Since I was unable to post about my trip while it was happening I will do a small and late recap of the trip. The following images have a short description of each included so just click on one and it should explain its self.
Jesse and I spent Monday traveling around with my Dad’s students visiting agricultural sites, listening to lectures and watching PowerPoints, and eating a lot of samosas for some reason. That night we went to the Carnivore – a famous restaurant in Nairobi that serves grilled meats in Brazilian style. They used to serve game meats like zebra, hartebeast, gazelle, etc but news laws only permit the selling and eating of farm-raised animals like crocodile and ostrich.
Tuesday Jesse and I spent the day visiting old friends, our old school ISK and we met with a professor at the University of Nairobi to talk about my future research. That night we went to the Village Market, a popular mall owned by the parents of one of my friends, to have dinner with my friend and one of Jesse’s friends. We were also joined by some other guests who were in Kenya for the Maxi Dash competition that is rock climbing / car race across Kenya (the people in the linked video were the other guests that night).
Wednesday we started our drive across Kenya with my dad and his grad students. Our first stop was Nakuru to visit my dad’s old colleagues, a research sites and to do a little safari in the Nakuru National Park. Nakuru is in the Great Rift Valley which is a very unique geologic region created from the separation of two tectonic plates. Check out the photos above for some great animal shots while in the park.
Thursday was spent driving to Kisumu to visit another research site. Kisumu is a large city located on the shore of Lake Victoria, the largest lake in Africa. The road to Kisumu was under construction so we were forced to take a crappy rocky bumpy side road that added hours to our journey. That evening we visited the research facility, took some photos of Lake Victory and slept.
Friday morning we visited some test plots and a local lady’s farm. We then drove back to Nairobi so my dad and his students could catch their flight back to the US. Jesse and I spent the night with out friends Prince and Linda.
Saturday was Jesse’s last day and so we had to get all the souvenir shopping and visits to friends before he left. We visited with our old guard that used to work for us when we lived in Kenya. It was great to see him and hear how his family was doing. He also took me to some jua kali work sites and into the bowels of the municipal market to buy Kate some African fabric. That evening we went to dinner at a friend’s house and then Jesse was dropped at the airport.
Sunday I went to church and visited with a few peeps and then spent the rest of the day hanging out with Prince and Linda. Linda is a designer and made Kate a dress out of African fabric (as seen below). And then I visited another family before catching my plane home.
The trip was amazing. It was so great to go back and see how much things have changed. I really hope that I am able to go to Kenya for my PhD research and take Kate to see all the amazing places in Kenya and meet my wonderful friends.
We took a family vacation with our little cousins to Jackson Wyoming and Yellowstone. On “the way home” Neil took another detour back through Yellowstone with the top down in my dad’s Z3. Not to be an elitist, but seriously, this is the only way to go. When we came across a buffalo on the road, in lieu of stopping and waiting for it to pass, Neil decided to drive up to it. Thinking these moments might be our last, I decided to at least get them on tape. (see video clip above)
Also upon Neil’s life-threatening whim, and intense desire to see a bear, we went crashing down into a ravine in search in of a black bear. And, we found it. (more photos to come)
At my dear mother’s insistence we went for a round of old timey photos in Jackson Hole.
I just finished reading a most interesting book, “The World Without Us,” by Alan Weisman and now I wonder if taking the moral high ground will mean not having offspring. Since the onset of modern medicine, industrial revolution, and the Protestant work ethic the natural world has increasingly deteriorated because of human demands for foods, mineral and metals, natural resources, and a place to put all our trash. While I strongly believe humanity does not intend to destroy nature, we still do so because most of the damage we do is not in our town or backyard and is taking place in another state, another ocean, or another forest. Humans, like all other species, put survival ahead of everything and everyone else, making it very difficult to choose between a healthy environment and sufficient food, water, and shelter for survival (personally, I think we can have both). Additionally, since our life span is short in time we only see our habitat as past generations have left it and do not know what is would look like without us. “The World Without Us,” is a great thought experiment that explores this very question, and while a little boring at times, it will leave you wondering what will become of the world and us and if there is a way humanity and a healthy environment can coexist.
Lets start with an evolutionarily postulate quoted from Wikipedia.org. “Natural selection is a process that causes heritable traits that are helpful for survival and reproduction to become more common and harmful traits to become rarer.” And a definition of ethics which according to Answers.com from the Philosophy Dictionary by Oxford Press is “The study of the concepts involved in practical reasoning: good, right, duty, obligation, virtue, freedom, rationality, choice….” So what does evolution and ethics have to do with our garden? Well, let me tell you.
With that in mind let me tell you about our little conundrum. As you already know we have a humming bird nesting in the NWAF compound. She must have been building her nest long before we arrived in May because shortly there after I noticed her nest and then a few days later a little hummingbird sitting in the nest. Sense that time we have witnessed the laying of two tiny hummingbird eggs, their subsequent hatching into tiny hummingbird chicks, and the constant back and forth feeding frenzy from the crack of dawn till the sun and cloud hallows set on nearby jungle mountains.
I am going to go out on a limb and say our hummingbird (Kate, please don’t make me sleep on the couch) is not the brightest bird in town. She built her nest in the middle of a heavily trafficked archeology compound in a tree that can barely hold its own weight and is poorly protected from the rain. So a few weeks after we first noticed the nest San Cristobal was struck by a large storm. It rained all day long every day for about a week and by the time the rains subsided the poor nest looked as though it was going to melt right off the tree. Fortunately for this small bird the next month was dry and she had time to patch up her nest, dry out, and lay her eggs.
