Miriam Balsley | Carol Chapman

Unique Things to Do in Yucatan Peninsula

Find unique things to do in Yucatan Peninsula in the video below. It includes such off the tourist track places as Ek Balam, with its magnificent carvings in the face of a pyramid that you can climb. You’ll also find Valladolid, where you can get wonderful local Yucatecan food. Plus, you’ll love Izamal, the yellow-painted town with its cathedral, home of the Black Christ or Cristo Negro. And, of course, there’s the usual Yucatan tourist hotspots of Tulum, Chichen Itza, Cancun, Playa del Carmen, Coba, and Akumal.

10 Best Places to Visit in Yucatan Peninsula

Ten best places to visit in Yucatan include places for swimming, snorkeling, shopping, Mayan ruins, colonial cities, bird-watching, crocodile feeding and pyramid climbing, plus the famous Cristo Negro or Black Christ in a gorgeous yellow-painted Colonial convent.

14 Reasons You’ll Love Yucatan

Pyramid of Kukulcan, Chichen Itza

14 Reasons for loving the Yucatan? Let me count the ways. From swimming and snorkeling in the warm tropical waters of the Riviera Maya, to exploring mysterious lands and ancient Mayan ruins, to the shopping and nightlife of Cancun, to the rich cultural heritage of the Mayan people, to the world-renown Chichen Itza pyramids, these are just some of the 14 reasons the Yucatan Peninsula is a magical place.

Miriam interviewed by Neal Steele at WXGM

It was a great day! Miriam Balsley, narrator of the Yucatan Travel Movie, had a wonderful talk radio interview at WXGM Xtra 99.1 FM in Gloucester, Virginia. Neal Steele, an amazingly comfortable and easy-going talk show host that puts you immediately at ease interviewed her – a great experience.

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Yucatan Travel Movie Article Opportunity

Today, Miriam Balsley, narrator of the Yucatan Travel Movie, is in town. I am delighted that there will be an article about Miriam and the movie in our local newspaper, the Gazette-Journal. We’ve had a request from Gazette-Journal correspondent Sherry Hamilton for photographs.

Yucatan Travel will be screened at Gloucester Library on July 11th at 2:00 p.m. Free admission. There will also be complimentary chips and salsa provided by El Ranchito Mexican Restaurant in Gloucester, Virginia.

Narrator Visits Semuc Champey Waterfalls

When Miriam Balsley, the narrator of the Yucatan Travel Movie, told me that she was going to Semuc Champey during her travels in Guatemala, I naturally assumed she was going to one of that Central American country’s many magnificent Mayan ruins.

Oh, how wrong could I be! Semuc Champey is a natural wonder of waterfalls and stair steps of turquoise green cascading waters. Her nature photographs are gorgeous. Check them out!

Miriam Balsley at Semuc Champey

Guatemala Landslide Result from Tropical Storm Agatha

Miriam Balsley, the narrator of the Yucatan Travel Movie is presently in Guatemala doing a Spanish Language Intensive. Tropical Storm Agatha, the first of the season’s possible hurricanes, has just swept through Guatemala. In her blog, Miriam writes:

Walking up through the main center path from the boat dock, it is shocking to see where the center of town got swept into the lake.

Jaibalita, Guatemala, landslide devastation.

People and dogs use a boardwalk over the hole where the city center of Jaibalita once was.

Jaibalito . . . the aftermath

For more photographs, click on the link above.

Guatemalan Yucatan Difficulties

As I mentioned in a previous blog post, Miriam Balsley, narrator of the Yucatan Travel Movie, is presently in Guatemala undertaking a Spanish Language Intensive. It turns out that she’s experiencing more than she expected because the country has recently had a volcanic eruption of a volcano she climbed last month, a 30-story deep sinkhole at an intersection in the middle of Guatemala City, and the tail end of the first hurricane of the season, Tropical Storm Agatha that led to landslides.

Miriam tells me that the land that slid is not so much mud as volcanic. It is more loosely packed than the earth I’m used to.

Her photographs of the devastation caused by the landslides are quite amazing. Right in the middle of the town of Jaibalito there is nothing left but dirt. Same with a field of banana trees. A swath of devastation right down the middle with trees standing on either side of the landslide as if nothing happened. Amazing!

And, garbage – tons of it!

Click here to take a look at Miriam’s amazing on-site photos.

Sinkhole Forms in Guatemala City

Can you believe it? In the Yucatan Travel Movie, we visit a cenote or sinkhole in the lovely colonial town of Valladolid, Mexico.

In the movie, narrator Miriam Balsley says, “Not to worry,” because cenotes formed millions of years ago. . . . or anyway, the sinkhole or cenote in Valladolid formed millions of years ago. It is a huge cave in solid limestone with an open ceiling.

It turns out that one formed two days ago obliterating an intersection in Guatemala City. The hole is 60 feet in diameter and 30 stories deep. It swallowed a three-story apartment building.

According to an online National Geographic article by Ker Than:

Sinkholes are natural depressions that can form when water-saturated soil and other particles become too heavy and cause the roofs of existing voids in the soil to collapse.

Another way sinkholes can form is if water enlarges a natural fracture in a limestone bedrock layer. As the crack gets bigger, the topsoil gently slumps, eventually leaving behind a sinkhole.

Sinkhole in Guatemala: Giant Could Get Even Bigger

Coincidentally, Miriam is in Guatemala at this time taking a Spanish language intensive. Fortunately, she is far from Guatemala City right now. Yesterday, she and other students in her school, helped to clean up a mudslide cause by Tropical Storm Agatha. Flooding water from the tropical storm is considered to be a cause of the sinkhole collapse in Guatemala City.

Is an Upcoming Megavolcano Eruption the Fulfillment of the Garabandal Prophecy?

As I said in my May 28, 2010 post, Miriam Balsley, the host and narrator of the Yucatan Travel Movie is presently in Guatemala. Last month, she climbed Pacaya, the Guatemala City volcano that recently erupted killing three people.

Because of Miriam’s experience with the volcano, I have been noticing reports of unusual volcanic activity such as recent eruptions in Equador and the troublesome volcano in Iceland that is wreaking havoc with European air travel.

I wondered if this recent volcanic activity was greater than normal. My mind was beginning to conjure fantasies about increased volcanic activity as an indication of the beginning of prophesied earth upheavals.

Well, I received my answer in a public television network program on megavolcanoes. It turns out that the earth, on average, has about 50 volcanic eruptions every year. That puts things in perspective as far as the Guatemala, Equador, and Iceland volcanoes go. Whew, sigh of relief!

But, these yearly volcanic eruptions, according to the Megavolcano program, are tiny compared to infrequent but devastating megavolcano eruptions. The megavolcanoes build up for thousands, maybe even millions, of years, before they unleash their fury, destroying all in their path.

To my surprise, one of the biggest megavolcanoes is under Yellowstone National Park.

The caldera that underlies Yellowstone National Park—”caldera” essentially means humongous crater—is over 50 miles long and nearly 30 miles wide. You could fit four Manhattans placed end to end inside. The amount of magma, or molten rock, thrown out by its most recent supereruption 640,000 years ago was a staggering 240 cubic miles, with an ash volume two to three times that.

THE NEXT BIG ONE BY PETER TYSON
What could we expect if a supereruption were to occur today?

This is the scary part. Evidently scientists have determined that the Yellowstone megavolcanoe erupts every 600,000 years. It has been 640,000 years since the last eruption. Oops! That means that Yellowstone could explode any time now.

Would this be a fulfillment of the Virgin Mary’s prediction in Garabandal Spain of a devastation of the earth next time by fire?

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