Lost World – Day 11 – Last day

I woke up freezing & very happy this morning – last day of trekking – yeay! Last day to put on smelly, dirty, damp clothes & socks and head into the jungle. Happily we had good weather this morning to bid our fond (or not-so-fond) farewells to the rainforest. And only a half day of trekking too. Again 2 groups, one to collect the camera trap on the Waterfall trail, and one to follow the Housekeepers trail. I returned to the scene of the first day's crime – the Housekeeper's trail.
We started from where we finished late on Tuesday night and continued into the forest. We found where we had lost the trail and where we found it again in the darkness. Some of the people whose first time it was on the trail acknowledged how difficult it was and that we had not exaggerated when getting back on Tuesday night. Anywho – we got back fine this time, no problems. Have just eaten lunch and having a meeting now to discuss packing up all the equipment & baggage in preparation for tomorrow's departure.
The other team who collected the camera from the Waterfall trail had some good news to share when they got back – there was a picture of an ocelot on the camera – which is great because it replaces the picture that was on the stolen camera.
I am so happy to be getting out of the forest J. And while I MAY consider another Biosphere Expedition at some point, because I do like the idea of helping with conservation, it will definitely not be in a rainforest next time!
Update (May 24): It's now 3 days since I left the rainforest. I still have a divided opinion of the expedition. While weather & lack of animals are out of our expedition leaders' control – the "getting lost" incident and how it was handled afterwards really negatively impacted my experience. Maybe it was a bad choice on my part – I should have gone somewhere else other than a rainforest, given my abhorrence of all creepy crawlies. I think getting lost also (for sure) impacted our expedition leaders – we never split into smaller groups as was expected – I think they were more cautious after that night (which is to be expected). But as a result, we didn't cover as much ground as expected – and I didn't feel like I was making a contribution or that my presence on the trail actually mattered – it doesn't take 7 people to walk a muddy trail in the rainforest and record & photograph animal prints.
I debated this with Anne (one of the other volunteers) yesterday before she went back to Germany, and she made some interesting points. Our "work" in the rainforest does not just involve looking for the prints – by being there in large numbers, we draw attention to the project and local people become more aware of it and the issues of jaguar protection. We also create employment for locals (expedition cook, trail guides). Yeah...ok...maybe...I can sort of see that point...but I still feel that if I had just donated the cash & not been there in person the result would be exactly the same.