The Pyramid Project
The Pyramid Project |
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Daily News - April 2008
29 April 2008 Iron Advancing Today you can see the two iron pyramids connected by a 25.59m horizontal iron angle. You can see it is level by comparing to the distant horizon. During the day we measured the span and it was 18cm too short. We therefore had to tension the iron so that it pulled the two apexes in. The two iron pyramids were 3cm too short yesterday but all that was corrected. It is essential that we maintain a very high accuracy in this ironwork and the LASER measure is proving useful. Tomorrow when the other two irons of 12.18m go in we will improve the accuracy of the iron even more
Below you can see that "central star" being raised and some adjustments being made to it...
Another team were busy on the canal entrance. Here the uprights have to be placed diagonally and this pyramid area is like the spine of the building. Should have some betta shots of this work soon:
And lastly... Another visitor to the pyramid but this time on my pillow! Ayahuasca, translation please! After taking the photo and wondering what God was saying I put the frog and the pillow outside - maybe I should have kissed her! :o)
28 April 2008 Little By Little... The central scaffold is advancing once again as we get ready to raise the four central irons that are centred by the star below
Once we get our current up to 220v we will be improving the welding of all the joints and adding in iron plates to strengthen the acute angles, for example in the star shape above
To be fair to the guys time was spent Thursday and Friday last week just moving around the beams of wood. Just moving one beam a few metres is a big deal and there are 32 of them...
North side Connected Great progress from Emilio's team as they get the North side connected back to the Central Structure forming one of the 8 spoke beams
Typically the wood is warped and requires some reshaping before more uprights are added. In the picture on the right you can see how the 3 ton pulley device is used to pull the two beams together. The North side is exactly 13.258 metres from the Central Structure. By enforcing this distance it means that the outside square is even straighter than it was before. This stretching and warping is essential to get our square base true and worthy of carrying the pyramid's iron skeleton
Richard Grossman visits the pyramid Today it was an honour to present the project to Richard Grossman PHD. Richard lives near L.A. and his work brings him down to Iquitos on a regular basis. Richard is essentially a healer specialising in Acupuncture, Chinese Medicine, Nutritional Healing, Herbal Medicine and most interestingly "Indigenous Sound Healing". A couple of his websites are www.heartfeather.com and www.SoundJourney.com. Richard was interested in the pyramid and we talked about the unification of shamanism. Richard will be speaking in the July shamanic conferences in Iquitos. These are: Sita's conference www.AmazonConvergence.com and Alan's conference, www.soga-del-alma.org
Spiders Thriving Finally if you kno a bit about the design of the pyramid, you will kno that the spirit of the spider helped with the platform layout during an Ayahuasca ceremony. The spiders have been asked to keep the mosquito population down for us and they are already doing an excellent job. Look carefully in the photo below and you will see one such beautiful, huge web. I just hope that our future visitors will accept that in a living, organic building, more insects and animals will exist along side us
23 April 2008 Wood Arrives! Finally our wood arrives, this shipment represents over 2 months work!
The beams are the "Spider Beams" coloured green in the diagram above. Originally scheduled as Phase 4 work, we decided to bring this into Phase 1. Phase 1 may be late but we can borrow time from Phase 4 if we can get this done quickly now. Once these beams are in place we will be ready for a huge plastic bottle collection campaign across Iquitos
Central Scaffold The Westside's central scaffold advanced rapidly today...
22 April 2008
News Updates The wood WILL be here tomorrow! :o)
Stairs The Municipality Approve our plans to build stairs down from the Pevas Street onto the site. Work on the stairs will start in around a week's time
The Pyramid starts taking prisoners Rat number 4! Don't worry fella, you will be released a few hundred meters away. Now we need some kind of tagging system so we can be sure they aren't coming back. Ear clipping was discussed. Any suggestions?
Northwest Advancing Last week we saw the Southwest corner advancing. Here is a shot taken looking down that corner...
Now if we look due North from this point we see the advance of the Northwest corner...
