8 posts tagged “nature”

Right, the Panama photos...  I took so many and I like them all... but if I put them all in a post it will get really long and boring... so if you want more, browse the other pictures in the photo-library.

We went and stayed a night in an Embera community. They're working with tourists, and have bought the land the village lies on so they can do whatever they want there. A major improvement since they moved here from inside  a national park where it's forbidden to cut trees and do most other things they would normally do.
 
La Pirata, who's a tour operator, works with them, and this was their end of season get-together with the guides.
First, we had to get there by boat though... well really... it's a dugout tree trunk with an outboard engine...  and tourist benches for comfort...

 

This is a huge project with footage from all over the world, demonstrating both the geological, biological and human processes that brought the world to look and function the way it does today. It's an amazing project.
It's released on youtube at the same time as the cinema release, and you can watch it for free until june 14'th on youtube. Please do, it's really worth it.

Either they're trying to kill each other, have sex in full public view or they're leaving sticks and moss all over the place... dunno what to do about them.

A bit more from the sloth files:
This is a two-toed sloth, and they are somewhat more lively than the three toed in the post below,
but three toeds can also reach considerable speed when they really really have to. You will see sloth 'tocs.

Sunday I remembered to take the camera with me on my evening walk down past the fluffy cows. So here are some more scottish highland delight for you.

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First, all four miraculously lined up for a group photo. These are the first highlands I have ever seen with that much color variation. The standard is the blonde red.. I wonder if they are all purebred. The dark red one is rather large and somewhat less floofy at least. Second, is their field with the pond and bushes and loads of birdlife.

Here is our two intrepid explorer cows from last post again Let's call them Greyfloof and Scottie.  Greyfloof was a bit subdued and Scottie rushed up to check me out and was very dominant to the other cows.

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Soo, I have a question for the cow savvy.  I tried to record the sound Scottie was making at me, but the wind drowned it out. She was SNORFing very loudly... and I couldn't help thinking this was the sort of sound bulls should make just before lowering their heads and scratching the sand to charge... but dunno if it's just a friendly checkin' ya out snorf.

Ruth came back for a stint of fieldwork. She used to live here 3-4 years ago and worked in the office next door to the Eejit. It was great to see her again. She’s an archaeologist, and identifies starch grains that have been embedded in stone tools since they were in use by some Amerindian people thousands of years ago...  She can see both what mix of species of plants people ate and parts of how they prepared them  - they seem to have mashed most of their food to a pulp between two rocks....  or is that just because she’s only looking at the pulp-mashing-rocks? hmm? She can also see when the domesticated corn / Maize or other cultivated plants spread from one place to the next. 

I think archeology is so cool, but I never tried to work in an excavation... So this time I went to help her for a couple of days – Just to see. This was back in January - I just got the pictures sorted now. I totally enjoyed it. It was an unbearably pretty place in the mountains, up in the cloudforest heights, where there is ‘bajareque’ = mist-like rain just hanging in the air most of the time. When the sun shines on the bajareque, it makes the most amazing rainbows. Ruth and crew excavated a shelter under a big rock called Casita de Piedra (little stone house). It’s on the side of a (possibly very old) path that crosses Panama from ocean to ocean, so people have most likely stayed the night or maybe a couple of months in this shelter when travelling across... sometimes they still do.
There were loads of other huge rocks scattered around in the landscape. I was told that eruptions of the volcano Baru was probably to blame for the scattered rocks. Prehistoric people had scribbled petroglyphs all over them... not quite as psychedelic as the ones in El Valle, but still, many concentric circles and unintelligible symbols.

Down the hill, the path crossed a river with a waterfall where travelers could drink  - and the archeologists could water screen = sifting the stones and bits of charcoal out of the soil under water. There was a hanging bridge over the waterfall, termite eaten and scary, but we passed it several times without anybody falling through.
Digging was fun although I didn’t find anything that excited the professionals... I found a bunch of stones in a circle (my mini stone-henge) and pretended it was really important and left the stones in place while brushing the soil off them and around them to reveal the whole pattern...  then the archaeologists went along with it and drew a map of it, but told me it definitely were just random stones. Oh well...
There were loads of very small sharp stones made by humans, but nothing like the elegant flint arrow heads we find in my mom’s garden in Denmark... the stone tools here looked like somebody had randomly smashed rocks and just used the sharp bits.... no sharpening and fine chipping the stones into fancy shapes – apparently there are so many good stones here that people didn’t keep them or care much... The sharp stones here are really pretty though.. they come in all colors, blood red, dark green, glassy transparent quartz crystals and ink-black obsidian.