Central American Landscapes

• Belize and the Peten• Crystalline Highlands• Volcanic Highlands• The Mosquitia Coast• Nicaraguan Depression and Pacific

Lowlands• Talamanca and Pacific Peninsulas• Canal Zone and Darien

Red line = our path of slide and Google Earth investigation

Hopkins

A cay in Belize’s barrier reef

Outhouse at Hopkins, a Garifuna village on Belizean coast.

Esposa

Young Garifuna boy

Men’s room

Coconut palm being blown by which wind?

My accommodations in Hopkins, a Garifuna village on Belizean coast

Coconut palms

Gringo graduate student trying to pass as a Garifuna

Coconut palms

Dog

Typical beach scene in Hopkins. The Garifuna call dugout canoes “dories”. Made out of caoba/mahogany.

Mangrove forest.

Mangrove forest at low tide

Red line = our path of Google Earth investigation

Hopkins

• I don’t have any slides of limestone interior or Peten.

• I have lots of slides of the Crystalline Highlands.

• This region of volcanic highlands extends from southern Mexico to southern Nicaragua.

• Carr’s article, “Weeping Woods” describes the forest communities of this physical region.

Cloud forests somewhere in the high relief Crystalline Highlands

Ocotal somewhere in the high relief Crystalline Highlands

Ocotal somewhere in the high relief Crystalline Highlands. Many of the tropical montane forest tree species (pine, oak, sweet gum) migrated from mid-latitude regions during the Pleistocene to the highlands of Central America.

Somewhere in the high relief Crystalline Highlands

Pino or ocote, depending on which country you are in.

Liquidambar, one of the few deciduous trees in the highlands…the Crystalline Highlands

Liquidambar, one of the few deciduous trees in the highlands…the Crystalline Highlands

Somewhere in the high relief Crystalline Highlands

Somewhere in the high relief Crystalline Highlands

Life is lonely in the highlands…the Crystalline Highlands. Young boy herds goats.

Another settlement on the other side of the valley

Indigenous peoples comprise the majority of humans who inhabit the highlands…the Crystalline Highlands.

Did I mention that life is lonely in the highlands… the Crystalline Highlands?

Young boy rakes his family’s coffee beans.

Hella high relief!

In which season would you want to harvest and dry coffee beans?

Lenca village in Honduras’ portion of the Crystalline Highlands. Indigenous settlements tend to be where elevations are high but the relief is relatively low.

Many still must cultivate steep hillsides for subsistence. Village

Milpa

Lenca children in the highlands …the Crystalline Highlands.

Life is lonely for livestock in the highlands…the Crystalline Highlands. Cattle graze naturally occurring grasses in a sparse ocotal. Transhumance?

Life is becoming less lonely highlands … the Crystalline Highlands.

Cell phone technology is connecting isolated settlements with the larger world, outside of the Crystalline Highlands.

Many of these settlements never had telephones.

They are leapfrogging from telegraph lines to cell phones.

Cell tower

Ocotal

• The previous photograph was taken from Honduras’ portion of the Crystalline Highlands, looking southward to the next physical region we’ll look at: the Volcanic Highlands

Volcano in El Salvador

Window in HondurasOcotal

Red line = our path of slide and Google Earth investigation

Road cut between Ciudad Vieja and Antigua, Guatemala (Two colonial capital cities that were destroyed by volcanoes (1541 and 1773 and earthquakes). The undulating layers are volcanic ash deposited by different volcanic events.

Volcan Agua, looking south from Antigua, Guatemala. Season?

Volcan Agua, looking south from Antigua, Guatemala. Season?

Volcan Agua, looking south from Antigua, Guatemala.

And, turn your head ~30 degrees to the right and you’ll see the next slide.

Volcan Fuego

Volcan Acatenango

Antigua was a colonial capital. Volcanoes and earthquakes destroyed many of its buildings. Some have been restored. Others, like this church, are still in ruins.

The ruins and volcanoes are tourist destinations

This one too.

Lake Atitlan, a large caldera that filled with water.

