Pirúl - a Tree Cutting

Today a very large pirúl tree was cut down at Hacienda Luna next to where we live. It had grown so large that it was threatening to push a massive stone wall over and endanger the adjacent house.

Notice as you view the pictures that the young man cutting this huge pepper tree is using only a machete and a small ax/hatchet. He started at the top of the tree and he cut the tree down small piece by piece. And, he does not have any kind of safety rope or belt to grab him if there is a problem - balance, wind, tree splitting, etc. I could clearly see the poor condition of the badly frayed polyethylene ropes that were being very skillfully used to swing the tree parts away from the house. Also notice how high he is above the concrete basketball court below. It must be 50-60 feet from the section he was cutting in these pictures down to the court.

Finally they brought in a chain saw to clean up and cut the very large sections in small enough pieces to carry out.

 About Pirúl

Pirúl or Peruvian Pepper (Schinus molle) is an evergreen tree that grows to 50 feet (15 meters). It is native to the Peruvian Andes, but grows wild all over Mexico. The bright pink fruits or peppercorns are used in treating a variety of wounds and infections due to their antibacterial and antiseptic properties.

In Guanajuato there is a traditional drink made from the peppercorns. I have made a quite tasty aeoli by using the peppercorns crushed dry in a blender and then incorporated in my regular garlic aeoli recipe.

A Summer Swim

Rudi's Neighbor, the Hawk

Thursday, July 15, 2010

I drove over to Leon today to visit my friend Rudi. When I drove up to his house I discovered that his neighbor has a beautiful hawk on his front porch. Rudi doesn't know the hawks' origin, but I suspect the bird has been "rescued". Perhaps it is the victim of a car hit. The bird was quite docile and allowed me a very close look without any signs of being nervous.

The Lake

After visiting a while, Rudi suggested we hike up a canyon between Leon and Guanajuato to a lake he has found. He assured me that the water was very clear, clean and cool. It was a hot day so we took bathing suits.

The lake was beautiful and we had a really refreshing swim.

On our way back down the mountain we walked along with some local boys - probably 12-14 years old. They had been out hunting and had killed a rather large lizard with their slingshots. They were very interested in the "extranjeros" and they had lots of questions for us.

Henequen

The Henequen Plant

In 1984 Alice and I visited Merida for a few days while on a six week jaunt through parts of Mexico and Belize. Merida truly was the white city then. Men were wearing guayaberas and white trouser and finely woven straw hats from Becal. Women also wore white, but their dresses were heavily embroidered with brightly colored flower patterns. The city appeared to us to be clean and prosperous.

What we did not realize at that time was that we were witnessing the very end of the henequen era in the Yucatan.

In the 1950's nylon rope began to to take the place of rope made from henequen and sisal. And, by 1984, the last commercially viable crop of henequen in the Yucatan was harvested. The henequen era of enormous wealth creating plantations utilizing almost slavelike "company store" cheap labor was over. The henequen rope market collapsed, and Dupont with its new synthetic products ruled. Only narrow specialty markets survive today for these natural fibers. Those markets include paper, cloth, wall coverings, mescals for drinking and carpets,

Returning to Merida in May of 2010 we found a different city. Nikes, t-shirts (playeras) with designers names like Tommy Hilfiger and jeans are now standard dress. The traditional dress can now only be seen where it is set up for tourists.

Dress on the Plaza Grande, Merida 2010

On our trip from Merida to Belize in 1984 we took a bus and rode all day through huge henequen plantations. Today it is difficult to locate where they were as they have become overgrown - reclaimed by Mother Nature.

Henequen (Agave fourcroydes Lem.) and Sisal (Agave sisalana) are two of the many types of agave. The agave is commonly called maguey in Mexico, and there are about 208 different species. Henequen is used primarily for fiber production. Sisal is a close relative to henequen and is similarly utilized. Sisal is considered to be a "finer" fiber and is used today in some blends with cotton. I purchased a guayabera and a hamaca in Merida, and both were cotton/sisal blends.

