woensdag 20 augustus 2014

Diving in cenotes or: Ohohoooo, sometimes I get a good feeling....

.....it's a feeling that I've never never never had before. For those of you who now the Avicii song, that is basically how I feel right now. Today was one of the best diving days ever. We have been diving the Cenotes in Yucatan, Mexico for the last few days.

For those of you who don't know what a cenote is, here is a one alinea summary (feel free to skip it, but it is quite interesting if I may say so myself): Some 65 milion years ago, the Yucatan peninsula was a massive coral reef below the sea. During the last iceage this reef rose above the see a lot. Because it was limestone (thanks to the coral reef), caves formed in it, just like in Limburg or the "grotten van Han" in Belgium and the Grutas de Cacahuamilpa in Mexico.
Unlike those caves though, after the last iceage (think about rising sealevels...), they partially submerged again. Not to the old level though, else many american schoolkids wouldn't have beaches to get drunk on during spring break, and maybe equally important ;) the Mayan's wouldn't have had their nice peninsula either. But because of the porous limestone rock, all fresh water seeps through it, and forms a layer of fresh water on top of the salt water beneath.
That fresh water is what the mayans drunk (and basically we still do today), but again more importantly, it also creates a very beatiful mixture of fresh and salt water to dive in, together with other facinating geological effects. During the time the caves were dry though (a few tens of thousands of years) really beautiful stalachtites and stalachmites formed as well(amongst other things), just like in those other famous caves. So basically, you have hundreds miles of caves, many connected. Sometimes the roof of a cave get's thin though (especially with disolving limestone), and it collapes and leaves a nice round hole in the earth with water beneath. That is called a cenote. There are a whole lot of them (hundreds? thousands?) dotted around Yucatan with interconnecting tunnels, and tunnels leading to the open ocean. The largest system is over 200km long. There area plenty of open cenotes all over, for easy access, and to allow diving in caves (mainly caverns for us actually) with surface air and natural light always close by, usually in sight.

That is enough of a geology lesson (I always found this interesting as a kid), but more interesting is the "feeling I've never never never had before" as Avicii puts it. Have you ever wa(/o)ondered through those touristy caves thinking how beautiful they are but also how cool it would be to explore those caves without all the tourists? And have you ever thought about how cool it would be to be able to fly? Or have you ever driven in the countryside early in the morning or in the evening and seen the mist in the fields on the side of the road, thinking there should be a ghost standing below that single tree? Well, all of those feelings, and more, came true today.

Doing the cavern diving we did the last few days, with today as a highlight, you basically fly weightless through those caves. The formations are incredible, and because the water is so clear, you sometimes forget there is water at all and really feel like you're flying. While following a route, you see side passages opening left and right (itching to go in, but knowing you can't), you fly over a hill, around a pillar, past a gallery of stalachtites and stalachmites, and down again into the next tunnel. An air pocket at the top of a cave creates a mirror reflecting all light from your torch down, creating a lightshow on the rocks below. When the water get's shallow, you stick your head above it and there are bats flying around, and meter thick tree roots penetrate the cave top to get to the water below. And then you go down again to continue your route. To top it all, on one dive, there is a single hole (filled with water of course), going down 30m from the opening of the cenote, where sunlight really shines down in rays to the bottom. A clear blue ocean with beams of light shining all the way down. And you're halfway on the wall, seeing both the trees 20m above you around the rim of the cenote, and the beams of light on the bottom on a white cloud of hydrosulfuric acid 10m below. The cloud of hydrosulfuric acid occurs naturally in the water (waste product from plant material breakdown by bacteria) and forms a white nebula of multiple layers. Swiming through that feels like flying through the mist in a mysterious magical landscape. Branches of fallen trees stick up from the bottom of the cave through the nebula. You expect a black crow to sit on a branch and fly off, to inform the witch of that nebula you are there. Playing with your hand and torch through the nebula makes it swirl and move around. The diver next to you is broken up in slices by the thin layers of nebula between you.
When you go up again and get close to the end of the dive, you see light from other small cenotes as green aquaria in the distance, with crystal clear water, fish and plants in them, and ocasionally a snorkler (if your later, a lot of them actually, but we were early birds). And when you surface again in your cenote, their are plenty of birds around, like motmots with beautiful colors and tails or weaver birds.

