Yucatan travel movie | Carol Chapman

Tropical Storm Alex Headed Toward Yucatan

According to the National Hurricane Center, as reported by Eric Ehlir on the Men’s Lifestyle and News Spot site, a tropical storm which could possibly increase speed to a hurricane is headed to the Yucatan Peninsula.

The models forecasting possible tracks of Tropical Storm Alex mostly show the storm heading for the Yucatan Peninsula. The storm could travel to the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico possibly as soon as this weekend says Jack Bevens, a hurricane forecaster.

Tropical Storm Alex Heading Directly Toward Yucatan Peninsula

However, I thought the first of the hurricanes in 2010 was Tropical Storm Agatha, as I reported on this blog on June 8th. Either the hurricane forecasters from different countries need to start communicating with each other or, more likely, I don’t know how the hurricane naming system works because I thought that the first tropical storm/potential hurricane’s name started with the first letter of the alphabet, i.e. “A,” the second with “B,” and so forth.

While in Cancun filming footage for the Yucatan Travel Movie, we saw the ravages of previous hurricanes with metal staircases twisted like a pretzel. Pretty darn scary!

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

Yucatan Travel Movie Screening Today

Today was a great day because I showed the Yucatan Travel Movie to two of the wonderful people who provided background music for the movie. One is the composer, Deborah L. Carr, and the other is the musician, Melinda McKenzie. Both play the composition for the movie.

The piece is called Prayer, Duet and Dance. – a great piece with different kinds of moods so I was able to use different parts of the piece in three places in the movie. Loved it! The dance part of the composition is a fl

OK, I admit that I felt apprehension. What if they did not like the movie? What if they might not like the way I used their music in the movie?

But, not to worry! They were genuinely delighted. I loved that they laughed in the funny parts. Very, very encouraging for me.

Yucatan Travel Movie Preview

I am happy because I am putting together the preview of the Yucatan Travel Movie. I will be able to upload it for your viewing soon.

Carol Chapman

Unexcavated Mayan Ruins in Izamal Yucatan

In yesterday’s blog post I said that University of New Mexico anthropologists are using laser technology and remote sensing from aircraft to search in Belize for unexcavated Mayan ruins that they may choose to explore in the future.

In the Yucatan Travel Movie, we videotaped vegetation-covered mounds that appeared to be unexcavated Mayan ruins in the lovely colonial town of Izamal. We could see the mounds from the summit of Kinich Kak Moo, the tallest pyramid in the state of Yucatan, which is in the town of Izamal.

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Mayan Ruin in Belize Excavated by UNM Students

An article by Karen Wentworth says that Keith Prufer, assistant professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of New Mexico will be taking students to study a relatively small but active Mayan ruin in the lowlands of Belize. This ruin, called Uxbenka, like Tulum in the Yucatan Travel Movie, traded with other Mayan centers.

This year, thanks to a grant from the Alphawood Foundation, they will have electronic equipment to analyze the com position of artifacts they find in the Mayan ruin. “It should tell us where materials like the obsidian we are finding came from, because it was traded a long way. Some came from Mexico, some from Guatemala,” Prufer said. “We can work out trade routes and sources of materials with it.”

Professor Uses High Tech to Uncover Mayan Ruins

Gone are the days when anthropologists relied on the knowledge of modern-day Maya and chicklet harvesters to direct them to unexcavated Mayan ruins. Today, they can also use airplanes equipped with LIDAR or laser technology that allows them to comb the Yucatan jungle from above using remote sensing.

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.

Yucatan Travel Movie’s Mexican Music

I videotaped Carmen’s Mariachi Band at El Ranchito Mexican Restaurant’s Cinco de Mayo celebration for part of the music track of the Yucatan Travel Movie. One of the traditional Mexican songs the band played was called, El Herradero. I’d like to know what the words mean in English. Here are the Spanish words:

EL HERRADERO

Ay, que linda!
Que rechula es la fiesta de mi rancho
con sus chinas, mariachis y canciones
y esos charros que traen sombrero ancho.

Que bonita!
ésa yegua alazana y pajarera
pa’ ensillarla y ponerle una mangana
y montarla y quitarle lo matrera.

Que rechula es la fiesta del Bajío!
Ay, que lindas sus hembras y su sol!
Rinconcito que guarda el amor mío
Ay, mi vida, tuyo es mi corazón!

Ahora es cuando
valedores a darse un buen quemón
que ésa yegua que viene del potrero
sólo es buena pa’l diablo del patron.

Las mujeres
han de ser como todas la potrancas
que se crían y se amansan con su dueño
y no saben llevar jinete en ancas.

Que rechula es la fiesta del Bajío!…

El Herradero Lyrics

OK, here is the Google Translation:

Oh, how beautiful!
That is the party rechula my ranch
with their Chinese, mariachis and songs
and those cowboys who bring wide-brimmed hat.

How beautiful!
that mare and aviary
pa ‘saddle and put a MANGANA
and mount and remove it matrera.

That rechula Bajio is the party!
Oh, how beautiful their females and sun!
Rinconcito that keeps my love
Oh, my life, yours is my heart!

Now is the time
supporters to take a good quemón
that this mare that comes from pasture
only good pa’l devil pattern.

Women
have to be like all the fillies
reared and tame with its owner
and they can not take a rider on his haunches.

That is the party rechula Bajio! …

Obviously, all the words did not quite translate correctly, but, hey, what the heck, that’s way better than all the unsuccessful searching on the internet I was doing trying to find an English translation. This will have to do.

From the words I can put together, I suspect El Herradero is about some powerful dude who owns horses and thinks women should be tamed like horses . . . anyway my best guess. Manuel, who plays for Carmen’s Mariachi Band, the group who played this song for the Yucatan Travel Movie, says El Herradero is about a Ranch Owner. Sounds right.

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.

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