The henequen and sisal plants appear as a rosette of sword-shaped leaves 1.2 to 1.8 meters long. They grow out of a thick stem that may reach 1.7 meters (5 ft). The leaves have regularly-spaced teeth 3-6 mm long, and a terminal spine 2-3 cm long. These sword shaped leaves are harvested in bundles and they yield the long stiff fibers that were traditionally used in making twine, rope and mattress ticking. The terms henequen (alternative spellings are henequin and heniquen) and sisal may refer either to the plant or the fiber, depending on context. Both are sometimes incorrectly referred to as sisal hemp because hemp (made from the same plant marajuana comes from) was for centuries a major source for fiber. Further confusion comes from the name of the Mexican port, Sisal, from which much of the fiber product was shipped. Henequen and sisal shipped from Sisal was labeled as from Sisal. And, often everything received from that port was commonly known as Sisal.

Although now grown in many parts of the world both henequen and sisal, are thought to be indigenous to the Yucatan.

So, while in Merida we decided to visit some of the remaining vestiges of the henequin plantations. the first was Yaxcopoil.

Fiber Processing Building Yaxcopoil

This building was a theater for plays and dances

Smokestack for processing plant

Machinery for processing

Living area, gardens and pools for owners

When we traveled to Cuzamá to visit the cenotes we were on the property of the old Hacienda Nohchakan.

Entrance to processing buildings at Hacienda Nohchakan

Processing Building

Road Marker for Hacienda Nohchakan

More Nohchakan

It is hard to grasp the great wealth that was generated from these plantations. At the height of the henequen era Merida was one of the richest cities in the world. Since the henequen collapse many of the workers from these plantations have moved into the city of Merida and since 1984 Merida has grown from around a half a million to over one million people. Merida has some industry, but is primarily dependent on tourism as its economic engine.

Cenotes

Inside a cenote cavern

You can't be in the Yucatan too long before you start wondering how people could make a life here year round. You see the archeological sites with beautiful cities, temples, and agricultural areas; and except for right along the coast you don't see water. Especially in the northern Yucatan there are no obvious rivers, creeks, or lakes.

There is a lot of rain in the Yucatan at certain times of the year. The rainy season runs from June through October. It is associated with the Mexican monsoon which draws warm, moist air from the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean landward. Yet, there are long very dry stretches. So where did the daily water come from for the people of the peninsula?

Part of the answer is that the indigenous people were acutely aware of the seasonal changes and they went to great lengths to prepare for those changes. In Uxmal, for example, there was an underground cistern (chultun) for each family unit of twenty or more people. These cisterns were carefully engineered so that the city's rainwater drainage system filled the cisterns providing water storage for the dry periods.

Another important answer to the question of water source lies in the porous limestone from which that most of the Yucatan is composed. There are systems of underground rivers and lakes throughout the Yucatan in this limestone and many are interconnected. Sometimes these rivers or lakes are exposed by a collapse of the limestone above them and deep natural sinkholes that the Mayas called cenotes (dzonot) are formed. These cenotes may appear as a lake, or sometimes there are only tiny openings into these water systems. Through these openings you may enter into a cavern often filled with beautiful stalagmites (drippers).

These caverns open onto the underground rivers and lakes. The Maya found many of these cenotes and often built large cities near them. These cenotes were their principal water source.

Looking down into a cenote from ground level entrance

Almost hidden entrance into a cenote

Steep stairway entrance into cenote

Swimmers in refreshing clear cenote pool

Alice and I went to visit a system of cenotes near the town of Cuzamá. Cuzamá is famous in the region for its cenotes and the peculiar way of visiting them. The main cenotes in this zone are Chelentún, Chacsinic-Che and Bolonchojol. The route to these different cenotes is traveled by way of trams that are small rail cars hauled by ponies. The trams run over rails that are an ingenious adaptive reuse of technology from the henequen plantation era. The track and tram system was originally used for bringing the henequen out of the fields to process for its fiber - primarily to be made into rope. Now local entrepreneurs will take you on a 7 km gallop along these rails to visit the cenotes. This gives you an opportunity to see the overgrown henequen fields and dense growth along the route. At one point along the way I smelled a very sweet familiar scent, looked in that direction and spotted a rather large honey bee operation.

