Chichen Itza, Yucatan, Mexico

On the Edge of the Cenote, at the Heart of the Mayan Civilization


Ball Game Wall
Group Ball Game
The Hoop-Basket
Subscriptions
Kukulkan
Double Kukulkan
Kukulkan to Double II
Kukulkan's Heads
The top of El Castilo
Chichen Itza Castle
Passing
Exceptional Descent
Balam Sculpture
mayan masks
colorful sculpture
cruel rituals
Triumphs of the Mayan Conquests
Herb facade
The Great Ball Game
Temple of Warriors
Between the XNUMXth and XNUMXth centuries AD, Chichen Itza stood out as the most important city in the Yucatan Peninsula and the vast Mayan Empire. If the Spanish Conquest precipitated its decline and abandonment, modern history has consecrated its ruins a World Heritage Site and a Wonder of the World.

We walk along the tree-lined avenue that leads to the entrance.

One of the many Mayan craft vendors catches our eye. He painted a jaguar head that he fitted in his lap, against an Iron Maiden t-shirt. The delicacy with which he touched up the mottled feline's whiskers contrasted with the roughness of the band.

We stop to follow the work. We asked him if he's going to paint it yellow or leave it in black and white and, conversation leads to conversation, if he wore the t-shirt just for the sake of wearing it or if he was a real fan of the English group.

Carlos, as the artisan was called, assures us that he adored them. Enlightened, yet intrigued, we returned to the jaguar that, for good reason, appeared on the stands of almost all vendors, in shapes and tones that were not very different.

More than the animal itself, the sculptures represented Ek Balam, one of the idolized Mayan gods, a religious icon of incomparable martial bravery, inspiring an entire order of soldiers in the service of the emperor.

Ek Balam, one of the deities that ruled the Xibalba, the Mayan Underworld, was nonetheless worthy of a surface temple at Chichen Itza.

And, just 56 km to the northeast, 175 km from Yucatec capital Merida, consecrated with an entire village and ceremonial place of its contemporaries.

From Temple to Temple, behind the Enigmas of Chichen Itza

The Jaguar Temple is one of the first that we come across as soon as we enter Chichen Itza.

Long before we approach it, we get the impression that we are surrounded by felines. We hear roars. They sound too high-pitched to be real.

As we walk, we realize that, in addition to the myriad of sculptures they produce, the Mayans who trade there crafts, invented a toy that, when blown, imitated jaguars.

Bored by their routine, intent on arousing the curiosity of the visitors, they repeated the animal's roar over and over again.

We point east and towards the Kukulkan Temple, situated at the heart of the complex.

The Divine Supremacy of Kukulman – Quetzalcoatl

Kukulkan, the feathered serpent, was, for the Itza Mayans, the only god above the jaguar Ek Balam, the heart of the cult heavily influenced by that of Quetzalcoatl, long in force among the Aztecs of central Mexico.

They served as spiritual and mundane beacons to both civilizations and as unifiers against the ongoing threats of rival peoples and cities.

At Chichen Itza, Kukulkam was revered on the basis of the terraced pyramid that later the Spanish conquerors became accustomed to calling El Castillo.

When we appreciate it, successive guides try to prove to their customers a sound connection with Quetzalcoatl. “Listen carefully now” we hear them begging. Applause follows. The clapping echoes on the stones of the pyramid.

They produce a kind of screech that the guides guarantee is similar to the chirping of the quetzal, the bird revered by the peoples. Mexica and Central America, whose feathers the Mayans believed covered the Precious Serpent.

It was not the only prodigious effect that the Temple of Kukulkam generated. Who, like us, surrounds him, finds the serpent's double heads at his base.

Discover that the Mayans designed and built the pyramid so that each equinox of the year would make the Kukulkan descend from the top to the ground.

The Astronomical Dimensions of Chichen Itza

Those who have the privilege of visiting Chichen Itza on one of these dates, at the right time, watch the sun's rays fall on a tangent, which only illuminates the edge of the steps above. In such a way that it draws an almost perfect snake body.

The Mayans were serious scholars and followers of astronomy. They arranged the buildings of Chichen Itza and several of its cities according to intricate astronomical logic.

The fact that the Temple of Kukulkan has 365 steps and the observatory of Espaço El Caracol allows them to follow the path of Venus in the sky, will have helped them to calculate the way in which the sun was falling on the pyramid.

By mid-November, we had passed the autumnal equinox. We were far from Spring. We are satisfied, therefore, with imagining the phenomenon and its considered eccentricity. Only and only, from the base of the temple.

