10 posts tagged “traveling”

We woke up at 6:30am yesterday to get on the bus at Lacanja before 8:00, and then spent the rest of the day driving, with a short and very pretty break outside of Palenque after we dropped Rebecca off at the bus station there. We finally arrived to San Cristobol around 8:00pm to meet our host families and embark on a mini-adventure for our suitcases. While I fully expected for the real fun to begin then, in fact, there were quite a few interesting sites along the way.

Outside of Palenque, when we stopped for lunch which I felt strange eating because of all the Dramamine in my sister, we spent some time watching a very large waterfall while Hugo arranged one last meal for us. While the other waterfalls we have seen were beautiful and impressive in their own right, size does matter, and as a result, this one has trumped them all.

 Afterwards, we were driving through nothing but highland country, and as a result, we were treated to Zapatista propaganda, despite the military presence that occasionally stopped us to inspect our luggage. The letters EZLN were occasionally painted on houses, often in faded letters. Once, I saw a restaurant named “Cocinera Zapatista.”  Most exciting, however, was probably a small town center with a name I can’t recall. There was a sign that read “Autonomous Province of the Zapatistas.”  Additionally, the school was emblazoned with the EZN, decorated with men carrying arms and wearing a ninja-like costume with a red band o n their foreheads. I wish I had my camera ready when we passed by.

When we arrived, we filed off the bus with everything we brought on it and met our host families in the language institute. I don’t have  a roommate because I have chosen to live alone, but I’m sure it’s going to be fine despite my initial trepidation about it. Already, I feel like my Spanish is improving because my host family makes an effort to gently correct me when I say things like “corporacion” instead of “corporativo,” or when my verb conjugation is a little off. They also have two children, which are fortunately pretty close to my age so I can foresee myself not wanting to kill them like I might be inclined to do with say, seven-year-olds. The oldest girl is nineteen, she goes to college is Tuxtla, the capital city not far from here, and she is studying tourism. Unfortunately, she is only home on the weekends because she lives at the university during the week. The youngest girl is fifteen, and reminds me a little bit of my sister Katie. I don’t feel like we have a lot in common, but because we will probably be spending some time together in the house, I’m sure we will find something

On a final note, before I went to work on finishing my Maya blogs and the glyph project last night, I, of course was stupid and brought up the Zapatistas because I want to know about them. It wasn’t so stupid after all because the family was happy to oblige and give me their perspective on them. Look for a post on what I have learned once I can do some outside research, and probably something about political tourism as well.

We have spent a couple of days now at Lacanja, type of ecotouristic hotel. We are sleeping and studying in stick huts with bunk beds instead of hammocks, and my particular cabin, like the doubles, is on the river we rafted on this morning. We have class in an open-air palapa, and project onto its only stick wall. It’s surprisingly chilly here, but this is a combination of the fact that our walls are made of sticks and it has rained a lot recently.

Ecologically, we are surrounded by beautiful rainforest. This morning, I was bird watching and caught a glimpse of another Violaceous trogon, a mot-mot and a pair of squirrels within a matter of minutes. While this has been guaranteed Fer-de-lance spotting country, I have been fortunate enough to have missed out on any spotting there may be. I am positive that if I were to come across one, I would incite its aggression and be dead before I knew it. Only one more day and I will have made it home free, just as long as I don’t stumble over one when we are bird watching near San Cristobol. The reserve is also home to the Mayan city of Lancanja, which I mentioned earlier. Unfortunately, the only thing I know about it is that at one time is was subjugated by nearby Yaxchilan and that is fairly small as far as the sites we commonly see go.

 While I am ready to get back into civilization, I have definitely enjoyed our time in La Selva more than I anticipated. Yes, there are bugs.  Yes, it is sometimes intolerably hot, or surprisingly cold. I have been sunburned. I have been uncomfortable. I have been pressed for study time and stressed out as a result. Things haven’t always been perfect or pleasant, but the sum total of my experiences has been overwhelming positive. Is there another study abroad experience where I can watch Howler monkeys in the wild? Where I can white-water raft and snorkel as part of lab? How many times in your life can you see that there are Mayan ruins in your backyard? Talk about a unique experience- and one we will never get back.