Tomorrow we are adding in scaffolding along the West side in the attempt to get these two points connected. It is a 25.6m stretch punctuated with the union of four 12.8m straights that form three of the lower side triangles. They are coloured red below. The green beams are in place (altho only spot welded for now whilst we wait for our upgraded electricity supply)
Accomplishing the above will mean that by moving the scaffolding around we can complete the other 2 corners and 3 sides. Just how we advance the next 8m vertically is still unknown, the original plan was to move the centre about within the outer square and use that to give us the height. However, we discovered that we need the central spoke beams in place in order to keep the outer square from warping and hence this plan had to be scrapped. I dare say that these Peruvian workers will find the way, they seem to be very good at this type of work. It is sure taking longer than I ever thought it would but we will make the time back!
21 April 2008 News Updates The telephone in Puente Alegre is now fixed! The wood should be here tomorrow
David Hewson Last night David flew back to the States where he will be promoting his art. Just before leaving David and I completely overhauled his section of this website. Some of his latest work is brilliant and I particularly recommend a browse thru the "Legends and Myths" section. Oh and by the way, he finished the portrait of me - what's more important that during the work on this piece we captured each of the stages. See here. David is planning a big exhibition of his art in Iquitos in a few months time
The Great River Amazon Raft Race For those interested in raft races this has to be one of the best events in the world. Just wanted to share the link. Perhaps we should enter a team ourselves? LOL!
19 April 2008 Full Moon The site by moonlight...
16 - 18 April 2008 Central Structure Complete I decided it would be nice to show you around the Central Structure now that this is completed. The Central Structure is mostly temporary, designed to last for a year until we have much more of the rest of the pyramid in place. However, during that first year, with a restaurant open to the public, we will have visitors passing thru the Central Structure and so we have maintained a good standard but used cheap materials. The Central Structure work has also been a good learning experience
This is the bathroom which will be available to the public to use before they climb the 16 flights of stairs to the restaurant. Note the fire hydrant and bucket of sand. When the restaurant is ready we will need to invite inspectors from the local Municipality to approve the building so we get a restaurant license
The shower uses filtered rain water caught in a 500 litre tank upstairs. We are learning about water consumption which is crucial information to the project. At the moment sewage goes directly into the river. We do not use any chemical cleaning substances except baking soda and vinegar. In the future sewage will be collected for treatment
The photo below is taken from the dining room / kitchen area looking back towards the bathroom
The kitchen is made from the light weight wood called Marupa. We are now ready to have the cooks use our kitchen to cook the workers food rather than them having to carry it all from their kitchens
The stove is connected to a bottle of gas
The office now has two Marupa desks that where handmade. Virginia is investigating getting us a fast internet connection. I will provide more photos of the office just as soon as we get more organised in here
All the downstairs rooms' ceilings now have plywood strips covering the the gaps in the floorboards. This is to prevent dirt falling thru from the room above. The permanent floorboards in the pyramid will be toothed such that the gap between floorboards does not have this problem. Keeping the costs down on the temporary structure was a priority
Under the second flight of stairs we have added more lockable cupboards to store tools
Following a rare, due South storm the other night we had to add another piece of roof to prevent rain penetration into the Guard's room
Looking out from the balcony above further progress can be seen on the ironwork. We now have 3 irons raised altho welding has been hampered by insufficient electrical supply. The original "Domestic" supply was escalated to "Commercial" but to maintain 220 volts with our welding machine we need to be further escalated to "Industrial" which is proving difficult to acquire - we'll get there!
