We are fortunate in Brazil to have endless remote places to visit by jeep, if you can arrange the time and logistics. In late July and August, we will be traveling 1700 miles of the Transamazon and Cuiaba-Santarem roads, through the southern Amazon basin. This is some of the most remote areas in Brazil where a vehicle can get to. This trip will involve shipping the jeeps 1900 miles by truck to Porto Velho in western Brazil and 1000 miles back from Cuiaba. Much of the road is passable but we will be attempting to cross one section which reportedly has not been done for over 10 years (This route was rejected by the Camel Trophy for being too difficult). We are carrying an inflatable "banana" (raft) to transport the jeeps across, down or up rivers. As a last resort, we have arranged a barge to carry us around this stretch - just in case.
As you can imagine, on this type of trip we want to concentrate on the enjoyment of visiting such a unique area as the Amazon jungle and the challenge and fun of the trip. I have come to the conclusion that clearly established responsibilities and routines make a trip more enjoyable for everyone, as much less time is spent on resolving "confusion" and "finding things", when each member of the group knows what is expected of him and the equipment and other stuff is where it is supposed to be. This report outlines the organization and routine of the actual trip - on the trail.
If there is interest, I can describe how we organize the planning of the trip which is normally a long story. I will break this into 3 reports so not to occupy too much space in the mailing list.
1. Trail Management
The "Trail Staff" is as follows:
The Trail Boss is responsible for keeping the trip more or less on track, including the final decision on daily trail matters: e.g., which trail to take when in doubt (which is often) and what to do when the group is lost or running out of gasoline. Probably the most important role of the Trail Boss is deciding when to stop for the day. The tendency of most of the members is to go "a little bit farther", until it gets dark and everyone is tired and in a bad mood. Going too hard day after day is a sure way to have a stressed out, tired group.
The Safety Coordinator is responsible for assuring the safety of the group. Generally, this means overseeing winching operations (nobody wants to take the time to use the pulley!!) and use of the inflatable "banana", authorizing the crossing of rivers (nobody wants to get out and look before crossing) as well as calling a halt to excessive drinking.
The Trail Boss and Safety Coordinator are chosen by the group. Anyone who does not obey the orders of the Trail Boss and Safety Coordinator is generally given a good verbal bashing by other members of the group and, if it happens very often, will be excluded from future events.
The First Aid Officer (who is an oral surgeon) is responsible for assuring the health and hygiene of the group.
The Photographers, usually two, are responsible for recording the event in photos and the Video Men, usually two, are responsible for recording the event on video tape. These members do not have kitchen duty, as there can be no excuses why some interesting moment was not photographed or filmed.
2. The Lists
As you will see, the hood of the Trail Boss's jeep is full of lists: meals, contents of boxes, kitchen teams, etc. These lists help keep to a minimum the "Where is the ______???" questions and avoids problems of "I didn't know it was my turn" type comments. The lists are covered with clear contact paper to keep them clean and dry.
3. Division and Organization of the "Stuff"
Most of the common stuff (e.g., food, tarps, kitchen utensils, water filters, etc.) is divided into plastic crates of 2 sizes (one deep and one shallow), all of which can be stacked on each other. Since all the boxes can be stacked on each other, it is easy to move a box from one jeep to another and to generally keep things more or less organized. Each box has a number on the sides. On the hood of the Trail Boss's jeep is a brief list of the contents of each box and which jeep each box should be located (at least at the beginning of the trip). There is also a list of the location of other items which are not in boxes, e.g., welding rods, buckets, tables, stove, etc. We try to keep things that will be used together in the same crate, e.g., all the contents of dinners 1 thru 5 are in one crate; all the kitchen stuff is one box, etc. Also, we keep similar items in the same jeep, e.g., all the dinners in one jeep, all the kitchen stuff (stove, pots, tables, etc.) in another.
4. Hygiene
We are fanatics about personal hygiene. Our rule is "You can give diarrhea to yourself but not to someone else." Besides avoiding health problems, a high level of hygiene is important in keeping morale up. Each participant carries, in his pocket, a small plastic (sandwich) sack with a piece of soap and must wash his hands before handling any food. At camp, there is always a MSR water bag hung with a piece of soap inside a small net sack. This makes it easy for everyone to wash up (without taking the soap out of the sack). [Note: MSR water bags are made of a tough nylon material and have a wide mouth for easy filling and a squirt top to save water when washing hands, etc. They can be found in backpacking stores]
We carry Basic Design Sun Showers. This sounds silly when we generally camp beside pleasant rivers but, for some reason, a shower makes you feel cleaner than just bathing in the river.