Greetings from Palenque, Chiapas! We are currently on a two day stay here with free time to relax, study for our Maya post-final, and visit the ancient Mayan city of Palenque before we leave for four days in La Selva Lacandon. We’ve had a few bumps in the road as we have been travelling, namely bad weather that has been stalking us since Puerto Morelos, but it has otherwise been very pleasant. Keep sending me e-mails! I use them as an excuse to procrastinate.

                As you may or may not have noticed, there are quite a few blogs up and  more are coming, although not in any particular order. Unfortunately, I can't load pictures at this time. Everything will come as bandwidth permits, though, and if not, I will have this entire middle leg of our journey thoroughly documented by the time we reach San Cristobol on the 10^th! In the meanwhile, if I can survive, you can. Also, look for a travel map as soon as I can muster up the energy.

Today was the second day of our Calakmul visit. In addition to being an archeological site for a major superstate in the Mayan region, it is also a biosphere reserve in the middle of nowhere. As a result, it was the perfect way to spend two days learning about ruins and keeping an eye out for elusive mammalian species.

We spent the large majority of our time at Calakmul filling our field notebooks with animal sightings. While we have become accustomed to seeing many of the same birds over and over again, things like flycatchers, jays, orioles and mot-mots, we were treated to less common varieties of these birds in our first hour, including toucans, Oscillating Turkeys so frequently Robert chased some down the road on the way in, a Boat-billed Flycatcher, and a Violaceous trogon, which I am glad to take credit for spotting since I am binocularly-challenged. Then, we saw the monkeys! Now you know what time it is- Spot the Sigmund! At first, it was just one lone, aggressive male spider monkey, which is strange because spider monkeys do not usually roam alone. We spent fifteen minutes chasing him a little bit off of the beaten path, listening to him vocalize and make threat displays when two of his friends showed up, more inclined to hop around between the trees and eat.

Later, as we were climbed down from atop the tallest structure in Calakmul, the illustriously named Estructura Dos, we heard the growling bark of a troop of Howler Monkeys, and having been deprived their presence, we chose to chase down their call.  We were not disappointed and chased a group of seven or so of them in the trees, at least two large males and a small baby howler monkey. After they had escaped our camera and our trail in the brush, we cut through to the road again where we spotted them a second time, but they had largely stopped howling. Further down the trail, was a very agitated group of howlers, or I should saw, couple of males. I wish I could describe the sound to you- it sounded everything like a cross between the sound you hear the T-Rex make in Jurassic Park to the phantom scream of a supernatural villain in a horror movie. Oh wait, why don’t you watch the movie on Youtube? That more hominid, less-frightening sound you hear is Ellen.

                Today, we were accompanied by the field biologist of Calakmul on a nature walk around the largest of the five reservoirs the Calakmul Mayans used for water. Again, we were treated to many birds on our way in, including a pair of unexpected Great Egrets on the other side of the reservoir. We also spotted an Agouti, several Great Curassows, and more Oscillated Turkeys.  While on the trail, we also spotted Leist Grebes, an as-of-yet unidentified but very colorful snake, and the molted skin of the vicious Fer-de-Lance.

                Like I mentioned before, in addition to being one of the largest biological reserves in Mexico, Calakmul is also a major archeological site, although for its relative importance, little is excavated for likely one reason: the remoteness of its location. From Xpuhil, a relatively small town, it is a two-and-a-half-hour trip by bus, at least, depending on how many turkeys Robert takes a mind to paparazzing on the way in. While it was discovered in the 1930s, large-scale excavations did not take place until the 1980s, when travel-guides were still recommending chainsaws as useful tools for alleviating the difficulties of travelling into Calakmul. Moreover, while approximately 117  stelae have been found here, more than any other in the Mayan region, because the quality of the limestone is poor when not imported, most of the history is lost except where it is recorded in other cities. That it is even recorded at all attests to the large hegemonic power of Calakmul as the seat of the Kaan dynasty and arch-rival of the superstate of Tikal.

                The notable features of the site include the monolithic structures one and two and structure three for a post-archeologically-relevant inscriptions. Structure one and structure two are only interesting because they are gigantic, and you can see Guatemala from the top of them. Otherwise, they fit the mold of the common Calakmul monument: Terminal Classic with Early Classic substructures with Peten-style architecture. Structure three, however, is worth mentioning for its graffiti. Although there is a large amount of graffiti left by tourists, who feel compelled to destroy whatever stucco has been spared erosion, there is an inscription from the archeologist, Cyrus Lundall, who discovered the site in the 19321. Can you pick out his name in the old and the tourist graffiti?

