Tuesday, November 8, 2011

Bat Guano Adventure

On Sunday Jonathan, Roger, Rene and I went up to a nearby cave to get a few (so we thought) bags of bat guano. We left at 6:30 in the morning, and it was a 45 minute hike up the mountain.
            When we arrived at the cave, we ate our breakfast, then started filling bags with the compost which Roger had previously shoveled out. Roger just kept filling bag after bag, even though we tried to convince him to stop.  He said he was going fill 12 bags, but we were to talk him down to 10. But still, the bags where about 50 pounds each and there were only four of us.
            When we had finished filling the sacks, we went back into the cave to see the bats. It was truly amazing! The farther back you went, the more bats there were. At one point we had to crawl through a very small hole, and as I crawled through, a bat hit me right in the face!
            When we reached the back room of the cave, the bats where so thick you could only see a short distance in front of you. It was dark and stank terribly, so we were glad to get back out into the fresh air and sunshine.
            Once outside again, we started rolling the filled bags of guano, down the mountain. We did this for probably 20 minutes, until the ground started to level. At this point, we resorted to carrying them. Roger and Jonathan took two bags each, staking them high on their necks. Rene and I each took one. We carried them until we got to a fence, where we left them them and headed back for more.
            After getting the rest of the sacks, we rested a bit, but soon continued on. This time Roger had three bags, a total of 150 pounds. It was crazy! When we reached Roger’s grandparents farm at the bottom of the mountain, Roger went back to get the mission truck. We threw the bags in the truck and drove them the last leg on the journey. Finally we arrived back to the mission, with our 500 pounds of bat compost. We were filthy dirty though, and soon were off to the waterfall to clean/cool off. It was all a blast!

Joshua

1 comment:

  1. Wow friends, I might climb the mountain with you... But I'm not sure I'm quite up for this adventure. ;)

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