About two weeks ago the little eggs hatched into two strange looking mohawked hummingbird babies.And as is expected about two days later the heavens opened and San Cristobal received another torrential pounding. About two days into the heavy rains the nest, now holding two newborn babies, was soaked through and slipping off the tree. Being the good people we are Kate and I lashed an umbrella to a tall poll and put it over the nest. While our little hummingbird seemed very disturbed by the new black shape looming over head, her nest was no longer getting wet and I would like to think she is grateful. We left the umbrella up just in case another big storm comes through, just until the kiddies are big enough to fly on their own and make the migration to where ever they need to go. The hummingbird habitat has been in place for about a week now and she doesn’t seem bothered by it at all. She is so busy feeding her little chicks that she has little time to notice anything. On a side note those chicks are getting so fat they fill the entire nest with their wrinkly little bodies.
I feel good about building the little hummingbird shelter and in the process am sure Kate and I have saved the lives of the two chicks. But did we do the right thing? If our little hummingbird had chosen a better suited position her little nest would be protected from the rain and if her nest wasn’t so low to the ground she would run the risk of interference from careless humans or hungry cats. Lucky for her she chose a scientific compound where people appreciate her enough not to interfere…at least until Kate and I came along. By setting up the umbrella we have given her offspring an unfair advantage. Do we want a dumb bird to pass on her low intelligence to the next generation of hummingbirds? Have we done more harm than good? What would have been the right thing to do?
I actually believe we did the right thing. But in most cases I would say it is important to leave nature be and let evolution weed out what needs weeding. Yet on the other hand humans do such a good job destroying environments and interfering with animal habitats that I fail to see why it isn’t okay to help animals. The best possible solution would be one that allowed animals to live in their natural habitats unmolested by evil does or those trying to do well. And to do this we all need to be a little more conscious of the world around us and how our actions are affecting all other living things. Do it for the birds.
Neil and I have been meaning to hit this touristy spot since we came to San Cristobal in May, and we finally made the voyage. They canyon was only made accessible in the 1970s when a dam flooded the Grajalva river and made it passable by boat. At the highest point the canyon walls are 1 km high. Local legend has it that a group of Mayans came here to commit suicide rather than submit to Spanish rule.
The ride was pretty exhilarating. Mexico has a refreshing & terrifying lack of safety standards. The boat was loaded with 30 people, and the guide took liberties with speed you may expect from an Indy 500 racer.
The animal life are not hindered by the frequent speedy tourist boats passing by. We saw many crocs, pelicans & other birds, monkeys etc.
Later that night we were commandeered by Dr. Clark (Neil’s archaeologist boss) and an old friend of his Tom Lee, an X pat who has lived here in Mexico for 40 years. They got out a 50′s film projector and we all watched a few film reels together. One of them, as it turns out, was of an expedition group from the US who voyaged the Canyon before the dam was put in. Tom Lee was one of the men on the trip. The rapids used to be so dangerous that they had to drag the several-ton boats through the jungle to avoid many of them. The footage was pretty impressive.
The trip was my perfect nature trip. No personal exertion, animals pointed out to you by a guide danger-free, and plenty of photo opps.
Penguins have been the subject of many books and films as of late such as Happy Feet and Surf’s Up, March of the Penguins, and a parody film entitled Farce of the Penguins. What is the allure of these wobbly, feathered creatures?
This is a traditional woolen doll with an Antarctic twist we found here in Mexico
Is it the tuxedo-like coloring? Is it that they mate for life? Is it the solidarity of the males during the long winter? What makes them fit to be the subjects of so much media?
Popular in Mexico, penguin gummy candies. Seriously.
Certainly, they can do amazing things. They are able to drink salt water safely because their supraorbital gland filters excess salt from the bloodstream. The salt is excreted in a concentrated fluid from the nasal passages. Aka salt snot. Penguins communicate by vocalizing and performing physical behaviors called “displays.” They can recognize their mates & chicks this way. And, of course my favorite habit… the male incubates the egg alone while the female heads to sea to chow-down. The male, for this several-week period, fasts and can lose up to 45% of his body weight.
These are fascinating facts are indeed impressive. But, there are plenty of awe-inspiring creatures out there. Like the naked mole rat, for example. Those things can chew through cement! 25% of the muscle of these little underground rodents is devoted to closing the jaw- compared to 1% of human muscle mass dedicated to the jaw. I became obsessed with the naked mole rat at the Portland zoo in 1999. Did you know that worker mole rats eat their own droppings? This gives them a second chance to digest the fibrous roots that they feed on. Efficient to boot. After watching all available editions of the “Blue Planet” series, I am even extremely impressed with the biodiversity of our world. But, if a penguin and a mole rat were both Homecoming princesses, I’d vote for the mole rat!
That’s right I decided to divert large quantities of my income to creating Biosphere 3: Caterpillar Habitat. Ravaged by bird, sun, and rain the diverse population of NWAF compound caterpillars are under attach. In attempt to monitor and assist the perpetual growth of NWAF compound caterpillars I have decided to collect the most robust specimens and hand rear them in Biosphere 3 to beautiful, healthy, reproducing butterflies then reintroduce them to the NWAF compound. In addition I will help the butterfly cause by giving them a world wide voice via the internet through video footage, photos, and written exposes on their progress and health (so be sure to check back often). Construction of Biosphere 3 is under way and conservative estimates put its complete at tomorrow afternoon with the ribbon cutting, habitation, and sealing at 4 PM CST. Check back tomorrow evening to see how the procession went and for additional information on biospheres, caterpillars, and butterflies.
Friday afternoon, just after work, I decided to take the office’s macro lens for a stroll around the compound. Actually I want to make a documentary about the bugs I find in the compound so went about collecting images. Shooting with a macro lens is hard stuff because if you move just a shake everything is out of focus, that and the ominous lens scares the bugs away. Here are some samples of the bugs in the compound to wet your appetite for the documentary will be coming out soon.
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