Caiman crocodilus

This caiman lives in one of the network of ancient, man-made reservoirs that once supplied drinking water to the Mayan city of Tikal–number three, I think, on this map. He’s little, only three or four feet long, and he spends his days pretending to be a log (pictured), in hopes of preying on the egrets, rails, ducks and other marsh birds that venture too close–and when he can get them, probably on those chihuahua-sized, tailless rodents I kept seeing scurrying about in the underbrush.

For this, my last piece of Guatemala ranting at least for now, it seems appropriate to bring back my favorite Mayanist quote about the end of the world:

“The word for eclipse in Maya is chi-bal-kin, literally ‘bitten sun’, and it was the ancient belief, which persisted until fairly recent times, that at the time of an eclipse the sun was bitten by a serpent.”

–The City of the Sacred Well: Being a Narrative of the Discoveries and Excavations of Edward Herbert Thompson in the Ancient City of Chichenitza T.A. Willard, 1910

An awesome book, by the way, which can be had for free on los eeenternets, here.

Next week, it’s back to chilly, wind-blown New England.

Ocellated Turkey, Meleagris ocellata

Great egret, Ardea alba, in the breakwater swamps inland of Monterrico.

A black vulture, Coragyps atratus, on the ruins of Temple 1.

I think this is a tyrant flycatcher, Tyrannus verticalis. They nest in the western US in the summer.

And a gray-necked wood-rail or chiricote, Aramides cajanea. These were super hilarious to watch walking around with their little tail-feather tuft and their bizarro backwards knees. They are lowland marsh birds, no doubt prayed upon by the caimán–of which I have a picture somewhere.

Getting to the end of the Guate pictures, though. I’ll save that one for last.

Fine thing about these Guatemala pictures…I get to gaze on their green jewel-eyed wonder and not think about how spring is not yet here and there’s still snow in the hills. Going to the Smith Bulb Show this week–another ritual of anticipation.

Like El Niño, but cuddlier.

My sister Danielle/Daniela/El Nubo/La Nuba/Udi is the reason I went to Guatemala and the reason I came back alive. She led me around by the gills speaking Spanish for me until I learned not to feel so much like a fish out of water, made a pleasant and challenging dinner companion, and tolerated a lot of long ass bus rides and obsessive Mayanist geeking with a smile. So I figure I owe her.

Nubo is in Guatemala volunteering for two different organizations: CasaSito and Cultural Survival. For one, she teaches English and maintains a fine compost heap. For the other she runs around Guatemala trying to organize, fund and promote community radio stations by and for the indigenous Maya, giving them the chance to use and share their incredible, tiny, struggling culture and language via mass communication. Both are excellent causes and would, I am sure, not object to having a little of your moola.

Nubo keeps a blog, http://danielle-daniela.blogspot.com/, where she writes about Guatemala and what she’s doing there. I wish she would post more.

She also has started making these cool earrings, using dried pinto beans she buys from the local ladies down at the mercado:
Pretty, no?

The more of your moola you give her in exchange for them, the longer she gets to stay down in Guate doing good deeds. And I, for one, need a little time to scrape together plane fare enough to visit her again before she leaves. So. Buy earrings.

Thank you for your kind attention.

And now, to distract you from the above philanthropic shill, here’s el Volcán de Fuego flowing its top:

I never noticed it while I was staying down in Antigua, but the one night I slept up in the hills, I woke up without knowing why around three in the morning, then lay there for an hour, listening to it cough up ashes and fire–and feeling it, in the pit of my stomach: like a distant, staccato thunder-roll that just goes on and on. In the darkness, sometimes you can see it glowing.