Watching the sun's daily birth at Tikal

Today, I visited the ancient Mayan ruins of Tikal after ten years of waiting. When my family lived in Guatemala in 2004-2005, we took a trip north to visit Tikal. We were about to board the bus out of Flores, the most convenient town to stay in while visiting the ruins, when a bout of food poisoning made its presence known via projectile vomit. My family went to Tikal without me and I slept in the hotel that day. 

Six volunteers from Parque Hawaii joined me on my long awaited journey to Tikal. Getting to Flores was a tad bit stressful because the bus company lost our reservation, the bus broke down, and then a crazy guy tried to scam us. Though exhausted, we decided to bypass naptime in order to visit ARCAS Peten, Parque Hawaii's sister animal conservation center. The highlights of ARCAS Peten included befriending a spider monkey and seeing a gorgeous ocelot. Later that afternoon we jumped from a rope swing into the refreshing lake and ate comida tipica on the docks. 

This morning, my friends and I decided to beat the crowds and pay a little extra to get a sunrise tour at Tikal. We were picked up from our hostel at 3am, arrived at Tikal National Park an hour later, then trekked through the jungle to make it to Temple IV before the first light. Temple IV is the tallest structure at Tikal and it made an appearance in one of the Star Wars movies. Walking through the dark jungle was spooky but as soon as I heard a howler monkey scream from the jungle canopy above, I knew waking up early was worth it. We made it to the top of the temple moments before the sun was "born", as the Mayans of Tikal believed happens every morning. I sat 70 meters above ground on a structure built more than 2,000 years ago and watched as the sky turned an array of oranges and pinks. Just as the whole sky began to fill with light a blanket of mist lifted from the canopy below me. The scene was narrated by the sounds of birds singing and howler monkeys screeching. If you are wondering what a howler monkey sounds like, the sound the T-Rex in Jurassic Park makes is actually a howler monkey's call. Basically, they sound the way most people feel on Monday mornings. 

After the truly glorious sunrise, we toured the rest of Tikal. I got pooped on by a bird while we were walking between ruins but I was having so much fun I wasn't even mad. Our tour guide knew that the guards switched shifts at 8am and that no one would be guarding a certain temple with an incredible panoramic view at the top. Apparently, someone slipped down the stairs and died a few years back so it's now off limits. We climbed it anyways and although I admit it was a bit sketchy at times, it was completely worth it. Sorry mom and dad, I promise I was careful. 

The tour ended at 10am and as we were walking through the jungle back to the entrance of the park, mobs of tourists were entering. Visiting Tikal for the sunrise is one of the most worthwhile things I've spent time and money on in a long time and I'd recommend it to anyone. 

After two nights of minimum sleep I am exhausted. Tomorrow morning I'm going to Belize for a couple of days. I can't wait to cross another country off my list of places to go! Sweet dreams. 

¡Hasta luego tortugas!

Feliz fin de semana! I wrote this post yesterday but didn't get the chance to post it until today. So, when it says today it was actually yesterday and tomorrow is actually today. Confusing enough? Also, I think I've fixed the photos on my last post so that you can actually see them. 

It is my fifth and final week here at ARCAS and like the turtles that hatch here, I am eager to move forward and explore other corners of the world. 

Last night was my final patrol and although I only saw one nesting turtle, it was a great way to end my stay at ARCAS. The sand reflected the starry sky with a galaxy of phosphorescent algae. Fireflies and bats navigated the warm air as I reminisced the last month. I can't believe I've spent 3 hours a night, 6 days a week for 5 weeks patrolling the beach. I remember my first night of patrol, how terrified I was of the silhouetted men coming and going on the dark beach. Once I became more confident the next week, I approached a parlamero who had just found a turtle in hopes of purchasing the eggs. I asked, "¿Tienes huevos?". He looked at me like I was insane for a moment and then proceeded to sell me the eggs. A few days later, I realized the reason for his puzzled look. "¿Tienes huevos?" translates literally to "Do you have eggs?", but in Guatemala "huevos" is commonly used to refer to male reproductive organs. I had approached a stranger on a dark beach in the middle of the night and asked the equivalent of "Do you have balls?". My most hilarious Spanish mess up to date. 

Today, the park hosted a Feria Ambiental (environmental fair) for the students of the neighboring villages. We planned environmentally themed games for the attendees and it was a huge hit but also a bit of a culture shock. I lead a fishing game in which the kids dangled a fishing line with a clothespin "hook" over a sheet. A volunteer then clipped either a drawing of either a fish, a turtle, or a piece of trash to the line. Each time someone caught a fish, they'd win a ticket for the prize raffle. The goal was to emphasize the amount of trash in the ocean and the importance of sustainable fishing for turtle conservation. While they claimed to understand the concept, I witnessed multiple kids waiting in line toss their snack wrappers onto the ground. When confronted they were quick to pick up the litter but there was a disappointing disconnect between what they were learning and how they reacted.