Volcan Agua. The same one that you can see from Antigua.

Lake Atitlan

Volcan Santo Tomas

Tourist

Tourist cop

Locals

Lake Atitlan

The stunning geography of Guatemala’s portion of the Volcanic Highlands attracts tourists to the region.

Almolonga, Guatemala: Fertile soil derived from volcanic ash.

Coffee and volcanoes?

Red line = our path of slide and Google Earth investigation

El Tigre, Honduras: a volcanic island just off of Honduras’ Pacific coast.

Volcan Telica

Jicaral, Nicaragua

Volcan Momotombo

Arroz. Kind of like looking at the Sutter Buttes from south of Durham

Volcan MomotomboOthers

Volcan San Cristobal Volcan Casita

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,989569,00.html?promoid=googlep

Click on the link below to learn what happened here in northwestern Nicaragua in October of 1998.

San Cristobal

Landslide scar on Volcan Casita caused by Hurricane Mitch

Memorial to the victims.

Memorial to the victims.

Some settlers have returned to live in the devastated area.

Lake Managua

Volcan Momotombo

Volcan Momotombito

My Miskito friend, Conrad Hooker. I met him while traveling through the Nicaraguan Depression and looking at the volcanoes there.

Conrad is from Sandy Bay, Nicaragua. His village was destroyed by Hurricane Felix fall of 2007. I have loaned him money to rebuild. The next slide is the latest email that I have received from him.

Conrad’s first language is Miskito. His second language is English, which sounds similar to Jamaican English.

dear sbrady

Im verry happy to hort from you all so your family all so from, allof my people from, my villege  whe send you greathing

I gate here managua yesterday im in managua for this reason I looking sea food market all  so I fine the market  Iwat trasport lobster height  quality

so they will paid me 12 us dollar per paunds bot now Ihave problems Its Ineed  Ice chest to transport. each ice chest take 120 paunds lobster so Ineed 10 Ice chest because  this Its the verry long whe journey  

So here in managua have this ice chest 

so  ech ice chest cash 120 us

dear my friends dont worry  i wat you are  loan me this money to buy this ice chest so with  second journey  I will paid yuor money

With interes dear  my friends with this transport sea Ican build orphanage  children house because whe have verry hard ship live for our  people because whe dont  have harvest. yet  so sbrady  dont live me along because I stay in gueest house

this is my ID Nomber 627-130 159-0000T

My neme Its Conrad  Hooker  Evans

I will waith your answer.

today 15 th febrary 2008

 Im in managua

Conrad is trying to buy large ice chests so that he can sell lobsters from the eastern coast to markets in western Nicaragua. Although Hurricane Felix destroyed much of the village, this year’s lobster crop is bountiful. To rebuild, however, the people of Sandy Bay need to sell the lobsters in markets in the west. The distance is not long. The time of travel is. La Mosquitia is poorly linked to the large population centers in the west. Only one road is passable, and only during verano, between western Nicaragua and coastal Mosquitia.

Read the link to learn more about Sandy Bay and the hurricane.

http://www.panda.org/about_wwf/where_we_work/latin_america_and_caribbean/country/nicaragua/index.cfm?uNewsID=116000

http://www.palmerministry.com/miskitoinfo.htm

Yellow line = route of Google Earth – slide excursion

Mosquitia International Airport

Restrooms

Wet savanna. The savannas of Mosquitia receive enough rainfall to support a tropical rainforest. Nevertheless, a savanna (tropical grassland) grows there. Check Rains article for the explanation.

Rain in coastal Miskito settlement

Miskito taxi at the mouth of the Rio Paulaya

Mahogany pipante

Inland port, Mosquitia

Miskito fishing village

From local Wal-Mart

Not Mosquitia. Just a one of my pics nice that I found. What landscape region? Season?

Lobster shipsCommercial lobster operations can afford this type of ships. Miskito lobstermen rely on much smaller dug out canoes with sails. We’ll read about the competition between commercial and Miskito lobstermen later this semester.

Miskito ferry

Frontier boom-town in Mosquitia