[meteorite-list] Church organist required for jungle meteorite hunt

From: Mike Groetz <mpg444_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Mon, 12 Mar 2007 18:42:12 -0700 (PDT)
Message-ID: <346759.49169.qm_at_web32910.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article1499849.ece

>From The Times

March 12, 2007

Church organist required for jungle meteorite hunt

Jack Malvern

Wanted: one organist for concert in remote Bolivian
jungle accessible only by raft. Must be prepared to
face rapids, alligators and 30C (86F) temperatures.
Ability to swim a bonus.

Church organists are rarely an essential part of
expeditions into the Amazonian rainforest, but a team
of scientists about to embark on a journey to a
far-flung meteorite impact site in Bolivia believe
that one will be key to achieving their mission.

Colonel John Blashford-Snell, a professional
adventurer who made headlines in 2000 when he took a
grand piano 350 miles (560km) along the Amazon River
as a present for the Wai Wai tribe in Guyana, intends
to deliver a pedal organ to the isolated Ojaki
community as a way of persuading its people to help
his expedition.

The colonel?s team, which will also help to install a
clean water supply and perform medical duties for the
Ojaki people, are reliant on local expertise to build
bridges to the impact site, which is five miles wide.
The locals are religious and have asked the visitors
to install an organ in their newly built church.

The organ ? a pedal-powered Harmonium donated by St
James?s church in Milton Abbas, Dorset ? will be flown
to La Paz and then transported by lorry 120 miles over
the Andes to the Beni river. It will then be loaded on
to a 59ft (18m) boat for a 430-mile journey over
rapids and more dangerous, man-made hazards.

Colonel Blashford-Snell, 70, told The Times that the
main obstacle would be logs floated down the river by
timber companies. ?You get around those by gunning the
engine before pulling the prop out of the water,? he
said. ?God willing, your bow comes out of the water
and you shoot over the log and land on the other
side.?

Natural hazards include alligators, although these are
not a problem ?unless you step on them?, he said.

The explorer made a reconnaissance expedition two
years ago but had to stop within seven miles of the
crater when his party got down to their last bottle of
water. He suggests that any organist willing to join
should be prepared to face discomforts such as swarms
of bees and 30C temperratures. ?The organist should be
fit enough to catch a bus and it would be very nice if
he or she could swim,? he said. The successful
applicant will also be expected to pay a share of the
costs of about ?2,000.

The team hopes to be the first to bring back traces of
the meteorite, which is estimated to have landed
between 5,000 and 30,000 years ago. It will also try
formally to identify the Andean double-nosed tiger
hound, a dog first observed in Bolivia in 1913 by
Percy Fawcett, a British adventurer.

Derring-do

?Colonel John Blashford-Snell is a former officer in
the Royal Engineers who helped to found Operation
Raleigh. He will lead the 20-person team on the
two-month trip on June 21

?He has twice been shot at by Ethiopian bandits,
bitten by a vampire bat and ate a Panamanian spider
monkey

?Blashford-Snell is the founder of the Scientific
Exploration Society

?He led the first descent of the Ethiopian Blue Nile
in 1968 and the first vehicle crossing of the Darien
Gap in Panama in 1972

?He invented a jungle hat that is mosquito-repellent,
Teflon-coated and has a refrigerated headband

?He said recently: ?I often say at 6am as I climb out
of a soaking wet hammock, ?God, I must be mad. Why am
I doing this?? ?

Source: Times database



 
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Received on Mon 12 Mar 2007 09:42:12 PM PDT