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..........