Rosamond Raymond Travel Bursary 2007

Alice Seymour

After working from August-January, I was excited and nervous about spending three months in Nicaragua with the gap year company Frontier and a group of people I had only met once. I crammed iodine tablets, my head torch and mosquito net into an already bulging bag and said a teary goodbye at Gatwick.

On landing in Nicaragua we headed straight to Leon, the student capital where headquarters was based, where we spent a few days acclimatising and completing medical and safety tests! Our group bonded quickly as we adjusted to the heat and relaxed Nicaraguan life style. Leon was the old capital and is full of colonial architecture, very different from the English villages I was used to. I grew very attached to Leon as we always returned there between phases and got to know the locals and hostel owners really well.

Alice giving her OG Day presentation

For our first phase we deployed to the NW coast, to a fishing village called Estero Padre Ramos. Frontier have been coming here for four years and have formed strong bonds with locals who loaned us a ranch to stay in, complete with long drops, open-fire cooking area and dogs. We started lectures on fauna and flora straight away and leant about Frontier and the need for sustainable development throughout the world.

Frontier has a range of conservation projects throughout the world and has been in partnership with universities and management authorities in these countries since 1989. As well as collecting biological and sociological data, Frontier works with locals to educate them about their environment, why they need to conserve their delicate ecosystems and how they can help. Other countries where Frontier has expeditions include Madagascar, Cambodia, Tanzania and Fiji.

EPR is a protected costal estuary that has 15km of pristine beach along the Pacific coast and the best preserved mangroves in all of Nicaragua. The village is remote and locals are either bakers or fishermen. During turtle breeding season which ends in January there is a high proportion of poachers who Frontier have been educating and involving in beach patrols and building hatcheries.

Alice meets Rosamond Raymond on OG Day

During the next two weeks we completed bird surveys at 6 different locations, bird transects, butterfly sweep netting (catching and recording butterflies in handheld nets) and monitored bat activity using mist nets. We involved local children and teenagers as much as possible and arranged English lessons which in turn improved our Spanish. On days off we relaxed on the deserted beach, tried to surf, made shell jewellery and played I-Spy with local children.

Everyday two people were on camp duty and had to stay on camp making porridge, lunch and dinner (either rice or pasta), sweeping, collecting and purifying water, gathering fire wood and deterring wandering cows! Cooking over a wood fire was a challenge both keeping the heat constant and creating exciting new dishes with our limited ingredients. The best meals were garlic and potato salad and burnt chips and kidney beans.

By the end of our time in EPR I knew all the monitoring techniques and common bird names off by heart! I was sad to be leaving but excited about climbing Cosiguina.

After re-supplying in Leon we caught a chicken bus (local public transport on the old American yellow school buses, which have no suspension and loud Reagaton music) to El Rosario. We camped under the stars in the mayor’s garden and woke early to meet an ox-cart which carried our 20kg bags to the bottom of Volcan Cosiguina. Cosiguina is an extinct volcano with a 1.5km diameter crater lake, covered in tropical dry forest that is home to a unique wildlife, including scarlet macaws and spider monkeys. As we slowly ascended the 860m volcano during the heat of the day we were surrounded by fantastic views of Honduras and El Salvador. The six days we camped on the volcano were both mentally and physically challenging. We each had a ration of 3l of water a day for drinking, washing and cooking. By the end we were using baby wipes for ourselves and then the cutlery!

Days were fully packed, starting at 6am with a bird survey and ending with bat catching at 7pm. Throughout the day we completed vegetation surveys, more birding and started butterfly canopy traps and small mammal trapping. We used Sherman traps in a grid and a peanut butter and oat bait. Any specimens caught we identified, measured and marked with hair cuts. The highlight of Cosiguina for me was spotting a family of spider monkeys circling the crater and clambering to the top to watch sunrise over the forest. We all formed strong bonds within the group despite being around each other constantly and being very tired and dirty.

We then spent few days in Estili (a Northern town famous for cowboys) relaxing and washing while waiting for another group to join us. Half my group, me included, were completing a BTEC qualification in tropical habitat conservation and had to plan a personal investigation to carry out in our next phase. I chose to focus on butterflies and I compared their distribution in a variety of vegetated areas within the Miraflor cloud forest.

For the next phase we were based in a cloud forest within Miraflor nature reserve. The scenery was a nice contrast with pristine mountain rainforest, fields of cabbages and waterfalls. Allegedly it is home to the famous quetzal but we made do with turquoise- browed motmots, trogons and white-throated magpie jays. The weather was good to us and only rained once but the ground was muddy throughout our stay and there were freezing temperatures at night.

We were camping with local families who cooked us breakfast and dinner, mostly gallo pinto: fried rice and fried beans refried together with tortillas. All the families were very welcoming and although they barely owned anything were always cheery, making us their famous very sweet black coffee and asking about England. Locals are either farmers or work on coffee plantations, which have formed co-operatives and share all their beans, machines and earnings. There are also new co-operatives for women which educate and encourage them to start their own businesses. While we were in Miraflor a collage student from EPR, Uciel, stayed with us helping us with surveys and practising his English. He mixed into the group well and presented our project findings to the park wardens.

Frontier had never completed surveys in Miraflor before so all our investigations were exploratory and there was little background information to help in identifications. I created a butterfly specimen list specific to Miraflor with help from the farmer’s children who were brilliant with sweep nets. We also found a mouse a long way from its suggested range in the textbook! As well as working we went on night walks and spotted an Opossum, on regular treks to the waterfall for freezing showers, on a tour around a coffee plantation and a trip to Lake Miraflor.

The eight weeks were now up and we said goodbye to two members of our group and our Nicaraguan student, Uciel. Our group felt instantly smaller and I could not believe how quickly time had gone. We spent the next two weeks travelling around Nicaragua, climbing volcanoes and finishing our BTEC projects, which involved a verbal presentation to the rest of the group.

Having spent two months in Nicaragua already I felt like an experienced traveller. First stop on our travels was Masaya with a huge tourist market and then Laguna de Apoyo, where we felt more at home. We stayed in an eco-tourist hostel, went on howler monkey searches, found two groups of monkeys with babies and I went on an optional 6am bird walk where we spotted an Aracari Toucan. The lake was a huge crater lake which meant it was fresh water and surrounded by the old sides of a volcano. We then hitched a ride to Granada, Nicaragua’s oldest Spanish city where we relaxed in the Bearded Monkey hostel. Granada is on the shore of Lake Nicaragua and has kept a lot of its colonial character.

Then we climbed Volcan Masaya an active heavily smoking volcano within a national park containing mostly large bolders and burnt trees. Next was Volcan Telica which we climbed with group called Quetzal trekkers who raise money for street children in Leon. Telica, 1060m high, last erupted in December 1999 and is constantly smoking. We camped near the crater overnight and climbed to the top for sunrise, looking down the Pacific ring of fire. Lastly we climbed Volcan Cerro Negro, 670m, the newest and most violent volcano in the western hemisphere. The last eruption in 1999 lasted 10 days and left Leon covered in black ash. We struggled up the unstable volcanic rocks with wooden sledges and after a short practise with our guide we sledged back down wearing orange jumpsuits. This was definitely an amazing ending to a life-changing trip.

I learnt a lot about myself while I was away, made some really close friends and feel that my self confidence has grown. Living with locals made me thankful for what I have. They live with nothing and yet are always happy and were willing to share the little they own with us. I also completed my BTEC project, learnt a lot about butterflies and improved my Spanish. I would recommend a Frontier expedition to anyone wanting a unique, challenging experience and I am already planning my return to Nicaragua.