Until 2006, visitors could ascend to the top of El Castillo, where they could gain 360º views of the complex and the surrounding jungle.

The bounty has been suspended ad eternum when an 80-year-old California visitor collapsed, fell from a height of twenty meters and ended up succumbing.

The Bloodthirsty Rituals That Enforced Mayan Supremacy

Faith in the historical accuracy of “Apocalypto”, a film made that same year by Mel Gibson, the steps of the pyramid had already suffered the impacts of countless other victims.

In a scene from the feature film, set at the top of the temple, the high priest of Kukulkan rips the hearts of prisoners of war.

Then he cuts off their heads, thrown down the stairs, on a bloodthirsty Mayan people that the crudeness of the ceremony leads to ecstasy.

These and many other severed heads, resulting from battles and incursions into the territories of enemy peoples, ended up impaled one on top of the other, on high poles.

A few dozen meters from the Kukulkan Temple, we come across a platform decorated with engravings of skulls.

Called Tzompantli, it served as a memorial to the sacrificed, intimidating the population, which, at the same time, displayed the power and achievements of the supreme emperor of the Mayans.

Chichen Itza: The Enigmatic and Diffuse History of the Great Mayan Capital

Chichen Itza was founded between 750 and 900 AD At the end of the XNUMXth century, benefited by the decline of other cities in southern Yucatan, especially the allies. Cobá and Yaxuna and, for some time, an ally to the capital of western Yucatan, Uxmal, already controlled most of the peninsula, from the Gulf of Mexico to the eastern domains of Zamá, the Tulum of our days.

The criterion serves what it serves, but it still had the largest Ball Game field in the entire Maia and Azteca map of the Americas, with 168 by 70 meters.

This Ball Game remains a wide space between walls, in part grassed, in another part, of a clear earth beaten by the footsteps of the millions of annual visitors.

When we entered it, we found a few dozen, maybe twenty, lined up, absorbed in the explanations given by a guide, under one of the hoops where the Mayan players had to hit with a ball of rubber, with vigorous hip movements.

It is believed that two hundred years after its peak, around AD 1100, Chichen Itza entered its own decline. It thus favored the rise of another capital to the west, Mayapan.

The Mayan-Toltec Controversy Behind the Origin and History of Chichen Itza

It is estimated that the city will have been attacked and crowded. Some theorists hold that for the Toltecs of central Mexico with whom the Mayans had long traded.

Others are apologists that the Toltecs had integrated themselves among the Mayans, that these were, in fact, composed of members of the two ethnic groups.

This explains the architectural similarity of some of the buildings at Chichen Itza, especially the Temple of the Warriors, with others found in Tula, once the capital of the Toltecs.

At the beginning of the XNUMXth century, Mayapan defeated Chichen Itza.

Decades later, the old capital was abandoned by its rulers and the elite that supported them, not necessarily by the entire population.

We go forward in time again. Two more centuries.

Two Generations of Franciscos Montejos and the Spanish Conquest of Yucatan

In 1526, Christopher Columbus had already revealed America. A succession of other navigators and conquerors set sail from southern Iberia intent on making their fortunes and claiming new lands for the Spanish Crown.

Two generations of Montejos, both Franciscos, were allowed to conquer the Yucatan Peninsula. In the middle of the XNUMXth century, after several setbacks, Francisco Montejo Filho managed to entice the Mayas of southwestern Yucatan to ally with his invading forces.

The army he formed proved overwhelming. He subdued the resisting Mayans.

The Spanish conquerors took possession of Yucatan, from the Caribbean coast to the opposite territory of Campeche. It won't take long, from all of present-day Mexico, Central and South America.

Chichen Itza disappeared into the History. Until the new explorers and scholars of the XNUMXth century rescued it from the Yucatec jungle.

Despite the long Hispanic imposition and devastation, the Mayans subsist in the domains formerly ruled by their city-states.

The Contemporary Mayan Relationship with Today's Chichen Itza

They returned to Chichen Itza. See the ruins now Wonder of the world as a World Heritage and divine legacy, a kind of sacred sustenance.

At the northeast end of the complex, between the Temple of Warriors and the market, the roars of the Balam jaguars continue. Another Mayan wonder catches our attention.

Basilio little or nothing allows himself to be disturbed. Thoughtful, calm, the middle-aged craftsman retouches his most recent sculpted painting, representing the Mayan Ball Game in different perspectives and moments.

