Friday December 28, 2012
Puerto Quetzal, Guatemala
Welcome to Guatemala!
Quick facts: Guatemala has coastal and mountainous areas. It has rich soil from the volcanoes and main exports are sugar, coffee and beef. It is about the size of Tennessee but has the most populated of South American countries. A peace accord, signed in 1996, ended a 36 year armed conflict but violent crimes are still very high due to endemic overtly, an abundance of weapons, a legacy of societal violence, and dysfunctional law enforcement and judicial systems.
(Both the boys tracking devices were obviously ON 🙂
This is only the second place where we had armed police with us on our entire trip.
The locals are VERY interested in selling their wares and for everyone there is a “special deal for you!” But, geographically, it is a beautiful country.
Interesting fact about sugar, which is planted EVERYWHERE.
In order to get the “cane” (the root part of the plant that is the sweet part) out and exposed for harvest, farmers burn the entire stalk, -as only the cane will not burn. In Fact, you can see (and smell) smoke all around from the farmers doing this on the horizon.
Now onto the volcanoes. they loom in the distance of every horizon.
The one we are going to climb is over on the left:
Woweee! This was a crazy-fun ( if a bit strenuous:) day!
Today we HIKED the Payaca Volcano! It is on the the same plate tectonic fault line as the one that erupted in Nicaragua but they assured us it was safe…. more on this later.
It was HOT. -and I mean REALLY HOT. But, it was a DRY heat… kind of like … an OVEN. -and VERY dusty.
The volcanic rock was extremely light and the mountain was covered in volcanic ash and rock… Which was a bit treacherous to hike at times. It was 2 1/2 miles up and and 2 1/2 down. Both Leo and Finn were troopers and hiked the whole way up.
We then had a yummy picnic lunch on the upper tier of the volcano and we ROASTED marshmallows in the volcanic heat!
We also met some dogs that were up top looking for some love and food!
Oh and we did also manage to see a small eruption CLOSE UP. As we were defending there was a “small ash” eruption. Our guides assured us it was no big deal -but when we got back down to the bottom they also mentioned hey hadn’t seen one in ten years or more.
We treated the boys to a horse ride back down and they loved it!
Saturday, December 29, 2012
On Ship
BIGGEST of the big and SMALLEST of the small.
This morning we attended a lecture on Island Biology: The Biggest of the Big and The Smallest of the Small.
Professor Charles Leavell spoke about how people and scientists LOVE islands because they are unlike any other place. Islands are like laboratories for change. Evolution happens faster here due to finite and different conditions from what existed in the mainland.
He talked about how organisms get to islands and what happens to them once they arrive. “Immigrants” face unique environmental pressures that cause changes over time from their mainland relatives. In some cases miniaturization occurs such as in Pygmy elephants.
And in other cases Gigantization occurs, such as in the case of the Komodo Dragon from the Galapagos.
Plant and animal life get to islands by land bridges, flying, swimming. Hitch hiking as in the case if parasites and other small creatures who travel on the back of bigger creatures.
In the evening there was a ship passenger talent show which both Leo and Finn were in which we will post photos next.
Safe Travels!
JKLM
🙂
Next: Cabo San Lucas, Mexico!
leo and finn go to south america! 