Flat out

I'm regretting the dearth of photos for this story.

Norlan drove me around the first 2 weeks of field work. He is a mechanic for an agricultural cooperative that also contracts out driving services. Norlan proved early on his knowledge of great food around the countryside. He joked that his belly was further proof. Everywhere we went he knew bakeries or road side restaurants. An old friend used to say Central America has the best baked goods. I'm inclined to agree.

About two weeks ago on the visits to El Jaguar and Finca Esperanza Verde Norlan and I drove into San Ramon to meet the administrator of Finca. San Ramon is about 18 Km from the reserve on actually fairly good roads. That means most of the dirt road was flat and with only small pot holes. Norland is adept at driving on these roads. It is an art, no doubt.

After the meeting we set off for the Finca. Just as the concrete road ended and dirt began a loud bang signaled the end to the useful life of a tire. Around the 50 pounds of red beans, the spare tire and the two toolboxes in the back of the truck we found no jack. Without a jack we were stuck in the middle of the road.

Norlan found a mechanic in San Ramon with a jack. I knew this when the mechanic rode up on his bike with the jack strapped to the rear rack. The strapping was a used bicycle inner tube.















Not wanting to drive without a spare we went to Matagalpa for a new tire. New tires aren't exactly "new" down here. Vulcanazadores set up shop with used and some new tires and rims. Shops advertise with a tire set upright braced inside another tire with "vulcanazadore" painted on the sidewalls. I have always wanted to check out these places.

Selecting a new tire was quite a process. The tire of choice, the lesser of many evils (a nail was pulled from it before being put on the rim), needed an inner tube for us to use it. Norlan oversaw things with a professional eye.

Back on the road we made San Ramon and a few kilometers more before the new tire blew out, the second flat of the day. We drove back to San Ramon with the tread flapping against the wheel well. At a stately pace of 10 km an hour everyone was able to observe our passage back to the man with the jack.















Turns out the new tire was inflated so high the tread couldn't take the strain and just exploded. Norlan went back to Matagalpa on the spare and I caught a ride back to the Finca. We both missed lunch during our 4 hours of tiring work.

Finca Esperanza Verde

FEV is south of El Jaguar and east of Matagalpa. Near the town of San Ramon, FEV, like El Jaguar grows coffee. It is indeed a finca, or farm, with farming a big part of what happens there. All veggies eaten on site are grown on site. Fruit trees provide too.















FEV is run by an NGO out of North Carolina. It was started with community development principles firmly in mind. These principles are enacted through donations to the community of San Ramon, building schools and other activities. All employees at the Finca are from San Ramon, except for Giff, the administrator.

I stayed for three days, wandering the forest and trails, visiting the mariposaria (butterfly house), and talking with Giff. A sloth hung from a tree near the parking area. Bananas hang between two trees attracting birds. Convenient rocking chairs on the hill above the bananas made for easy bird watching.

The cabins are comfortable and small seemingly designed to encourage you to be outside as much as possible. The local brick makes the cabins very cozy as the temperatures cool at night.





























Benjamin guided me around the Finca, through Sendero Amarillo winding through the topography to the reserve borders and back deep in the forest to a Cascada Manakin. Benjamin is an eager, enthusiastic guide, learning the ecology, birds and plants of the Finca. We spent some time learning how to use the bird guide books, matching plates to distribution maps to identify birds and where they live in Mexico and Central America. No one had taught him how to do that. He was an avid student and his future clients will definitely benefit.

Benjamin is in an interesting situation at the Finca. With a university degree he is considered an outsider in San Ramon, even though it is his home. His lack of knowledge about using the guide books may be a result of the other guides deliberately not teaching him. They may see him as a threat. He will be a very good guide if he can make a go of it at the Finca.















Norlan (l) and Benjamin (r) rest on the Sendero Amarillo.

Nebliselva El Jaguar

Catching up on posts with these next few. Domitila was the first reserve I visited and the only one so far to get a report on the blog.

The next set of field visits were to Nebliselva El Jaguar and Finca Esperanza Verde. Jaguar and FEV could not be any more different climatically. Jaguar is near Jinotega, in the north and in the mountains, so high in those mountains in fact that it is cloud forest. Every night heavy rains drummed the tin roof of my cabin. Every evening and morning clouds obscured everything, heavy wet clouds bookending the rain.














Birds are everywhere. I saw my first wild toucans here, three of them sitting in a tree just outside the cabin. Chachalacas, large noisy birds, could be heard calling from within the forest. flew from tree to tree. My driver Norlan had a near obsessive need to see Chachalacas, something he got from his father. I suspect this comes from hearing they are good to eat. Norlan was very disappointed not to see the flock of 8 flying from tree to tree near the cabin. (Note: the photo is not mine.)















El Jaguar grows organic shade-grown coffee in the reserve. They have an exclusive contract with Whole Foods through Allegro Coffee for all their coffee This is interesting in conservation
circles. The shade can come from native trees and plants which serves to preserve native flora and fauna, increase carbon absorption, and allow multiple crops to grow on one area of land. I really don't know much about it. What I just said there could be total bunk.

A big chunk of the reserve is unmanaged cloud forest. Thick forest. The kind of forest you imagine when imagining JUNGLE. Things growing everywhere, on everything, taking advantage of any sunlight from a fallen tree to canopy and all points in between.