                Overall, I’d argue that Calakmul is incomparable to any site we have seen so far, not just for its magnitude, but for its location as well.

Today, we travelled to the Siaan Kaan Biosphere Reserve, on which is the small site of the city of Muyil, where we ventured back into the land of name-by-number structures.

To begin our day, we took a motorboat into the lagoons of Siaan Kaan and explored the Mayan-constructed canals surrounded by marsh. Conspicuously, there were few birds- I only recorded one chilling Great Blue Heron in my notebook, even though it was flying over the lagoon. This is probably because the lagoons were made of freshwater, which is naturally less biomass abundant than saltwater. As a result, there is fewer things for the birds to eat, like fish, which are absent because of the lack of large amounts of algae. The water as clear, icy blue, and where the boat had not stirred up the sandy sediment at the bottom, there was an off-white limestone bottom to gaze on, perfectly devoid of all life except for sporadic marsh grass.

After the passing through two lagoons connected by the Mayan canals, we entered another group of Mayan canals, were instructed to stand on the dock and put our life vests on. So, I, centered the life jacked on my body like I intended to put it on backwards, and then threaded my legs through the arm-holes, pulled it up like a gigantic diaper, and fastened it around my stomach. Not visual enough? Try the picture to your left. Then, I lowered myself into the water that makes the Guadalupe River feel warm, and proceeded to float down the Mayan canals, paparazzi’d by Ahau Roberto the entire way. Along the side of the riverbanks, we gazed on more marsh grass, mangroves, some termite nests, and occasional spots of brown algae, but we were really the only living things in the water until a second group of tourists, all in boats, met us at the end of canal. They insisted they had paid more for their dry excursion, but I doubt they had as much fun.

On the way back, Aakash’s attempts to imitate Leonardo di Caprio gave me something to contemplate- I still owe him a Mayan sacrifice- would a lagoon instead of a cenote suffice? Before I made my decision, we had arrived back on land to explore Muyil. Unfortunately, this Mayan city, while beautiful, provided no opportunities to make up for my indecision.

Like other sites we have visited, like Labna, Sayil, or Acanceh, there is not a lot of money coming into the site. As a result, less of the buildings are reconstructed or consolidated, there are fewer tourists to spoil my pictures or to encourage grotesque sound and light shows. This also means that a good number of buildings are mostly as they were found- no more than large mounds of rubble. A good number of the structures were still “presentable” in a way that they would appease the eyes of tourists, however.

Muyil itself was one of the largest East Coast cities and has architecture that reflects influences from their East Coast geography and the Peten region. There is evidence of occupation from the Middle Preclassic (550BC) to the Terminal Classic (~925AD), although there is no architecture from the earliest periods, so the origins of the site are dated by pottery.  Apparently, it is one of several sites that we will see in the coming days with a peculiar round structure at the top of the Castillo related to either the Terminal Classic/Postclassic cult of Quetzalqauotl (sp?), or possibly the World Tree.. More interesting to me now that we have seen more than fifteen sites of ruins, was that this site is still used in modern Mayan rituals. On the pathway into the reserve, there was a hieroglyph as a worship-aid for a Mayan pilgrimage up the East Coast of the Yucatan peninsula where they carry a Jesus Christ on a cross. This is yet another example of the way the Mayans have integrated Christianity into their ancestral religion. Additionally, one of the temples is still used by modern Mayan shamans for religious rituals because it is built over a sacred cave. As I may have mentioned before, caves and cenotes are inherently sacred to the Mayan because they represent a link to the underworld, Xibalba.

After the site and the lagoon, we went out to lunch in Bakalar, the small town where we stayed at the hotel Laguna Bakalar. The restaurant was built next to a cenote that would rival a small lake in size and reached a depth of 90m. After the frigid water of the reserve earlier that morning, I had burnt myself out on swimming, but I did stick my feet in the water to find it surprisingly warm not only for the weather that day, but also for how deep it was. It was yet another nice cenote ending to a long, Mexico day of ecology, travelling, ruins and restaurants.

