Reptiles, the big reveal and a giant goodbye!

Wow – the last couple of days have been packed with more things than you can fit in a trekking rucksack. On Friday our 10 week alpha groups had a brilliant surprise when Sham the snake man paid us a visit. Sham didn’t come alone and brought with him snakes of all shapes and sizes including a cobra and a python oooo!!! 

Sham, Jayapura's snake expert 

Rajaswari backing away 

Elvis not looking sure about his new friend 

Tom and Sham 

Sham set about telling the groups all about the different breeds, which ones were venomous and which ones you could give a friendly cuddle to if you felt inclined to do so, we don’t recommend it however! Sham has year of experience working alongside his reptilian friends and was able to impart a wealth of knowledge to the group.  The group got to see how a cobra behaved if it got out of bed on the wrong side that morning and he also gave the groups a chance to hold the friendlier of snakes. Teeja, despite a phobia of snakes, was brave enough to hold one of them.  

Teeja, with Rohith looking on 

Sham can't scare Kat! 

The Cobra

After the excitement the groups had a well deserved rest after all their hard work over the past couple of days while the field base staff planned a big surprise for them the very next day.

It’s not a true Raleigh expedition if you can’t get the face paints out and Jen, our DPM, will find any reason to whip out her own personal supply. The first excuse came when Lindsay (VM) came up with an inspired idea of how to reveal to our 10 week venturers which alpha group they would be in for Phase 1 of the expedition. 

Field base ready to paint some faces 

Jen - our tribal leader

Any chance Andrew gets to make noise he takes with both hands! 

Field base painted their faces tribal style and ushered everyone into the classroom, Tim even provided drum beats to go alongside proceedings which went something like this: all the venturers had to sit down and close their eyes, the field base staff ran around the group and painted different coloured tribal lines on their faces to illustrate which Phase they had been assigned to. Once everyone’s face had been painted they were allowed to open their eyes and find who their fellow team mates were going to be for Phase 1. 

The 10 weekers wait expectantly

Tabby is put in the Tango 5 tribe 

Lauren give Roxanne support while she awaits her turn

Roxy gets Charlie 1 

Dwayne is joins Tango 5

Jason goes to Tango 6 and Tarik get Charlie 1 

Najee and Dwayne realise they are in the same group!

Amy, Kat, Manpreet and Celia seem happy with their groups

Lousie, Emma and Chaitali all with Tango 6 

Shaquille also goes with Tango 6 

But the fun didn't stop there and the next big reveal was who their VMs were for Phase 1. All the VMs hid themselves and jumped out a pair at a time with their faces painted in the colour of the group they were to be with. 

Lindsay and Lou will be off with Echo 3 

Sarah and John revealed as the VMs for Tango 5 

So here are the groups:

Charlie 1 will be with Susan and Ana and they will be deploying to Kotapadi to work on a community project building toilets and working on a new house for a family in Kotapadi

Charlie 1
 

Echo 3’s VMs are Lindsay and Lou and they are off to build elephant fences and trenches in Basava Pora. 

Echo 3

Next up is our first trek group Tango 5 and they will be striding out with our VMs John and Sarah.

Tango 5

Lastly we have Tango 6 who will be trekking with VMs Tim and Catherine. 

Tango  6 

Even our drivers, Little Manju and Big Manju couldn't escape the face paint! 

All the groups seemed happy with their allocations but there is no rest here on a Raleigh expedition and now the teams had to organize all their food and equipment for Phase 1 as deployment was the following day (Sunday).  On Saturday evening our lovely Host Country Venturers, our group from Bermuda and some of the girls from England gave us a dance performance to teach everyone some moves from their home country – nobody was safe though as after each performance everybody got up on the floor and had to have a go themselves, with a special performance by some of the VMs with the help of our more rhythmic Bermudians (especially Dwayne who gave a demonstration of how to pull off the Pelican). 

Sunday everybody here at field base were up nice and earlier to sort out last minute bits and pieces and making sure all belongings were on their bus. Here are a few pictures of their last few hours at field base for 19 days (sniff, sniff).  

Amy, Will and Celia ready to trek 

Emma and Chessie 

Tom looking like Indiana Jones 

Charlie 1getting on the bus 

Lauren got all the kit she needs for Kotapadi 

Charlie 1  

Yasmin looking like she is on her trek already 

Elvis, Oli, Dwayne and Tabby - Tango 5 

Not quite sure why Susan has a guitar but....

luckily fellow VM Ana has the med kit 

Charlie 1 ready for the off 

Tango 5 were 2nd to leave 

Bye Devon!!

Manpreet and Alex 

Ashley 

Lindsay gets Donks to carry her stuff - cheeky girl 

Bye, bye Tango 6 

Tim and Catherine - Tango 6's lovely VMs

Manpreet's bag is almost the same size as her!

Michaela and Donya pack up Echo 3's van 

Echo 3 ready for the off

Bye for now guys we'll miss you!!

Since their departure we've heard from all the alpha groups and they have arrived safely at their various destinations. We'll be back in the next couple of days to let you know what they have all been up to.