Look - A Baby Fox!

On Saturday the family got to go visit the site of Xultun.  It is 12 kilometers from San Bartolo by bad road.  Most of the team is working there, but the trucks are crowded, so we don't get to visit much. We love to catch up on current excavations, but we aren't allowed to take pictures...  so Look! A baby fox!  This is one of two babies living in this hollow log with their mama.  The hollow log is right behind one of the buildings being excavated. I hope you can blow the image up to full screen on your computers, because this little pup is beyond adorable.

Visitor!

Last week my dear friend, Kristin Rasmussen, came to visit.  Kristin and I went to high school and college together.  Over the years we have visited or traveled with Kristin in Boston, New York, Santa Fe, San Francisco, Monterey... and outside the US in London, England; Antigua, Guatemala; and Cancun, Mexico.  Now she has come all the way to San Bartolo.  Kristin arrived on a Tuesday and showered us with gifts of Nutella and other chocolates, as well as plenty of Sour Patch Kids, or "SPK's" as the boyos call them.  Kristin got to see the murals here at San Bartolo, as well as walk around at Xultun.  We took several other walks in the jungle and saw plenty of monkeys and birds.  I don't want to put words in her mouth, but I think she thought it was pretty fabulous here.  Kristin had to hitch a ride out with the supply truck, which leaves at 2 am on Saturday morning. Of course, around 9 pm Friday night we realized we hadn't taken any pictures together during her visit - we were too busy walking and talking and just hanging out.  We all piled into Bill's hammock, and giggling, took the last minute photo below.  Thanks for coming, Kristin!!!

David, Kristin, Giancarlo, Cenzo, & Jaime

March16th 2012

Success!!!

Yesterday was a great day!!!  Back on February 22nd, David put up two of his wildlife motion capture cameras at the river when he hiked out with Don Nato.  Using a tree that had fallen very conveniently, they had crossed the river to explore its opposite shore. In one spot David saw both tapir and jaguar tracks.  He decided to put his cameras up around there.  Yesterday he went back for the second time to see if there were any images to download.  There were.  The first time he had checked there were some pictures of pacas (also called agouti) and some yellow-knobbed curacao. ( Due to internet congestion, I haven't as yet been able to upload those photos.) Yesterday's images also included birds and pacas... but the last three images were the ones below.  As David said: " It takes intelligence to find these elegant and majestic beasts, but its mostly just luck."  

Jungle Sidewalk

As I have mentioned, it has been really wet here.  There is a path between two champas that are right in front of our family's tents.  This is the path where most people walk to get to their tents.  Over the several days of rain the mud there became inches deep and very slippery.  Cenzo and I decided to make a rock path over the worst part.  With the help of Gustavo (Cenzo's Spanish tutor), Omar (one of the semester abroad students) and, of course, a rock or two carried by Giancarlo, we made a sidewalk.  We collected chert, which is a rock that is everywhere here.  It is the material the Maya used for making some of their tools, as it flakes to make sharp edges.  Cenzo placed the chert and mortared it in with the mud - and the bajo mud will set like concrete.  And then we covered it with caliza, which is the dirt excavated from the limestone shelf that is everywhere under our part of the jungle (it is quarried  for use in restoration and reinforcements in parts of the archaeological excavations).  This also helped to set the stones.  It looks great and has worked wonderfully.

Mud Soccer

When it is really, really wet and muddy and you are running out of work you can do in the lab, and you are sick of sitting in your tent or under the champas...you play mud soccer.  It is fiercely competitive and ridiculously fun.  The ball gets so muddy and sticky it won't go anywhere.  You can chip it, but it is so heavy with mud that it doesn't go very far and as soon as it hits the ground it is stuck where it lands.  And though the mud is sticky on the ball, the ground is very slippery.  We all spent a plenty of time on our rear ends.  I was showering Giancarlo when the game ended (he got itchy and uncomfortable as the mud dried on his back), so I didn't get the final result.  I am pretty sure the mud won.

Still Raining

After I wrote, we had a few days of sunshine, but it has been raining here since Sunday.  Everything is wet, wet wet.  Our clothes are wet and muddy, our shoes are wet and muddy.  Even things that haven't actually gotten wet feel kind of wet.  Usually we spend only sleeping hours in our tents, but there is just no where to go when it is raining. One is under a champa or in a tent.  Life is just much harder here when it is raining.  That is why archaeologists work in the dry season.  Well, this year, it seems like they are working in the wet season.

Today Bill and David leave camp to try to get to the airport in Guatemala City tomorrow.  Bill is taking David to a soccer tournament with his Bolts team in Richmond, VA.  Originally they were going to leave tonight at 10 pm.  Now because they have no idea how bad the road out of here might be they are leaving at 8 am right after breakfast.  When the road is dry and in good shape it takes about 2 1/2 hours to get out of the jungle to a paved road. I hope to hear from them when they get out, and I hope it isn't too awful.

Long Time, No Post

The internet has been so congested with all the people in camp.  We have had a great week in camp.  Cenzo and David came back from their hiking trip with Don Nato safe and sound.  They made it to the river and on the riverbank David was able to identify both tapir tracks and jaguar tracks.  Cenzo swears he woke up in his hammock that night and heard and then saw a tapir nosing around.  David stopped Cenzo from stepping on a coral snake. He took a picture with his iPod, but it was blurry, so I won't post it here.  They were both covered, and I mean covered, in tick and mosquito bites.

Since their return it has rained. It rained all night Saturday night, and it has rained either in the afternoon or at night almost every day since then.  So far it is the buggiest season I have experienced, because of the still present standing water.  But, it is a rain forest, so even though we are supposed to be in the dry season, it gets to rain whenever it wants.