I don’t feel compelled to say a whole lot about what class has been like the past couple of days. Several of my fellow students gave presentations on members of our reef taxonomy. Robert gave one of his slideslows from pictures he took on his underwater camera. Oh, yea…he took those pictures snorkeling, once in Puerto Morelos and once in Cozumel, as part of class.

Fellow Ursinus students, at home and abroad, what did you do today?

We have left Kiuic after a long two weeks testing the limits of off-the-grid living, mist-netting, exploring its archeological ruins, some of which were right under our nose the whole time, and completing midterms or finals for two of our classes. While at times, I will admit the experience was trying in ways I didn’t expect, I am definitely grateful for it. Not only was it a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, from which I learned a lot from the anticipated archeological and biological experiences, but I also just how “renewable” energy is, and just how far it will stretch.

Kiuic runs entirely on solar power. According to my inside sources, this was entirely a philosophical decision as opposed to a functional one. Given the nature of Kiuic as a Biocultural Reserve, whose existence, in part, is to make a point about the sustainability of our lives and our relationship with nature, this cannot be unexpected. However, solar power is not without its drawbacks- aside from the expense of the panels, in terms of toxicity as well as money, nevermind the low-lifetime batteries, it would seem like the Reserve could do better with reducing the impact by keeping the panels and bringing the lines in. This would pour clean power into the grid when the batteries are fully charged and it is not being used on the site, off-setting the environmental cost of the panels. That said, it would also facilitate heavy laptop use of sixteen Ursinus students studying for midterms, which is probably not the best way to promote sustainability, but the sun goes down eventually.

Environmental impact extends beyond energy-consumption, of course. While those of us in the United States often have the privilege of ignoring this crucial issue, although we certainly should not in light of our food and pharmaceutical industries impact, we are among the few. The number one cause of death in “third-world” countries is not some “exotic” disease like malaria, it’s diarrhea from poor or unsanitary water quality. Kiuic addresses the water issue by providing its guests with biodegradable soap and shampoo and treats its own waste.

                Ultimately, I was left considering Americans technological decline and how that technology has simultaneously been our downfall. I’ll be the first to admit that I would be an entirely different person without my laptop on this trip, and just in general. As far back as I can remember, the computer, together with the internet, was the primary vehicle by which I learned about the world. Yes, books were always important, and I remember more than I will ever admit through conversations with parents about the economy, turbines, American government, etc, but all of these things were reinforced by finding them somewhere else, in different words and different contexts. I shouldn’t forget about what I will dramatically entitle my “Intellectual Liberation,” which, too, was manifested in books, but was reinforced with community and access to information I might have not otherwise encountered- all with a skeptical eye, of course. The cost of all of this, in terms of my lifetime carbon footprint, is probably embarrassingly high before school is even considered, especially now that I am in college. But learning is expensive, as my experience in Kiuic demonstrated, and even then our impact was limited. What was has been since then, and before? How many people still leave their laptops on all night needlessly- I’ll admit, sometimes I forget.

                All of this, and the place of the United States is slipping in the world, not just socially, but in terms of competitiveness. Hindsight is 20/20, and we probably could have done more to invest in sustainable technology before. Not only would this have alleviated our impact on our environment, at least a little bit, but we could have maintained our competitiveness in the world economy, for better or for worse. Unfortunately, we live in a country that basks in its own greatness, and social attitudes about science and technology aren’t always conducive to progress.  It’s the Amurican way- the world bends beneath us. I just hope we everyone else down, too. (I’ll leave that to China.)

This weekend, we took a siesta from Kiuic this week to visit the small coastal town of Celestún to rest, watch some flamingos, and hang out among the mangroves. We spent the first day, driving, listening to Ellen’s lecture on mangroves and Ashley’s on flamingos, relaxing, which for the most part constituted reading in the hotel room, doing a small amount of work, and finding food. The next morning, however, we woke up bright and early to the estuary. There, we took a boat through the often very shallow water and were greeted with a sea of pink flamingos.

Ashley’s lecture was particularly timely for this excursion not only because it described a lot of the flamingo behaviors we were close enough to see, include juvenile/adult hierarchy, and various feeding techniques, but also the idea of vigilance. The idea is that vigilance, or when a flamingo extends its neck high in the air to keep watch over their surroundings due to disturbance, is incompatible with feeding, which requires the flamingo to submerge its head to employ filter feeding. Because our tourist boats are loud, like all tourist boats, this induces the flamingos in the flock to become vigilant and disturbs their constant feeding, which in turn results in lower reproductive success later due to a series of a chain reactions. Essentially, we disturbed the flamingos by visiting them, although we only disturbed one so much that it felt threatened enough to fly away.