 

When it came time for us to do the raffle, the kids crowded around me and the 3 other volunteers who had the prizes. I felt like I was in a mosh pit as the hundred or so kids swarmed us like wasps to fruit. My hair was pulled, I was pinched, and a boy tried to climb me like a tree. Because the kids were so violent towards each other during the raffle, we had to cut it short. A mob of desperate kids swarmed us and tried to grab the remaining prizes from the box. All that was left were a few pencils and a washcloth, but their determination was fierce. It was hard to tell whether the kids were so ravenous for prizes out of actual desperation or if they just wanted to win something. We distracted the prize crazed kids with a piñata, which was promptly decapitated and gutted. 

Besides the slight chaos of the raffle and the piñata, the Feria Ambiental was a huge success and I loved seeing the local families enjoying themselves at the park. I took lots of photos on my camera, but I don't have a way to upload them yet. Hang tight and I'll post a photo blog in a few weeks! 

Tomorrow, I'm going kayaking in the mangroves and then I'll pack my backpack for another adventure. In the next 8 days I plan to visit the Mayan ruins of Yaxhá and Tikal, I'll cross the border into western Belize to go caving, then I'll make my way to eastern Guatemala to visit the limestone pools and rivers of Semuc Champay and a Quetzal reserve outside of Coban. I'll then head to Antigua where I'll spend 3 weeks volunteering on a coffee farm and taking intensive Spanish lessons. Life is sweet!

Thanks for reading, I hope you have a splendid weekend. 

I'll definetly miss the mapache pups at Parque Hawaii!

This week in Guatemala City: reckless drivers, a rock star, and chicharron con pelos

This week I visited Guatemala City and Antigua with Lucia, a research assistant at Parque Hawaii and Vanessa, a fellow volunteer. Our trip began on Monday with a frightening shuttle trip from the park to Antigua. The driver took speed limits, turn signals, no passing signs, and any other expectation of safe driving as a mere suggestion. Halfway through the drive we entered a torrential downpour which was not unnexpected, considering it is still the rainy season. Upon entering the storm, we realized the van was not equipped with windshield wipers nor whatever that air vent is called that helps de-foggify windows. The driver was not bothered, but we gringos were about to hacer una grande mierda en nuestros pantelones (Lucia says this sentence doesn't make any sense but what I'm trying to say is we were so scared we nearly shat our pants). Finally, we arrived in Antigua where Lucia's father met us in a car equipped with parabrisas (windshield wipers) and we safely drove the rest of the way to Guatemala City. At least I learned how to say parabrisas. 

Once at Lucia's house, we ate a delicious homemade dinner with her family. Her mother had lived in Anchorage, Alaska for a bit and we had a lovely conversation about the joys of eating fresh salmon and halibut. It was nice to have a family dinner again but it made me a bit homesick for my goofy family. 

Vanessa, me, Alvao and Lucia in Portalito

The next day, Lucia brought Vanessa and I to meet her friend Alvaro at a pub downtown called Portalito for michelatas, an oddly delicious Guatemalan drink made of beer, tomato juice, hot sauce, worcestershire sauce, pepper, and salt. Portalito's claim to fame is that Ernesto Che Guevara hung out there when he passed through Guatemala. While we were sipping our michelatas, people kept coming up to Alvaro to say hi. I didn't understand how he could run into so many friends in the middle of Guatemala City so I asked Lucia how he knew so many people. Casually, she told me he's in a famous Guatemalan rock band called Bohemia Suburbania. The people coming up to him were just his fans, no big deal.

That afternoon, Lucia and Alvaro showed Vanessa a me the highlights of the city. We toured the Palacio Nacional and the Teatro Nacional, both impressive feats of architecture that cost the government millions of dollars. The whole time I couldn't stop thinking of the money and labor that went into those impressive buildings. Guatemala is a country that does not have potable tap water, yet the government does not seem to have a problem prioritizing luxuries for the minority while ignoring necessities for the majority. 

Hanging out in Guatemala City's Central Plaza in front of the Palacio Nacional

A 5,000 pound crystal chandelier in the National Palace

Wednesday was Lucia's birthday and she wanted to bring me to the central market to show me the inspiration for the Guatemalan hit song "Chicharron con Pelos". Chicharron is fried pork rind and it is a typical street food down here. "Con pelos" means with hair, because often times the chicharon still has the pig's hair on it. The market was very colorful and yes, I even ate some chicharron con pelos but suffered the consequences with a mild stomach ache later that night. 

I suggest you watch the music video for "Chicharron con Pelos" but I'm warning you that the chorus will be stuck in your head for the next week. 

Today Vanessa, Lucia, and I got a ride to Antigua where we ate pita bread with felafel and drank chocolate milk. Tomorrow morning the three of us will take a shuttle back to Parque Hawaii and return to our humble duty of saving the world, one turtle at a time. 

Edgar the Parlamero

At Parque Hawaii, the most important work is done at night. As soon as the sun begins to set, the baby turtles in the hatchery begin to crawl out of their nests after 45-50 days of development. Volunteers count the turtles from each nest and take a random sample of 10 hatchlings to measure the shell length, shell width, length from tail to beak, and weight. The babies are on average 7cm long, 4cm wide, and they weigh around 15oz. They flap their flippers confusedly while I hold them between my fingers measuring them. They are adorable, as baby animals characteristically are. After the data is entered, the tortugitas are taken to the beach to be released. This is when I start to feel like a stressed out babysitter  because all the turtles' lives, sometimes as many as 150, are in my hands. The turtles  become disoriented by light and they blend into the the black sand so my job is to blindly herd them to the waves. It usually takes about 20 minutes until the last turtle finds his or her way to the water. 

