and have let us down a couple of times) and I am very confident and pleased with our volunteer options for the future in Caripe now.

We decided along with the volunteers that it would be best to cut the Caripe phase short by 1 week, in part because the group
enjoyed working in Jakera Club at Playa Colorada, with the kids of the village, so much that they wanted to return. This also works well because Caripe and the entire country are experiencing an unusually severe dry season making it  difficult ito plant young trees into such hard and dry ground. So we have made a 2 week plan for volunteering here in Caripe and a 1 week plan for an extra week of work in Playa Colorada.

Cueva del Gaucharo, where the volunteers worked in the first week

The Jan team (plus friends!) admire one of the best views over Caripe

A slow moment! Emma catches some Zzzz's back at 'Kenya Camp' the teams home in Caripe.

The first week up here the volunteers were working on maintenance of the National Park, cleaning-up but also guiding and working alongside National park employees. This week then plans is for them to work on conservation, planting seeds, building
a tree nursery in the National Park and gathering and planting seeds. If we get some big rains (which everyone is keeping their fingers and toes crossed for!) then we’ll also be planting young trees too. Then, the plan is to wrap up here and head back to Playa Colorada, returning to the Jakera club but this time rather than teaching activities to focus on construction. The team have some donation money (through The Leap) which they can choose to spend on any project of their choice) and their decision has been to re-build the village sports pitch, where they  had been teaching sports earlier. The community are really excited about this because the sports pitch is the centre of village life.

To compenesate the team for the slow start last week, I decided to gift the group adventure sport activities here in Caripe. I would bring adventure guides in for week 7 and Luis has taken over as the project leader for a while. He’s our adventure sports specialist here and really popular with the volunteers so everyone’s very pleased about the decision! The activities included; out-door rock climbing, a mountain hike (Cerro Negro 2240 m)  and a second hike to a nearby waterfall (90m). Have a look at the pics below to see the team in action adventure mode!

Indi at the top of Cerra Negra!

Rock climbing

Hiking in the hills around Caripe with Carlos

This week should be great following our meetings with the National Park rangers. They have donated an area of land to the group, where we can run our LEAP future groups from and build a nursery. The land is up in the mountains, next to a National Park shelter. The team has also been provided with two fireman to help them on a daily basis. I am very excited about this, when the next group come we will also be working (and camping!) at this site, and the next group should be removing these small trees from the nursery and planting them (by then small plants) in the required areas.

So, we now have our own nursery to manage, which we will  co-run with the National Park’s authorities and we have excellent projects for future groups. The setting is spectacular too! Equally as exciting I have also  visited and made agreements with the local primary and secondary schools for us to make nurseries on their land where we will also manage gardens working and educating the school kids along the way.

Despite the slow start it’s been great to get things moving up here in Caripe and the team arte all happy and healthy!