Road work. . .

The first task, after we had marked off the spots in the jungle for the two new tree houses, was to clear a road through to both of them. It sounds easy, as far as plotting out the road, but when you can't see more than 5 feet in front of you because of the thick growth, it takes on a challenge.

Our first concern was cutting down as few trees as possible. This meant hiking back and forth, trying to get our bearings, and eliminating routes based on the trees and plant life in the area. We finally found two paths, one bit of shared road and then a longer stretch for the second tree house, and started clearing. No bulldozers or machinery, just machetes. We will haul out the chainsaw to cut down about three or four small- to mid-sized trees, but that's it.

Miguel, Kelly (one of the owners) and myself were able to hack out a rough path in about 2 hours with our machetes. Miguel, of course, led the way followed by Kelly and myself who could not match his pace, despite our best efforts.

A couple of times, the machete nearly flew out of my hands as it was the middle of the afternoon, around 95 degrees out, and the sweat was flowing. Luckily, I was able to hang onto it and just cut down brush and not a foot or other appendage.

After we finish up the clearing of the ground (need to go back and haul all the trimmings off into the jungle) comes the fun part of hauling in rock for the road. We'll start with larger rock to fill in some of the gullies. Then comes the medium-sized stuff for the base and finally the smaller rock to fill it all in. This will be done with a medium-sized truck where we will most likely have to shovel/throw the rock from the truck onto the ground and then spread it out. Will take probably around six or more loads of rock.

This needs to be finished by June 15 so Palomino and the builders can start right away on the construction of the two tree houses.