Trees we love

We've moved down from the mountains to the small town of Yabucoa, in the south east of Puerto Rico, where we are helping repair the hurricane damaged houses of local people. We'll blog more about that next time. In the meantime, we wanted to share some photos of some of the tropical trees that we encounter here. Quite a difference to the trees back home in Leicester! Almost all trees here are evergreen broadleaf. Last time we blogged a photo of a pea bush. This variety of pea is called 'pigeon pea' and grows in tropical areas. The first photo here is of a 'primordial' fern tree which have been on earth since the time of the dinosaurs. Second is a tree covered in bromeliads. These, and other epiphytes, are very common. The local frog species, called a coqui, loves to live in them.  Some epiphytes don't have roots and can even be found living on overhead wires. Finally, many of the trees here have beautiful flowers like the one below which looks like a firework.

Farming

We now have less than a week in this placement in the mountains of central Puerto Rico. We have been working hard each day. Steve has mostly been clearing land that has grown over since the hurricane and above is a photo of him in his fetching 'strimming outfit'. Mel has mostly been helping Kuka, who is an employee here. They have been sifting soil and planting out seeds and seedlings. We also  have helped in other places. For example, Steve helped at the nursery of La Para Naturaleza, which is a conservation group. We both helped out in the community garden of a  group in the nearby city of Caguas. They are called 'Urbe Apie' and above is a photo of us harvesting peas.

Hurricane effects really hit home

We've now arrived in Guayama district in the mountains of southern Puerto Rico. Here we are helping Cesar, whose farm and home were seriously damaged by the 2 hurricanes. Despite happening over a year ago, there is still lots of reconstruction to do. The water tank that you see here was filled with 800 gallons  of water and was thrown  from the roof of the house in the background. 5 rooms, that were to be a home for adults with Downs syndrome, had their roof blown off. Perhaps worst of all, for a farm, most of the fruit trees were swept away. We have started work planting new seedlings in buckets and clearing debris ready for planting. We've also taken some time to explore the local area, with Cesar and fellow volunteer Cecilia. Celsa, Cesar's wife has just arrived and has been shocked by the changes. Not only the farm but the whole community has changed with entire roads, shops and other community centres no longer existing.

A pond across the pond

We have just returned from the small island of Vieques which lies off the east coast of Puerto Rico. Here Steve was sharing knowledge gained from the uk in building a pond on the grounds of a small holding and guest house. The site was destroyed by the hurricanes last year and is being rebuilt but this is the first time that they have had a pond. 
We stayed in a tent with a fantastic view over jungle to the sea. The pond required levelling (not easy as it was on a hill!), lining and landscaping with suitable tropical plants  such as bromeliads. In the tropics you need to be careful because ponds breed mosquitoes so we needed to find fish to eat the mosquito larvae
Luckily we found some native fish in another pond nearby and caught some with fish traps made from  old bottles. Everyone gathered round for the releasing of the fish. Dragonflies, water beetles and other wildlife arrived on their own. We hope that the pond will be a source of interest for humans and wildlife for years to come.

Mel's family and other animals!

We hope that you had a lovely Christmas and that it wasn't too much of 'a let down' (like for the Santa and snowmen in our picture!). You may feel 'let down' because you didn't receive a Christmas card from us - the cards we sent from Antigua haven't arrived :-( .



We spent the Christmas period with Mel's family (2nd photo) and other animals (3rd and 4th photos). We enjoyed all the animal company we had - human, other land animals and sea animals too!



There are two types of iguana in Puerto Rico. Here is a beautiful live example of one. On a walk in San Juan with Mel's Mum, we saw the gruesome sight of a dog eating one of these creatures. Mel's nephew, Cy, was sorry to have missed that sight!



Mel and Cy also went on a 'coqui' hunt one evening while we were all staying in the far West of the island in a place called Rincon. The coquis are tiny nocturnal native Puerto Rican frogs named after the really loud song that they make. They are very shy but love hanging out in bromeliad plants. If you look carefully you can see a coqui looking up from the centre of the plant in this photo.



Other wildlife highlights have been spotting an endangered 'manatee' in a lagoon in San Juan and seeing a huge variety of fish when snorkelling on Cy's birthday trip including the trumpet fish which is one of his favourites.

Mel is staying a few more days with her family on the Puerto Rican main island while Steve has headed off to another Puerto Rican island called Vieques. Steve (and later Mel) will be learning about permaculture and building a pond on an eco-farm / guesthouse there which will hopefully be a great place for local wildlife to hang out.

Two more boats and Puerto Rico landing!

After just one night in St Thomas, we were lucky enough to be introduced to a lovely American family who agreed to take us on the 4-5 hour journey to Puerto Rico. As you can see from the photo,  we were led by our youngest Captain yet! ;-).

As luck would have it, the family were heading to the small Puerto Rican island of Culebra - a place with fantastic snorkelling and an excellent ferry service to the main island.  As we had two clear days before needing to meet Mel's family there, we relaxed and snorkelled, seeing amazing large corals, two species of turtles and much more.

Cause and effect

After another night sleeping on the sail boat in Tortola harbour, we have taken a ferry to St Thomas.  We managed to get accommodation in a downstairs room in a hotel that was largely destroyed by the recent hurricanes and a hurricane related fire(in the second photo). It is the increasing severity of these hurricanes which made us more determined to travel here in as low carbon way as possible. The links between the changing climate and deadly hurricanes has not been lost on the islanders. In Antigua we visited this government establishment where electric vehicles, solar power and wind turbines are being adopted and promoted. Also, there was a nursery where various tree species are being grown and distributed to schools and parks.  This not only helps combat the causes of climate change but will, hopefully, make the island more self sufficient in the likely event of increasing climate catastrophe.