Primitive Jungle Day Shelter with Cohune Palm Thatch

This is a companion shelter to the “deluxe” lean-to. It is to serve as a day shelter. Even though, it is very common in Belize and elsewhere in Central America to use the cohune palm to thatch your roof, this one is done a little differently. The traditional way is to keep adding leaves to the outside which gives you a near-continuous coverage. This one is a bit more like the bay-palm thatch in that it’s got different “levels”. I did this way to keep having to go back for more leaves. The project took 9 days to complete. The materials all came from the landscape and some of the leaves had to be hiked in from about a quarter mile away. I am particularly proud of the vine harvesting tool I came up with. Without any exaggeration, I couldn’t have done this shelter without it. This vine is great. You can twist it up and it will even take a square knot. However, it tends to snap where you are holding it when you pulled on. With my height, that will only leave me with about eight feet. I needed to do better than that. With this tool, I could harvest 15 feet or more at a time.