At the centre of the structure above is this. It is complicated by the two horizontal struts to the right which will support the King's floor - these irons have yet to be raised. Working out the angles of all of these has been difficult
It's great that my room is now straight with foldaway mosquito net in place. The Marupa bookcase was made by two of the workers in one day. The matrice on the bed is an experiment that I am trying. Inside the cotton cover there is a layer of packed straw followed by a layer of cotton wool. It feels very comfortable but above all it is made solely from natural fibres. If the experiment succeeds then all the pyramid's matrices will be made this way
There are several photos here strung together to give a view all around the bedroom. Living above the water provides a constant fresh breeze which pentrates the mosquetto windows. It's probably the best air conditioning in the world and many people who visit remark on how cool it is here compared to in the city! :o)
Well, our next batch of wood is due Sunday and now 100% of our carpenters' attentions will go on finishing the Masaranduba underwater structure across the base
13 - 15 April 2008 Jungle Trip So with a lack of wood it was necessary to get into the jungle myself and find out how we can speed things up. I love the jungle but I don't like to be away from the pyramid too much so a fast 3 day visit was planned with Wilder as guide. The day before we bought supplies and packed We left Iquitos by boat around 9am Sunday and arrived at Puento Alegre just before sundown. It's a long way, following the river Mamon. The roof of the boat is so hot that you cannot go bare foot
Apart from Wilder I took 2 of the pyramid workers so that I could send them again in the future to get messages out to people. Puento Alegre has a telephone but it has been broken for the past month which has hampered our operation. One of the workers, Modesto, spied a wild boar and dived into the river to catch it for food. Unfortunately for Modesto the boar managed to bite him very badly before escaping...
Puento Alegre ("Happy Point") is the closest village to our jungle operation. Below you in their harbour you can see the boat we came in on and behind it is the Pyramid's boat. In the middle of the green the village has land for grazing cows, pigs and chickens. There are around 30 families there
Everyone there knew Wilder and altho it was my first time in the village they all knew of me too, they were very welcoming. The project has bought welcome work to the region
They showed me the school that they hope the Pyramid Project will refurbish. In a church service later on that evening I was invited to speak to the community about the project. During this speech I gave my word that the project will sort out their school. We can do this for around $2000 and by September 2009 when the missions begin we should have the money - hopefully we'll have the money before then because the 70 or so children really don't have much of a school to be proud of yet
The Pyramid Project has already helped them with their hospital. Now they have a great hospital, here is the medic there
She fixed up Modesto's hand
That evening one of the family's put us up. Here is a typical jungle kitchen - it is very basic. It is typical for the men to get drunk on Masato in the evenings - it isn't alcoholic but it still has the same effect - I tried a sip but it wasn't for me
It amazes me that there are lots of trees around but they do not have chairs in their kitchen. These are very poor people
But they seem to be happy
The next day at dawn we set off in a 6 man boat to navigate the 4 hours further into the jungle to the place where the wood is being harvested. Wilder explained how low this river had been and it has been impossible to get the wood out. We visited the first site and I was impressed. The wood was much better quality then previous shipments
Wilder showed me trees that had been felled but the wood was very poor. Even for the love of the tree and gratitude of the sacrifice, the wood below cannot be used for the big beams
Special paths have to be made to get the wood to the river. The jungle soon grows back
Here we see the Pali Sangre. This is the red wood we are using for the steps and floorboards
This is part of the workforce below that help cut and move the wood. They are very strong men
By 3pm and after some long walks in heat I decided to rest up and let Wilder, Robinson, Modesto and Augustine carry on with the camera but without me. They got some great shots and with the water level finally rising we should have wood arrive on Sunday
Navigating back along the jungle river in the dark was an experience I will not forget but we got back OK and slept another night in Puente Alegre
In the morning I had a swim in the river and we headed back to Iquitos
11 April 2008 The Big Move Well first my apologies for being too busy to update the site for 10 days. My computer was been packed away for the past week as I moved myself from my previous apartment and onto the pyramid. So now I am happy to say that my address and the address of Healthy Holidays is:- La Pirámide Flotando, Pevas #1, Iquitos, Loreto, Perú Oh and by the way all the telephones in Iquitos have changed. The new number is +51 (0)65 96579-2244. This information is all on the Contact page
Overview Well here it is...
Umm... not much change you might think and it is true that things are advancing slowly with the iron. Nevertheless, we are making progress. Look closely on the right and see the first diagonal iron. This is welded in place now and is at exactly 42 degrees, the same as the Great Pyramid of Giza. Here are some close-ups:- The North-West corner...
The South-West corner...