Although this might sound too fantastic, and indeed it is multiple very different dives compressed, all these things we've seen and felt in just a few dives. And many more things, like frodo scrambling through mordor below mount doom, or swimming between the mangroves seeing fish(y) parents garding their young, or molly's like you see them in an aquarium compete for mates between the water lilies growing to the surface.

woensdag 13 augustus 2014

Chilli country

We have spend almost a week in Mexico city and surroundings and up to now it is the best big city we have seen. It is a huge city with 8 million people living in the city itself and if you add the suburbs almost 23 million people live here. Auke and Yoli live relatively close to the center and with a good network of metro and buses you can get anywhere. It has its normal big city problems of congested roads during rush hour and old buses with smelly exhausts but it is not as bad as other Latin American cities or Manilla.

The food is really nice here as well and with Yoli and Auke recommending us a lot of Mexican dishes, I'm afraid we will never like eating in a Mexican restaurant in the Netherlands because the food is very different. Chili is very important and they eat it with almost everything. You put it on your popcorn, it is in your ice, in your drink etc. Second most important is lime, which you add to a lot of things as well.

We have explored the nearby countryside and visited the small towns of Marinalco and Taxco. Mexico has very different landscapes, and this area looked a bit like Switzerland with lots of different species of pine trees.
In Malinalco a big party was going on because of the celebration of a saints day. The most festivities were in front of the church. Although the festivities were in honor of a catholic saint, it looked more like an Aztec party with people dressed as eagle or ocelot warriors with big feathery heads and dancing on old music. We also visited a small Aztec temple which was built in 1501 but never finished. Located on a hill, we had a magnificent view on the surrounding hills.
To escape the all night party and fireworks we continued on to Taxco, were we found out that there was another party with fireworks, fortunately not an all-nighter. Fireworks are not just fireworks but the whole village joins in and pays for a huge platform with a tower of fireworks in different forms and figures. Very spectacular, especially because we had a good view from the nearby roof terrace.

Taxco looked a bit Italian, a white city build against a mountain. The city became rich of the silver mining. We spend the night in an old monastery and explored the city the following morning. On our way back we visited the caves of Cacahuamilpa. Although the path in the caves was concreted and the tour group was big (only Mexican tourists), the caves itself were spectacular with a 2 km access in the caves. Our military tour guide showed us a lot of nice rock formations (of course you need some imagination and some were a bit far fetched). Some of the rooms were 70 m high.

The next three days we spent in Mexico City, walking around through the neighborhoods of Condesa and Coyoacán with its colonial houses and many small restaurants. In the city center are many nice things to do. Most impressive were the murals of the Palacio Nacional. This building used to be one of the residences of conquistador
Hernan Cortés and now the official residence of the president. The murals were painted by Diego Rivera and depict the Mexican history from the Aztecs up to 1935.

Mexico city was build on top of the old Aztec city of Tenochtitlán, which was completely destroyed because the Aztecs did not want to surrender and Cortes had to demolish the city to kill the last warriors. Fortunately, some temples have been excavated and the old Spanish buildings on top of them have been removed. A large part is still under the main cathedral, which is a pity because it is highly unlikely that we will ever see this part of history.

The cathedral is built in baroque style and therefore lavishly decorated. The floor is a bit wobbly because the cathedral is sinking (like the whole city; Tenochtitlán was actually built in the middle of a lake which has been drained of water completely by the Spanish) and 150 years ago it must have looked like the tower of Pisa with metal bands around the walls to protect it, but somehow the cathedral is more straight now than 80 years ago and it doesn't need a lot of additional protection anymore.