In addition to flamingo watching, we also continued with the traditional bird-watching that we seem to do wherever we go. Many of the familiar faces and sky profiles were present- Double-crest cormorants, Anhingas, Herons, Egrets, and so on, but we also managed to catch glimpses of some rarer species, such as a nesting group of Tiger Herons, and the Pygmy Kingerfisher.

After our adventure on the lagoon, we offered ourselves up as mosquito feasts to take a walk through a mangrove forest and learn to distinguish black and red mangroves. While there are several interesting differences, including viviparity, or “live birth” in red mangroves, the most obvious difference is the presence of prop roots in red mangroves, and pneumataphores in black mangroves, which otherwise look no different than a normal tree. Prop roots are what you typically think of when you think about mangroves- sprawling extensions of the trunk for things to live in and around, if they can handle the wave agitation and the salinity. Pneumataphores are two inch protrusions in the ground which help the mangrove acquire oxygen.

We had lunch at the same restaurant as we did the day before on our way out of town and now we have returned to Kiuic for a week of preparing for the Bio midterm.

So, enough of my whining. Do you think Rebecca and Dawley² would have us drive three hours to Campeche, only to suffer my only mention of it in a blogpost to be without academic merit and full of complaining about my own stupidity? Of course not! That’s fair enough because the museums we visited were very nice and deserve commentary.

As I mentioned before, the first museum and our intended destination was a former fortress that overlooked an usually blue Gulf of Mexico. Perhaps because of this former significance, the dark lighting and accent colors in the cases and on the walls, this museum seemed more formal than any of the other ones that we have visited. Ironically enough, it seemed the least organized, and the least willing to offer information about the objects within. Instead of long explanations next to many of the artifacts, or even a case of artifacts, as I had grown accustomed to from the Merida and Mayan-site museums we had visited previously, there were brief histories in separate cards in each of the rooms.  I didn’t pick up very many of these cards due to their unwieldiness because Rebecca proved to be a more convenient and interesting source of information. Unfortunately, my unwillingness to do so prevented me from determining the museums manner of organization, and as a result, I am having trouble picking out many of the individual exhibits worth speaking about. This is unfortunate, considering the how different many of the sites the artifacts were derived from are, and considering that we won’t be visiting many of them.

Calakmul is an exception to this, of course, and was my chief interest at the museum because it is a site we will be visiting on our “Lost Cities of the Jungle Tour.” Fortunately for me, the most interesting artifact in the museum happened to be from Calakmul: the skeleton of a former ruler of Calakmul, whom I previously described. History of dude and/or Calakmul. The museum was also full of various pottery styles, stelae with writing I could occasionally discern and (yes!) read, although I won’t claim to be able to identify more than a few calendar symbols.

The second museum that we visited was probably my favorite museum so far. It was organized comprehensively by architectural style. Each room provided a general description of the style, and where and when it was located, then provided examples, including ones that retained their initial color, with detailed descriptions. This was particularly helpful to me because I still have difficulty distinguishing Chenes and Peten style architecture, because they lack distinguishing features like Puuc and East Coast Style have. One is boxy and boring (East Coast), and one of full of almost-gaudy patterning (Puuc). Chenes and Peten seem to blend together, perhaps because I cannot geographically distinguish them either. There was also a room with many stelae and other architectural writing which provided a good pre-midterm brush up on some basics of Mayan architecture, life, writing and the ballgame. When we made it to the end of the museum, there were also videos, some of which described the ecology of the biosphere that surrounded one particular Mayan site (Calakmul?), and others that repeated themes in the museum about Mayan life.

                Despite the bumps in the road, looking back on it now, I enjoyed this trip more than others. We had time to explore, there were no pyramids to climb up, or more importantly, down, tourists were absent or infrequent, and I felt like I finally had a foothold in the information that could help me understand future sites better. All the same, here’s to hoping we don’t break down on the way to Calakmul!

(Happy 18^th, to my sister Katie. I’ll bring you back something special.)