5. Medical
The group carries an elaborate first aid kit, including snake bite serum. Normally, for a two week trip the contents of first aid kit will cost about $500. For example, we carry antibiotics sufficient for two members to take during the entire trip. We have a rule that all cuts must be immediately treated, even if it means halting all the jeeps.
Also, each member is supplied with insect repellent by the organization. This is very important as infected mosquito bites are an easy way to create a major problem. This is a lesson we learned the hard way when an untreated mosquito bite resulted in very serious infection that caused the early termination of one trip. My favorite repellent is Ben's 100 Max Formula. It comes in a small pump bottle that each member carries in his pocket (it can be found in backpacking stores). [Also, we encourage the use of long sleeve t-shirts, which are also supplied by the organization]
Tomorrow: Kitchen, meals, water and communications.
1. Water
We carry 10 liters of water in each jeep, in an MSR water bag. This is
enough to last the day and have enough for cooking the evening meal (and
washing up if we can't camp by a river).
We use 3 Basic Design High Flow water filters, which normally filter
about 5 liters per hour. These are gravity-fed ceramic filters, so they
can just be hung up to do their job - very easy, no hassle. It is
extremely important to filter all water that will be drunk or used in
cooking. It is always surprising to see how dirty the filter is after
filtering what looks like perfectly clean water. In an emergency the
filters can be hung inside the jeeps to filter water while we are
traveling.
2. The Kitchen
Kitchen duty is assigned to three participants each day, on a rotating
basis. The kitchen team is responsible for preparing meals for the
entire day, for washing pots and for filtering water. The list of
kitchen teams is posted on the hood of the Trail Boss's jeep.
At the beginning of the trip, each participant is given a cup, plate and
eating utensils in a plastic zip lock bag. The cup and plate have
numbers put on with nail polish. Each person keeps his set for the
entire trip and is responsible for washing his own cup, plate and
utensils. This avoids the problem of someoneM-^Rs sloppy washing causing
diarrhea for someone else.
One of the Sun Showers is set up with a soapy sponge in a net sack
attached, where everyone can wash and rinse their stuff, without using
too much water.
Basic kitchen equipment consists of a Coleman stove (with folding stand)
which burns common gasoline as fuel, 2 folding or roll-up tables and
restaurant-type aluminum pots. We take only two pots and a coffee pot,
since we have only two burners. We also carry a camp grill in case we
find someplace to buy fresh meat or someone catches a fish. (wishful
thinking!!) We use a 12V refrigerator which works OK at best, if only
opened at meal time.
3. Meals
Dinners are simple affairs, usually pasta or vacuum packed dinners (here
they are called Swift Premium) with rice. Our rule of thumb is that
dinner should not take more than 20-30 minutes to prepare. After a day
on the trail nobody wants to be a gourmet chef. We take MREs (meals
ready-to-eat) (available from military-type catalogs such as U.S.
Calvary) for two meals. These are used for those times when we have to
travel late and the Trail Boss decides its too late to cook.
There is a list of dinners on the hood of the Trail Boss's jeep,
including the crate and jeep in which the dinner can be found.
Breakfast is cereal, crackers, jelly, peanut butter and cheese, as well
as any left over lunch stuff.
We seem to have a hard time stopping for lunch. It seems that we are
always a little bit behind. So each jeep carries a small insulated bag
(one of those about the size of a 6-pack). Each morning before leaving,
each jeep crew grabs what they want from the lunch crate (cookies,
chocolate, crackers, etc.) and is given a sealed packet of cold cuts
(from the refrigerator) and some smoked cheese. We try to stop for
lunch but with this system, each member can have lunch when he wants.
This avoids having a lot of people in a foul humor at the end of the
day.
4. Communications
Each jeep has a CB radio. We use Allen radios with SSB and FM. For
long distance communication, we have two Kenwood HF radios. With these,
we talk each day with our radio base in SM-co Paulo. Any emergency
messages are passed via radio and any family member can telephone the
radio base for news of the trip or to pass messages to participants.
That basically it. Its not quite as orderly as it sounds here. But, my
experience is if you plan for 100% efficiency and get 70% during the
trip, everyone is pretty happy. Actually as I write this I am sitting
in my home office (I live in an apartment) which is stacked to the
ceiling with food and equipment for our trip later this month - that
has over the weeks turned into a quite disorganized mess.