Very soon two more 12m iron-angles will be added creating a mini corner pyramid that is a third the size of the full pyramid. I will then make an important decision about strength. By adding weights to the top meeting point and testing how much the iron bends I may decide that we must further triangulate at 6m intervals making the 12m pyramid into 5 x 6m pyramids. This would mean that I'd need to get another shipment of 12 tons of iron from Lima and complete this phase 5 work in phase 1. It would probably also mean that we'd need to triangulate at 3m intervals in phase 5 adding a further 24 tons of iron and $50,000 cost to the budget. That's a price we'll have to pay if it comes to it and I'm not too worried by these figures because by phase 5 the project should be doing well from the Shamanic Tour. ($50,000 would set us back two months once this tour is in full swing and I'm sure we can cope with this)
The iron work is progressing slowly and one solution is to double up on the tools we have. This means another iron maestro will be employed, another welding machine bought, another heavy duty drill like the one above is needed and another trip to Lima to get all this equipment flown into the jungle. Another challenge has been escalating our electricity supply to industrial quality for the welding machine - thanks to Ivan for sorting this out! Well, major expenses there but with God at the helm of this project I have every confidence we will find the way The business plan is that we will use the money we have to get to the end of Phase 2. Remember the phase objectives: Phase 1 is to position the Ankh and demonstrate the projects size and intention, Phase 2 is to have the restaurant running giving us the needed cash flow and public connection to the project. With Phase 1 complete we will be inviting publicity on a much larger scale than so far received. I decided to hold off giving the UK's newspaper "The Independent" the story until Phase 1 is complete. This is so that we have a pyramid and not just a floating house to photograph and thus our debut will have more punch. The plan is that the publicity that this generates will kick off our Shamanic Tour. The Tour will backbone the finance for the rest of the build. This coupled with a good local grant and perhaps some donations then we should make it through by our deadline of September 2009 - failure to generate the necessary capital would slow us down but not kill the project
Visitors We are now used to visitors staring down from Pevas and the Boulevard taking photographs. It is lovely to see them come down to the pyramid and request a tour. Today for example a group of around 20 students from a local college were shown around. The other day a French couple visited and look who was sunbathing this morning at 7:30am...
With better steps to the site we hope that more visitors will come. By the way we are making an application to the Marina for a port to be built at the Boulevard of Iquitos. This will serve the pyramid's two boats that ferry our visitors across the river every 15 minutes but we will also open our port for other local tourist businesses that wish to operate from this key location. Connecting the central Boulevard of Iquitos directly to the river via a Tourist friendly Port is a key advance for the Tourist Industry here. It means the jungle is much more accessible but there is one catch. In the months around August the water level drops and the river becomes 1.5 km away across muddy land... well the application for the port includes an application for a 4m wide ecological canal to be built - ambitious yes, but for Iquitos to become one of the primary destinations for the Peruvian tourist we must think big and this kind of scheme can succeed Not every visitor to the pyramid is welcome. With a kitchen in place now the number of rats has increased. Here's the solution thanks to Westeban's team pictured below:-
The rats eat the cheese which loosens the nail and then the trap door falls. Our nocturnal friend is trapped but unharmed. We can then move him to another home away from the pyramid
Water, Electricity and Furniture This week we saw the whole pyramid get wired up with lighting and plugs. We saw our water collection system all plumbed in. It rains, we collect filtered water and we can then shower, flush toilets and wash-up. Also this week, thanks to Teddi making an introduction to a friend we found a very good company to make our pyramid furniture. Here is my bed being made - we went for a minimalist design to reduce weight
Here is a fine chest of drawers, again, handmade to our selected design:-
The furniture above is made of cedar but since then we have had another bed and chest of drawers made of Marupa which is a much lighter wood and very beautiful coloured white
Above there you can see my bedroom with a screen hiding the 500 litre rain collection tank. To the right you see the Guard's bedroom and the Marupa single bed
Pyramid Living Here is the kitchen advancing:-
We are hoping that by the end of tomorrow the kitchen will be finished so more to come on that
Below the bathroom... great work there from Chino and Robinson...
The floor was first cemented with a camber to drain off the water. Then they tiled the floor with wall tiles, I've never seen this done before but I love it and the tiles are strong
Below the office. Still a mess but at least my computer is unpacked now hey! :o) I'll repeat the photos below just as soon as it is straight...