Baby "liberados" happen all night between patrol shifts. While on patrol, I try to find my "own" turtle to collect eggs to re-plant in the hatchery. Competition to find turtles is tough since seasoned parlameros far outnumber the volunteers and Parque Hawaii staff on the beach. Oftentimes when a turtle is spotted, the individual who finds it will sprint to claim it even if that  means going waist deep into to ocean. For a few weeks before my arrival, none of the volunteers found turtles of their own so the Parque Hawaii staff decided to have volunteers start patrolling with experienced parlameros as a way to educate the volunteers and simultaneously involve and support community members who value sea turtle conservation. 

This new patrol tactic matches me with Edgar, a 55 year old local man who has been a parlamero since he was 10 years old. At first, I am a bit nervous about being paired with a stranger to roam the beach with for 3 hours in the middle of the night but within minutes of patrolling I realize I have nothing to worry about. Edgar is eager to share his knowledge with anyone interested so he is easy to chat with. Edgar can predict the arrival of a nesting turtle by using nearly all his senses. With his well trained eyes, Edgar can spot a turtle in the surf as far as 50 meters away. Although one may presume that visual cues are the most reliable, the most knowledgable parlameros rely equally on their other senses to encounter turtles. Edgar advises me that when walking on the beach, the smell of fish or a pocket of warm air coming from the water are sure signs that a parlama or 2 are about to nest. Turtles often ride the currents to shore, which explains the change in air temperature and smell. Another factor that parlameros believe to attract turtles is stormy weather and wind. Thunder and lightening attracts parlamas and thus parlameros to the beach, making the most meteorologically dramatic nights the most competitive to find turtles. 

This particular night of patrol is overcast with thunder and lightening in the distance. We use no lights while patrolling because it easier to see turtles once your eyes adjust in the dark. I enjoy patrolling in the dark because it emphasizes the lightening bolts that illuminate the beach and the phosphorescent algae that sparkle beneath my toes. I tell Edgar how badly I want to find a turtle and he assures me, "No te precupa, encontraramos una parlama. Cada noche encuentro parlamas." Sure enough, after an hour of patrol we walk right into a turtle track. I run up the beach to claim it, and watch as the meter long, half meter wide Olive Ridley rhythmically digs a nest using only her hind flippers. Left, right, left, right, left, she scoops sand until the nest is approximately 30cm deep with a bowl shape at the bottom. If she knows, she doesn't seem phased that I sit watching. As soon as she begins laying eggs she definitely doesn't notice me dig a tunnel through the sand into the bowl of her nest to collect the eggs. Sea turtle species enter a trance while laying their eggs which makes them particularly vulnerable to poachers, though on the bright side it makes my job of  gathering eggs easy. The eggs come out of her tail 2 at a time. Olive Ridley eggs are the size of golf balls and have soft, leathery shells that will dent in but not break when you hold them between your fingers. After the parlama has finished with the clutch, she excretes from her tail onto the eggs a slimy substance that has anti-fungal and anti- bacterial properties.  I count 99 eggs from her nest to re-plant in the hatchery in the park. The parlama does not rest until after her work is done but her heavy breathing proves that she is tired. Flabbergasted, having just observed the reproductive strategy of a R-selected reptile, I watch her return to the waves . How neat is that?!

Me holding the 99 eggs I collected from the parlama!

The Olive Ridley female returning to the water after nesting.

I am learning more than I expected about wildlife conservation and how communities are effected by it. When I arrived at Parque Hawaii, I imagined there to be an "us vs. them" mentality towards the parlameros. Rather, the conservation workers and volunteers work hard to educate and include the surrounding communities of Hawaii, Cebollito, Mañanitas, Rosario, and Dormido in the sea turtle conservation effort. The park buys eggs at market price from parlameros and offers a program called "Víveres" to further incentivize selling eggs to the hatchery. Víveres allows the parlameros to be paid in staple foods for their eggs. The great thing is that when the parlameros choose Víveres, they get twice as much food than they would be able to buy in a store for their money's worth. The locals appreciate Parque Hawaii's intention to preserve the coastal region of Guatemala's culture of collecting Olive Ridley eggs and in return, many parlameros do what they can to support the park by selling and donating eggs. Now I realize parlameros are not bad guys, they're just people trying to support their families in the only way they know. When I see a parlamero with a turtle on the beach I always go up to chat a little bit and ask if they'll sell their eggs to the park. They're always friendly, cooperative, an patient with my Spanish.

I am very excited for the coming days because I'll be going kayaking in the mangroves with Jean, the volunteer coordinator, who knows a lot about the local ecology and I also will visit Guatemala City to celebrate my friend Lucia's birthday with her family! 

Thanks for reading and have a terrific weekend!