Back. This evening finds me in Hackney, tired and traveled and more than a little sad. It seems a little like a strange and wonderful dream that i have just awoken from. Nothing like the mean streets of Hackney to bring you back to earth. Its cold here. There are no trees. I miss Las Pozas.
Its not all doom and gloom though, its been great to see friends and share the experience with them and also a sense of relief and pride to have actually done what we set out to do. We built a Tree house, shit, we built a really good Tree house and all in 8 days. It has two floors and a roof, is at the top of a cliff and can house 20 people or so, i am happy about this. I didn't know how or what we were going done in the time we had and was really dreading a scenario were we made something we weren't happy with. It has seemed quite a responsibility to be putting something in this amazing place and also to be among the first to do so. Its a honour and a privilege but it can keep you awake at night.
This last week has been a test of both mine and Toby's physical and mental strength, it has been really hard. Just getting to work in the morning leaves you breathless and dripping with sweat and not in a good way. But we have been lucky. We knew that time was really tight and that for us to pull it off we would have to have no set backs. So many stages of the build could have thrown up a heap of different problems and any one of those could have cost us days. Days we didn't have. every project i have worked on before has always had this element to it, that unseen problem or mishap that you haven't accounted for. Now, i am not saying that we planned this to such fine degree that we negated this, far from it. We were just really lucky. Here's a good example; for the second floor we had to fix a bolt to the tree, from this bolt we had to attach a steel cable for the beam to sit in. this in turn had to correspond levelly (is that a word) with the upright. This could have taken a couple of hours of messing about but the first cut we eyeballed approximately just happened to be absolutely bang on. Now this is all well and good but it also needs to relate to the opposite side of the structure whose level is dictated by the position of the branch on which the beam sits. Again just eyeballed the initial cut was again bang on. This could have taken an epic amount of time, indeed i pretty much expected it to but no, it just worked. The Tree house Gods have smiled upon us.
This has not been the work of just two people though and there are many people i wish to thank. First and foremost Zaira Linnan, an incredible, wonderful woman who made the whole trip possible and looked after us all with amazing grace, pinche Zaira! Bob Pulley, again this trip could not have happened without the trust and faith that this man put in us. Toby Rzepka, the silent partner in this blog, nice boots man. The dudes of Las Pozas, Unhill, Fleur, Benjamin, Obert, Carlos, and all the rest of them, muchos gracios amigos! To the Tipi folk, Rudolpho and Gina, super chido man! To Fanni, the beatiful girl with the beautiful words, thanks lady, your a professional! To Hugo and Didier, cool road trip man, shame about the the chingaro policia. To the people of Xilitla, Erica, the master of ceremonies and a cool girl alround, to Don Kako for his warmth and hospitality, to Pein and Ronaldo suppliers moi fria cereza at the end of a hard day. To Dex, it was great sharing this experience with you. There are a whole heap of peole that i am probably forgeting at this point but i haven't slept for 2 days or so, forgive me.
It has been an incredible adventure and something that will always stay with me, i love Mexico and the people within it. Still no pics, my camera wanted to stay, pics soon, for my sake as much as anyone elses.
i got to sleep..........

a week in treehouse making in the jungle can be a long time. This time last week i was, to be frank, shitting myself about how this project was going to turn out. Today we have run out of wood and are well òn the way to finishing the structure. The week has been busy and incredibly hard work, carying 6 meter lenghts of wood that is so heavy it sinks up the side of a mountain is about as bleak as it sounds. It has been worht it though, to see the tree house take shape has been really rewarding. We have had good help this week, firstly by a great guy called gaetan, he really got theproject kick started and then later by the workers of Las Pozas. We have the first floor completed and the structure of the second floor ready for decking. the ecound floor is what we are most proud of, its maye a 100 feet of the river below, the veiws in both directions are just mind blowing. We have been so lucky to get to build something where we have, in England they would have just laughed at us, the health safety people would have just freaked. It feels safe and secure but you definetly need to have a head for hights. I know that pictures have been repeatedly promised and as yet still no pics, i think it may have to be next week now, best things come to those who wait.
The time is coming to an end and this is sad. Have met some incredible, beautiful people and have felt really welcome and at home here. The experince has felt like some strange dream and i think it will be a while before what we have done here sinks in.
more news soon but for now, good bye