Track through old henequen plantation

When we arrived at the second cenote we went swimming. The water that gathers in these subterranean cenotes is a crystal clear turquoise color with a very pleasant temperature of 78° F (25.5º C). There were fish easily visible swimming about, and it felt great to jump in as the temperature above ground was around 100° F (37.8º C).

Below is a short clip I took of a pony pulling a tram through the heavily overgrown henequen plantation. Give it a minute to load.

Fly Fishing Rio Lagartos

Jumping a little tarpon along the mangrove edge
give the video a minute to load

It has been almost two years since I picked up a fly rod - or any kind of fishing gear.

I have missed fishing and today, Tuesday May 25th, I'm still sore from this past Sunday's experience. I'll remember fishing in Rio Largatos for a good while. It turned out to be sort of like fishing for largemouth bass on steroids.

Diego Nunez, my guide, offered a choice of fishing in the Gulf of Mexico proper for big, 100-200lb, tarpon (sabalo) or fishing inside of the barrier island chain for "baby" tarpon and snook (robalo). There was a pretty stiff wind coming in from the Gulf and the open water was going to be pretty choppy so I picked the inside fishing. It was a good choice.

A long shallow bay runs east/west in front of the village of Rio Lagartos. It is called Estero Rio Lagartos. Most of the estero to the east is in the Reserva de la Biospera Ria Lagartos where Alice and I had gone the previous day to see the huge flocks of flamingos and other birds. Diego took me in his panga to the west end of the estero. We started fishing right out in the middle of this bay. It did not look like a good spot to me. The water there was only about a foot and a half deep. The bottom was covered with grass with occasional sand spots slightly deeper. I couldn't see anything that looked particularly fishy. There appeared to be no real structure. Diego told me that the tidal variation there was about one meter - not accounting for wind. And, when we started fishing the tide was about half and going down.

Diego stopped the panga and we began to drift with the wind and everything quieted down. I started to see baitfish everywhere, and then tarpon everywhere. Line management was a bear as the flyline did not want to stay on the deck due to the wind . Almost immediately I hooked up a nice fish for a couple of jumps and then off. Same thing again. When I slowed down the streamer I snagged the grass on the bottom. After four or five false starts I landed a nice 10 pounder. It was a beautiful fish that jumped a dozen times and ran the 9 weight deep into the backing several times.




Diego then suggested that I switch to a popper and then it really began to feel like bass fishing. The fish were very aggressive with the popper. And surprisingly, my solid hookup ratio improved.

There were so many fish to cast to that it was like dove hunting when a lot of birds are flying. I really had to concentrate on individual fish. - Lots of hookups, lots of jumps and I brought a half a dozen to the boat in the first hour.

Then we moved. It is always hard for me to leave fish when they are really being cooperative. But, Diego told me that we might find snook in another area to our south. There were numerous creeks and open spots emptying from a dense mangrove complex. We staked out near the mouth of a creek where a pretty deep hole was in shaded by large red mangroves mixed with the taller black mangroves.

First cast - bam a really big snook. He showed his wide back on the strike and gave me one jump, a nice look and sent my popper flying back at me.

We poled back into a couple of small openings in the mangrove where I caught a couple of smaller tarpon in very close quarters. Tough casting! And, I caught a lot of mangrove leaves.






We saw lots of smaller snook but they just weren't interested.

At around ten o'clock the heat began to set in and I was worn out. Solid casting, hook-ups and hook-offs, and releases since daybreak and it was time for me to quit.

My wrist is sore, my right arm is sore, my right side is sore. I've had a load of ibuprophen and I'm happy.


An interesting note:

The village is called Rio Lagartos
The reserve is called Ria Lagartos

It was explained to me by our birding guide, Roman Fernandez, that Ria is used to describe places where salt and fresh water meet.