The most important temple of Tenochtitlán, the Templo Mayor is partially preserved. A sewage canal from the 1900's goes right through the temple (really a pity). The temple is actually 7 temples, each temple built over the other. On the top of the temple are two pyramids for the gods Tlaloc (the rain god) and Huitzilopochtli (warrior god). The different layers are still visible and some statues and decoration are well preserved, including some of the colors, either still attached at the temple or in the museum next to it. Later this week we will visit the Aztec city of Teotihuacan to get an even better view of how the Aztecs lived.

For a nice evening out you have to visit plaza Garibaldi in the weekend, where all the Mariachi bands play. The bands consists of 3-9 people with different guitars, trumpets and a varying other set of instruments ranging from harp to accordion and they wear beautiful clothing allthough it looks better when the males are still slim. The whole square is filled with different bands and if you pay them they play one or more songs for you. It was a nice evening and included a lot of mezcal, pulque (fermented milk of the agave), tequila and beer.







maandag 4 augustus 2014

No more chickens!

No, Dolf did not shoot al the chickens down with the catapult. Actually, the catapult broke again a few times and is now in a garbage bag. Another solution found its way to us in the form of sleeping  dogs in our garden who love to chase the chickens away. We were adopted by three dogs who live nearby (no, not the other way around) and at some point they decided that sleeping on our front porch was more interesting then sleeping on their own porch. We were accompanied by them in every visit we made and sometimes they ran after the motor as well when appointments were at the other side of the city.

We are now in La Paz, with sniffing noses and a headache because of the height. But we are lucky. Last week it was still -5 degrees at night, but now the sun shines during the day and the breeze is warm instead of cold. At night, we sleep under two blankets and Dolf was wearing two sweaters, a shirt and a long sleeve to keep warm in the evening. Tomorrow we fly to Mexico city to visit Auke and Joli.

Sorry, it has been a while since our last post. A few weeks almost nothing happened because of the school holidays and in the last weeks we have been so busy that we hardly had time to do anything else.
Almost 300 students have been on their field practical. Of course not without the usual problems, but we managed to execute the most important part of our project: getting students into the jungle where they learn something about ecology and get enthusiastic about the local plant and animal life.
Some groups were lucky and saw capibaras, a large stork or squirrel monkeys in the wild which are difficult to encounter when you're walking with a 10+ size group of chatting people, while others flowed through the beautiful mystic morning mists in a boat to the jungle.
One of the excursions was on the other side of the river and included a short boat trip and a sometimes tricky but exciting path through secondary and a little primary forest. The other excursions was to an animal refuge with an agro forestry area and a part of primary forest with some trees over 600 years old. The animal refuge had two marimonos (slingerapen in dutch), who will climb on people as well especially if you give them some food.

The students enjoyed themselves and most of the teachers as well. One path was a bit difficult and went up and down, and unfortunately one of the teachers slipped, but no further accidents happened. We have plenty of pictures, but we will upload them in Mexico when the internet connection is better.

We have some mixed feelings about the project this year. We had planned much more, but because the teachers were busy, a change of holiday (can you believe that in the Netherlands the government would decide two weeks before the holiday starts that the holiday already starts next week) and a lot of planned meetings where people did not show up we had to cancel some activities.
We did develop website with educational material for teachers. Instead of working with the teachers to develop the material we made it for the teachers. Have a look on www.leccionesamazonicas.org. Of course it is all in Spanish.

We were a bit sad to leave Rurre after almost 4 months. We have made some good friends including dogs, which we will sorely miss, but one of them will be in the Netherlands for a meeting at the end of August because he is in Germany now, following a summer course on the university.

We will be in Mexico for three weeks, first in Mexico City and the final week on Yucatan to dive in the cenotes, fresh water basins in the middle of the jungle who connect with each other through caves (no don't worry, we are not qualified cave divers and will therefore not swim through caves for a long time because you need additional exams and equipment before you're allowed to do that).
We will fly from Cancun to the Netherlands on August 23 and spend several weeks there before we fly onwards to the Philippines for our new job as science officer at Marine Conservation Philippines.