Stephan Schwab

By way of the Rainforest Alliance I came across the Sustainable Agriculture Network. They are developing and promoting a standard for sustainable cattle farming. At first glance it looks like a good thing. So I registered to read and comment on the standard they are developing.

As the previous attempt at finding a good route for the access road had failed, we were starting a new one. In the first part of this post I mentioned that we left the Jeep at the end of a stretch of dirt road Didimo had created earlier. We had to cross a barb wire fence. Now I’m showing you what lies behind that fence.

We had paid Didimo to clear a path through the area the week before. He used his machete to cut away some of the high grass and little trees that had overgrown what was before the trail to the little village of Playita. That was before a bulldozer created the dirt road we traveled on lately.

Around the corner we encountered more of this giant grass. On the other side we came back to the old trail. It was quite dark under the trees. That’s a little detail most people don’t know. The rainforest is a dark place. Further down I have a few

Looking to either side of the trail you can see very well how dense the forest is. The temperature and the humidity allow for this extensive growth. We are at the edge of a farm and not even in the real forest.

A bit further into the trail it got really dark. This picture was taken with additional lighting. You can see how the camera’s flash gets reflected by the sweat on Luis’s arm.

Here is another one taken with flash. The shadow on the ground is a drop shadow caused by the telezoom lens on the camera. The built-in flash is not high enough to reach over it. So it creates this ugly drop shadow, if the lens’ body is a bit longer. I wasn’t expecting the need to use a flash. If I had, I would have brought a side mounted flash. After all it was before noon and it should not be dark at all ;-)

While we stood here and looked around to figure out where the trail and in the end our access road might be I found these two little gems on the floor. Some kind of fungus with an interesting shape and a very smooth texture. I don’t know how it is called. They were tiny – maybe two times the width of a thumbnail.

The trail then went downhill for a while …

… and at the end we met with Didimo who had brought our horses from the other side.

That was better than our first attempt for finding an access road but still has quite a few challenges. There are big holes and dry creeks on either side of the trail. That indicates a lot of erosion going on which is obviously bad for a road. We did not get close to our farm either. Instead this trail meets the other trail we had used to enter on horseback before. We had hoped to find a path further up the ridge so that we build a road on top of it away from erosion caused by downpours.

Looks like we have to explore a bit further …

If this is not your first visit, then you remember that we were trying to figure out where to build an access road to the farm. Our first attempt was unsuccessful. In July we tried again to find a suitable path through the jungle.

This where the “road” ends. Our neighbor Didimo had tried it himself. He took advantage of a bulldozer that was doing some work close by and bought a few hours from the operator. We used this way before but on horses. So this time we drove the Jeep up the point where the road ends and geared up.

Oh … And yes, the Jeep now has a Panama license plate. It took about 6 months but now it’s a native car. :-)

We looked around the corner and that’s where the road might go on. Doesn’t look too steep. A bulldozer can flatten it a bit. The dirt can be moved to the right and then it should be easy to drive up and on the top turn left.

So I took the camera and followed Luis who has gone ahead to clear the area where a barb wire fence blocks the way. That’s what Didimo told us. Let’s see …

There is the fence. These simple barb wire fences you can find everywhere. They do not mark any farm limits but simply fence off sections so that the cattle cannot roam anywhere but stays within a certain area.