Flamingos, Flamingos

Pink Water

May 22nd, 2010

Alice and I are standing on the dikes of a huge salt works bordering Mexico's Reserva de la Biospera Ria Lagartos. We are looking at water that is incredibly salty and absolutely pink colored from small brine shrimp and other tiny carotene loaded organisms. Our guide, Roman Fernandez, scoops a handful to show us the pink orange squiggles thrashing about in the water. This is the food that makes the flamingos pink!

Fossil evidence shows us that 56 to 34 million years ago during the Eocene Epoch, the dawn of mammals, flamingos were wading about. Flamingos are gregarious birds in the genus Phoenicopterus and family Phoenicopteridae. Worldwide there are six different species. One of these, the American Flamingo, lives in the Caribbean with the greatest numbers in the Ria Lagartos Reserve area. And, when you see the huge population of wild flamingos there - sometimes there are as many as 40,000 in the reserve - they appear little changed from their early appearance on this earth. Gawky with their upside down looking bill yet incredibly graceful they glide across the vast flats of the reserve.

We had driven from Merida to Rio Lagartos on the coast of the Gulf of Mexico in the northern part of the the Yucatan. Once there we hired a guide to take us on on a birding adventure to view some of the hundreds of different species of birds that live or migrate through this reserve. We were not disappointed. Our guide, Roman, was a gifted naturalist well versed in the life histories and habits of the creatures we saw -birds and others. He filled us with such information as the size of the flamingos - 2.5 kilos for females, 5.5 kilos for males, that they may naturally live for 20 years, that they have few if any predators, that they lay and incaubate one egg per year, that they are white or green when young, and that they mate for life.


We had gone to Rio Lagartos , a fishing village of 3,000 inhabitants, to see the flamingos, but they were only part of the great show we experienced. Among the birds we saw in that afternoon were:

Thousands of Flamingos / Flamenco Comun
Great Blue Heron / La Gran Garza de Azule o Garzon Cenizo
Great Egret / Garzon Blanco

Boat-billed Heron

Boat-billed Heron / Garza Cucharon
Snowy Egret / Garzita Nivea

Great Black-hawk

Great Black-hawk / Aguililla Negra
Osprey / Gavilan Pescador

Feeding Wood Stork

Wood Stork / Ciguena
Roseate Spoonbill /Espatula
White Ibis / Ibis Blanco
Magnificent Frigate Bird / Fragata

Brown and White Pelicans

Brown Pelican / Alcatraz Pardo
White Pelican / Alcatraz Blanco
Neotropic Cormorant / Corvejon
Anhinga / Huizote
Ruddy Ground Dove / Tortilita Rojiza
Scaled Pigeon / Paloma Escamosa
Yucatan Parrot / Loro Yucateco

And many other birds.

Additionally we saw:

BIG Croc

Crocodiles / Cocodrilos We saw several. One was huge and we saw it "up close"!! Roman said it was nesting. I later read that nesting crocodiles are most dangerous!

Purple Rain

This time of year in Guanajuato the jacaranda trees are blooming and their purple/blue blossoms are raining on the city.

Maybe Prince has been to Guanajuato.

Kiddie Banda de Rock

I was walking along Alonso near Jardin Union on a beautiful spring morning at the end of March, 2010 when I heard a Keith Richard's electric guitar blues riff tumble out the door of an old monastary now owned by the city of Guanajuato. Naturally, I couldn't resist stopping to find out just who, what and why. It turned out that a four man rock band was tuning up there for a free rock concert to be played that afternoon in the plazuela in front of the old church, San Roque.


I liked the bluesy sound which I don't hear much of here in Mexico - so, that afternoon I showed up at the improbable start time of 4:00PM at San Roque for the concert. Boy, was I surprised!


This was a kiddie rock concert! Featured songs were about how much fun it is to jump and how we should mind our parents. But that was just for starters. I found myself sitting among lots of small kids with their parents enjoying songs delivered at a level of Spanish aimed straight for the kids - and me.


The music was really well done and fun. And there was a cast of characters which included clowns, ten-foot stilt dancers, puppets, ponies and skeletons - death having its own special "continuing" twist here in Mexico, i.e. suitable for children.