We are getting settled here in the jungle.  Our tents are all set up and excavations began on Monday.  This morning Cenzo and David packed their hammocks and some buffalo jerky in their backpacks and left for their first overnight away from camp with Don Anatolio and their new spanish teacher, Gustavo.  For those of you who might not be familiar with Don Nato's name, he was with Bill when Bill discovered the murals here at San Bartolo.  He went out into the jungle and found a fruit called "pinuela" when Bill was passing out from dehydration, probably saving his life.  Prior to working with Bill, Don Nato worked with Ian Graham for decades finding and documenting Maya monuments and inscriptions here in the Peten for the Maya Corpus of Hieroglyphic Inscriptions at Harvard University.  Beginning in 2010 he has been taking Cenzo and David out for long walks to teach them how to be in the jungle - which plants are edible, and which animal tracks are which, how to find your way home.  Today they are hiking out to the river 7 1/2 miles away to put up two of Davids wildlife cameras.  You wouldn't know it by looking at him or watching him work but Don Anatolio is (at least) 76 years old.  He has been working in this jungle since he was fourteen. I love that he is teaching David and Cenzo who are twelve and thirteen.

FINALLY - THE JUNGLE!!!

Happy Sunday everyone!  We are finally here.  We got in Friday night just before dark.  We packed up our trucks in Flores on Friday morning, headed through Tikal, stopped in Uaxactun for one last cold drink and set out to tackle the 55 kilometers of "camino en mal estado" that lies between Uaxactun and our camp at San Bartolo.  The first time people tried to go in to set up camp one truck burned out its clutch stuck in the mud, and the other truck burned out the motor on its winch trying to get it out.  The second team to go in , all got in, but it took four days.  We were told that we might be hiking in with a mule train, but thankfully, by Friday, it hadn't rained for a week.  It was a bumpy, slippery, muddy ride - but we made it.  Our hammocks are up.  The stars are magnificent.  The birds are singing, whistling, screeching and squawking.  It smells like trees, leaves, flowers and earth.  It feels like home.  here are some pictures of the ride in.

The journey to the jungle begins...

It is Sunday morning.  Today we go to Copan. We have been packing at the lab like crazy - equipment personal items, food... The big truck comes today and will leave for camp tomorrow.  After visits to  Copan and Quirigua we will meet the rest of the team in Flores on Wednesday, see Tikal on Thursday and head in on Friday.  As of now it is unclear whether we are going to try to drive in or if we are hiking in with a mule train.  It has continued to ran, and last week trucks weren't making it in.  I can't post photos of everything stacked up in the parqueo this morning, because the internet is too slow to upload them and and things are too hectic to wait - gotta pack up the computers.  I will try later this week.

More Monterrico

Releasing the baby sea turtles is definitely a highlight of visiting Monterrico, but even getting there is fun.  About six or sven years ago they built a bridge, so one can actually get all the way there by car.  We prefer to go the old way, which is car barge.  You just drive your car, pick up, bus or whatever onto a rickety flat bottom boat, and a small outboard motor gently pushes you through more than 5 kilometers of mangroves.

Monterrico

We have been out of email contact, by choice, for several days.  We took the Boston University Semester Abroad program to Monterrico on the Pacific coast of Guatemala.  Although Monterrico has beautiful mangrove forests full of great white herons and amazing volcanic black sand beaches, the first pictures I want to post are of the "Liberación de Tortugas." The beaches of Monterrico are nesting grounds for endangered sea turtles.  The Guatemalan government has begun to try to help them survive by using donations to buy turtle eggs from locals who otherwise include them in part of their diet.  They incubate and hatch the eggs in a sequestered part of the beach and then allow people to sponsor them.  The sponsors get to release a turtle to the sea, protected from dogs, birds and ATVs.