The Swiss Ambasador

OK, this shall have to be quick. Wood Update: still none. Hopefully though, by the end of the day we should have 300m of Atate, a kind of Bamboo thats used in local construction. How we get 300m of Bamboo up a near vertical cliff face in a wet jungle, real quick i am not sure. Its going to be really good to get have some materials but its als quite frustrating as we cant start until we get the Pairaiso tomorro. Mañana, mañana. So tomorro we take delivery of this paraiso stuff, its very durable, lasts up to 50 years and has a fine grain almost like box wood or something, really excited to be working with that. So tomorro should be when it all gets started, that is it would be were we not having lunch with the Swiss Ambassador and his family. Just another day in the life. Have been in 2 diferent newspapers this week, the Casa de Arbol is already big news, though at the moment it is a pretty modest structure of one beam! Things should start moving quickly once we get thwe materials we need, its been really tough this week, we know we have so much to do but have not been able to get stuck in. Time is so precious at the moment, we have so little of it. Going to look into changing flights and maybe get a little more time, we can but try.
keep promising pictures and yet again have let you down, pictures soon, pictures soon.
All things considered life is good, we are all having a good time of things but will sure feel a lot better once we are able to start working properly. To describe this week in a line; character building..........

Lost in La Mancha........

Nothing is as it seems......... Getting wood (erectile disfunction aside) should be fairly straight forward, you would think. Well no, really. We have been to a saw mill, with no saw. Timber yards with wood but only 3 meters. Wood we can use and then we cant. Wood thats shit. Wood at 4.00 o'clock that then dispears. Wood, so much talk of wood, but as yet, no wood. This could be seen as a problem, with over a third of the time already gone but thats not how it feels. The complications with the materials have directed us to improvise with what we have got. In some ways we should have been more prepared for this, we came withour own rule set of how we would aproach this project. How we fix things, the materials we use all these preconceptions we brought with us have proved unviable. As a result we are much more in tune with what is going on around us, how do people here get round these problems. We have gone native.

The changes we have made to our design have made the last few days hectic, stressful but very exciting. Not being able to get hold of dimensioned timber has led us to use a kind of local Bamboo. We plan tomake a form of latice construction with the bamboo but to stick to the shape of the original plan, two stories with a possible third. Instead of fixing the platform from underneath we are hanging it with high strength cable. This hopefully makes supporting the structure quicker and easier but also allows for movement between the three trees. Answers on a postcard please.

The location we have for the treehouse is just amazing, will post some picutres soon. It is on part of a cliff ridge and is a sheer drop on both sides of the structure, sketchy as hell and you want to be roped in but its epic. Its been really good satrting to get the first fixes in today and hopefully get the first bit fixed on tomorro, wood permitting. I think we can make up the time we have lost so far and still make something we are happpy with. It does feel quite a responsiblity, a lot of trust and faith has been put in us to make this project work and i jsut hope that we live up to that.

The main thing at the moment is just that this is such a lot of fun. Sure its pretty full on and pretty much full tilt surealism most of the time but we just all feel so lucky and blessed to be here. Tomorro is a big day and we hope to get big things done, hopefully a platfrom of some sort. Bamboo, bongo wood, excited to see what thats like..............
jm