Another couple of shots to share. To the left the hallway which will soon lead our visitors up to the restaurant 5 floors above. To the right my gym! It is so great to exercise with the fresh air blowing off the water, I think the "Jungle Jim" will be a great hit for Iquitos!
There is this balcony pictured from below. This is pictured looking in from the East side:-
The Food Experiments Below the raft sticking out is the beginnings of a food and water collection laboratory. We will be experimenting with keeping rain water fresh to drink without the use of chemicals. We do not yet know how this may work but one idea is to use plants. Also we will be creating racks upon racks of jars to be used for sprouting. We will find optimum times to sprout crops such as the cereals (wheat, rye, barley, quinoa), the legumes (butter beans, black eyed peas, chickpeas, soya etc.), nuts (almonds, peanuts etc.), lentils, the list goes on. The key point is that normally restaurants will not touch this kind of food because the life span is usually just 12 hours. These foods are however critical to raw fooding. Jesus said that the way to bake bread is under the sun using the crushed sprouts, not by cooking flour. I am optimistic that we can give Iquitos a restaurant that is at the cutting edge of health food technology
The Week Ahead Monday will see the whole of the central structure complete and so by Tuesday we must get busy with the main structure. I will be going into the jungle on Sunday to find out why our wood is delayed again
01 April 2008 Outer Square Advancing The last few weeks have seen us meticulously straightening the sides ready to carry a true square pyramid. The sides were designed to be 38.390m long and so the design was accurate to within 1mm. It turns out using a LASER measure that the North side is 3cm too big and the West side is to within 1cm of accuracy so I am happy with that level of precision when one considers we are dealing with wood not stone Below we visit the four corners. Thanks to Teddi's team for doing such a great job of ensuring the sides are all 12cm above the water level and are straight, this task seemed impossible at times but they persevered regardless:-
North-East Corner (Finished)...
South-East Corner...
South-West Corner (Finished with scaffold)...
North-West Corner (Finished)...
Scaffold? Yes, the South-West corner, closest to Iquitos, is on the brink of advancing vertically. The iron workers are laying iron over the corner horizontally first and then we are set to add the diagonal corner which will give us the pyramid shape. This latest development of the project is exactly what Iquitos has been waiting for...
Overview Below, the project view. Delays in receiving quality wood means the sides are still not connected to the centre, hence all the ropes to prevent the outer square from distorting in the river
We are also hampered by a lack of Balsa wood and I end up buying it in small dribs and drabs but we are getting there, only about 20 of the 100 rafts yet to build...
Ironwork ready to go in..
Meanwhile, back at the Ranch! Good work advancing on the water system. The 500 litres tub collects filtered rainwater to feed the bathroom and kitchen below:-
The bathroom floor going in...
Office ready... (I will be moving into the pyramid over the next 2 days)
Personal News My 40 day diet is now on day 23. In the first 7 days I ate nothing and my body was able to heal some problems I'd been having with my colon and prostate. Since then I have eaten nothing but natural, uncooked foods, for example lots of avocados etc. Another aspect of the diet is to sleep in the cold on a wooden floor with no blankets, pillows etc. and shower in cold water. The reason is to lower the body temperature when asleep. It is proved with mice that this is much more healthy and doubles lifespan, it is a personal ambition to live past 140. In the West we tend to be addicted to heat and are slowly cooking our bodies. Sleeping and showering colder, I find hard but I am hoping it will get easier in time With a height of 1.82m and weight of 69.5kg my BMI is currently 21 which I am very happy with. People say I look too thin but I say that most people look too fat. My pulse is also down to 55 beats a minute, which considering I only do 10 minutes exercise per day, I think proves that the Essene Diet makes good sense. For interest, my body fat registers at 14.4% with a hydration of 59%. I am now as light as I was when I was 17 years old and in order to double life span from 70 to 140 I figured I now need to be looking like a 20 year old. People say as you get old you get fatter and BMI bandings take age as a consideration when reporting on your health ranking. This is ridiculous because it is saying, if you are older you are allowed to be fatter. The whole point is not to be fatter and not give yourself the excuse of age The diet is also advancing my relationship with God and helping me along my shamanic path. Dieting is a great way to test one's will, the Gods love self-discipline
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