The cabins fit the surroundings very well. This one is barely visible at the top of the mountain, seen over coffee and bananas.

All five reserves visited!!

Believing I've been away for nearly five weeks is easier knowing I visited the last reserve yesterday!! I am fatigued and ready to be home. The blog entries reflect the amount of time in the field and my fatigue. All visits have been excellent. I could easily have been on vacation for the quality of location and room and board. Were it not that I was working the whole time.

If anyone knows of some good digital transcription software I would be most appreciative to know of it.

Murciélagos en Masaya

Volcan Masaya is a national park about 30 minutes south of Managua. We drove in after hours to catch bats. Merlin Tuttle is teaching a group of students and biologists about bats.

The cave and trap site were on the other side of the crater, an active crater that off gases all the time. The lava is visible at night though we didn't stop on the way out of the park.

The group of students had set up a bat trap at the mouth of a cave. The cave looked like it was a collapsed lava tube, collapsed a long time ago if the trees growing out of it are any indication.

The trap is two parallel series of monofilament line strung vertically above a plastic bag. Bats flying out of the cave hit the line and slide into the bag. The trap is so effective that the bag has to be emptied frequently to prevent the bats from suffocating, a very unlikely event so long as someone is there to watch things.

Rafting Rio Cangrejal, Honduras

So we had some fun in Honduras. We went rafting to gather photos and information for a sample brochure and video to show the sustainable tourism training participants. Rough, right?

Rio Cangrejal falls out of the coastal mountain range near La Ceiba. Funny thing is I think I rafted this river in 1993 when hitchhiking back to the States from Costa Rica. I know I have a business card from La Moskitia Ecoaventuras in my desk at home from that time. The logo hasn't changed in that time.

The river was higher then but the rocks (big rocks, lots of rocks) were pretty much still the same.

A little show of our trip is here.

20 angry men

A story from Honduras that slipped my mind.

The north coast of Honduras seems to be pretty active for tourism development leading to land speculation on many fronts. Driving from San Pedro Sula to La Ceiba we stopped at a small village, Barra Vieja, on the beach. A huge amount of fill had been brought in or moved around to form a raised area that earth moving equipment had flattened out. We learned later this would be some big hotel.

A few minutes away a row of thatched houses stretched down the beach. A few people sat under the sun shelter in the distance. We walked around a few of the huts, talked with folks hanging out.

































Back in the van we drove further into the village. Very suddenly a large group of men appeared from a village that previously was sleepy and empty. They made motions like they wanted us to stop which we didn't until one guy with a bicycle stood directly in front of us in the road. About twenty men surrounded the van when it stopped.

Things were pretty stressful for a while as we talked with them. One guy with watery eyes scanned the inside of the van while talking, trying to get a sense of who were were and what we had inside. They let us go after a few minutes and we turned around immediately. We left unscathed though scared.

The north coast is usually Garifuna people. This group was definitely not Garifuna. We think these guys were setting up houses to be able to claim ownership of the beach if it comes up for sale. Drug running is another very high possibility.

Sound link finally working

See previous post about Honduras night sounds.

Sustainable Tourism training in Honduras

This is the second sustainable tourism training I've helped with. The first was Guatemala in December. Course content flexes based on the communities, participants, location. This flexibility is important as little consistency exists from one training to another. Like I know after two trainings, right? These are only a few in a series though, beginning before I joined up.

The trainings teach business skills like market analysis and segmentation, budgets, product development, partnering. Also image creation and branding, design basics for materials like brochures, maps, posters, signs. This time podcasting and YouTube were introduced.

Podcasting could be a really easy way to get information to travelers or potential travelers. It is astounding the number of earbuds stuck in people's ears on planes and where tourists are found. Presumably people with enough money to travel also have iPods. They probably also use the Internet for much of their travel research. A complete set of podcasts with details of a destination would help travels decide where to go and might actually help them get around on the ground. They can download the podcasts and listen to them in country.

Would this lead to museum-like recorded descriptions guiding people around a city? How many podcasted zombies would there be walking around Tikal, Mombacho Volcano or Grenada, Nicaragua?

Honduras Night Sounds

Finally figured out how to get the audio online. Internet is spotty here at the Dodson compound. So, the audio follows after the jump.

The clip is around 6 minutes. I'm talking at the beginning and end a little bit. Working on my radio voice. If you listen closely the ocean comes through in the background.

Link to honduras sounds

Sounds of Honduras

We flew from Managua to Honduras early Sunday morning. That was my third day in a row waking around 3:30 or 4 AM. The first two nights the howler monkeys at Domitila were the cause. The third time was the taxi to the airport.

From San Pedro Sula we drove to La Ceiba, a place of good memories for my mother who did her Peace Corps time in Honduras. Unfortunately La Ceiba didn't impress me. A lot can change in 30 years. Maybe a bit more time would improve my perspective.

The drive to Balfate, further down the coast from La Ceiba, was quite nice with the ocean to the left and ~8000 foot mountains to the right. The coastal range is really quite beautiful with steep rocky rivers. Balfate is in the middle of no where. The road here is unpaved, dirt with memories of gravel and holes showing the way forward. The compound at the end of our ride is owned by a retired plastic surgeon from Mississippi. He is the host of the sustainable tourism training that brought us to Honduras.

The first night, after a long day of work preparing for the training I walked around the grounds with my field recorder. I'll upload the audio when I figure out how.