A week can be a very long time. Finally left the crazy beauty Mexico City, much fun and not what I had expected but good to leave all the same. Friday we at last made it to Xilitla, we travelled through the night and arrived in the early morn in a haze. To walk through the entrance to Las Pozas, to be actually there was amazing. Having read so much about the place, seen pictures, watched videos, to be there for the first time was just incredible. The place is something else, i cant really describe the scale or the beauty or just the damn right crazyness of it all, its incredible. Spent most of friday wandering around in general wonder, still hazy and disorientated from the night bus, then increasingly hazy and disorientated by the gardens themselves. Nothing is as it seems, or where you think it would be, the water flows according to gravity but apart from that all bets are off. But it is beautiful, i was´nt sure that it would be but truely it is. Just the way the jungle and the sculpture interact and become one, the way that the whole place is so heavily landscaped while always appearing is though it were not and how the pools of water form the gardens heart. Its epic.
Anyway, thats enough gushing about the place there is also work to be done here. So, the Treehouse. We have found the site and are curently designing the structure. The design i had in my head before went out the window as soon as we walked around and saw the place, i thought this may be the case. We spent a long time walking around lookiing at diferent sites and have been given a great deal of freedom in that. One of the things we had in mind for the location was somewhere that offered the feeling of hight, somwhere that had a veiw. We have not been dissapointed, the site is on an outcrop of cliff about 300 foot in the air, the view from the back down into the waterfalls of the gardens and to the front Xilitla and the mountains beyond. Will post some pictures soon. Its a bit daunting, just getting the materials up there is going to be a herculian task but if if we can pull it off it will be a really amazing structure. We have designed a 2 story structure with a 3rd story crows nest, the theme of the design centers on a contrast between natural froms and materials and a very angular and contempory structure. Sort of hippy Ghery kind of thing.
Sunday, thats today has been quite a full on day. Got up early, worked on some designs, went for a coffee, had an interview with 2 local papers, went to the treehouse site for approval, went to the local market then to some traditional dancing and then off to a giant limestone cave to watch the daily commute of 2 million swallows. i would love to talk at lenghth about anyone of those things but time is an issue here but i must talk more about the swallows. About an hour from Xilitla is this huge cave, something like 400 meters deep, and it is home to millions of these swallow like birds. the cave is a good hike through the jungle but well worth it and although on paper watching birds fly into caves does´nt sound like much but when ther are millions and there are all flying at 125kmh its quite something.
more news to follow soon.
jm

fake mustache, missing baggage, cows cheek tacos, muchos tequilla, freida kahlo, mexican blue, trotsky (great new drink), haircut. not in that order but that was yesterday...............

meanwhile back in mexico city.........

AMAZING!!!!
colour, music, food, the energy of Mexico city are just incredible. Arrived last night and finally met up with Zaira and Toby, drank cold beer and delicious tequilla and listened to marriachi music and ate tacos, yep, we are in Mexico city. The bags had other ideas though. Tobys bag thought the prospect of a night in Mexico City too much to bear and stayed in New York while Dex´found the lure of Amsterdam too great and so stayed. I suppose one bag out of three is´nt so bad. Bizarely mine was the only one that made it through, the one weighing nearly 30kg sailed through without any bother. .
money runnig out, got to go.....

Right, the journey begins! via the mediums of automobile, locomotive and airoplane i now find myself in schipol airport. its a vast and sprawling non-space and is like all airports i have ever been to its a mix poverty, wealth and boredom. i have so far managed to resist the lure of $15000 chanel handbags but have succomed to a much more sensibly priced hieneken, god bless the dutch. despite this beeing amsterdam (though that is only a half truth, the end of schipol runway actually being in kent) the smoking facitlies are somewhat lacking. there is a small glass box where smokers are allowed to huddle together and think about what they have done but thats all.
next stop mexico city!!!

2 more sleeps!

Two days to go and the tension builds! Its part excitement, part worry and part disbelief; wow I'm going, shit I'm going, really, am i going? I am a great believer in packing at the last possible moment, usually about 5 minutes before the taxi arrives but this time i am beginning to doubt my beliefs, in fact with two days to go i have tentatively started to pack.
This project up to now has seemed like some kind of abstract hobby i have devised, do some drawings, make a model, send a million e-mails and think a lot. Now it all seems a lot more real. This week met up with the wonderful Antonio Riveira, a Mexican artist with a long affiliation to Xilitla and all of a sudden the whole adventure seemed so much more tangible. I have read a lot about the Gardens of Xilitla and seen numerous videos on YouTube and stuff but to actually talk with some who was there a few weeks ago was amazing. I haven't yet written about the place and really i should. Xilitla was the bizarre vision Edward James had for a jungle property, his idea to create a surreal Eden, a place where he, and others, could realise their dreams. Its wonderfully confusing mix of surrealist architecture and creeping jungle and is probably the only place of its kind. Words, or at least my words, cannot do it justice and to anyone wanting to learn more about it i recommend their website, fondo Xilitla or go to YouTube and search Monty Don, Xilitla. Anyway, i have not yet been so maybe i will be able to make a better description next week.
watch this space...............