We approach. We appreciated the painstaking work he did and what he had already finished and was looking forward to selling. Basilio understands. He accepts that, even if that was our wish, we could not pay him the almost 200 euros he was asking for one of the copies.

He resigns himself to a serenity and dignity only available to the wisest peoples.

There, with a smile on their lips, it proves how, even forced to share their lands and monuments, the Mayans continue to praise their civilization.

Uxmal, Yucatan, Mexico

The Mayan Capital That Piled It Up To Collapse

The term Uxmal means built three times. In the long pre-Hispanic era of dispute in the Mayan world, the city had its heyday, corresponding to the top of the Pyramid of the Diviner at its heart. It will have been abandoned before the Spanish Conquest of the Yucatan. Its ruins are among the most intact on the Yucatan Peninsula.
Tulum, Mexico

The Most Caribbean of the Mayan Ruins

Built by the sea as an exceptional outpost decisive for the prosperity of the Mayan nation, Tulum was one of its last cities to succumb to Hispanic occupation. At the end of the XNUMXth century, its inhabitants abandoned it to time and to an impeccable coastline of the Yucatan peninsula.
Cobá to Pac Chen, Mexico

From the Ruins to the Mayan Homes

On the Yucatan Peninsula, the history of the second largest indigenous Mexican people is intertwined with their daily lives and merges with modernity. In Cobá, we went from the top of one of its ancient pyramids to the heart of a village of our times.
Mérida, Mexico

The Most Exuberant of Meridas

In 25 BC, the Romans founded Emerita Augusta, capital of Lusitania. The Spanish expansion generated three other Méridas in the world. Of the four, the Yucatan capital is the most colorful and lively, resplendent with Hispanic colonial heritage and multi-ethnic life.
San Cristobal de Las Casas, Mexico

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Mayan, mestizo and Hispanic, Zapatista and tourist, country and cosmopolitan, San Cristobal has no hands to measure. In it, Mexican and expatriate backpacker visitors and political activists share a common ideological demand.
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The Holy, Yellow and Beautiful Mexican City

Until the arrival of the Spanish conquerors, Izamal was a center of worship for the supreme Mayan god Itzamná and Kinich Kakmó, the one of the sun. Gradually, the invaders razed the various pyramids of the natives. In its place, they built a large Franciscan convent and a prolific colonial houses, with the same solar tone in which the now Catholic city shines.
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The Sidereal Murphy's Law That Doomed the Dinosaurs

Scientists studying the crater caused by a meteorite impact 66 million years ago have come to a sweeping conclusion: it happened exactly over a section of the 13% of the Earth's surface susceptible to such devastation. It is a threshold zone on the Mexican Yucatan peninsula that a whim of the evolution of species allowed us to visit.
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The End of the End of the World

The announced day passed but the End of the World insisted on not arriving. In Central America, today's Mayans watched and put up with incredulity all the hysteria surrounding their calendar.
Campeche, Mexico

A Bingo so playful that you play with puppets

On Friday nights, a group of ladies occupy tables at Independencia Park and bet on trifles. The tiniest prizes come out to them in combinations of cats, hearts, comets, maracas and other icons.
Campeche, Mexico

Campeche Upon Can Pech

As was the case throughout Mexico, the conquerors arrived, saw and won. Can Pech, the Mayan village, had almost 40 inhabitants, palaces, pyramids and an exuberant urban architecture, but in 1540 there were less than 6 natives. Over the ruins, the Spaniards built Campeche, one of the most imposing colonial cities in the Americas.

Mexico City, Mexico

mexican soul

With more than 20 million inhabitants in a vast metropolitan area, this megalopolis marks, from its heart of zócalo, the spiritual pulse of a nation that has always been vulnerable and dramatic.

Champoton, Mexico

Rodeo Under Sombreros

Champoton, in Campeche, hosts a fair honored by the Virgén de La Concepción. O rodeo Mexican under local sombreros reveals the elegance and skill of the region's cowboys.
San Cristóbal de las Casas a Campeche, Mexico

A Relay of Faith

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Campeche, Mexico

200 Years of Playing with Luck

At the end of the XNUMXth century, the peasants surrendered to a game introduced to cool the fever of cash cards. Today, played almost only for Abuelites, lottery little more than a fun place.
Barrancas del Cobre (Copper Canyon), Chihuahua, Mexico

The Deep Mexico of the Barrancas del Cobre

Without warning, the Chihuahua highlands give way to endless ravines. Sixty million geological years have furrowed them and made them inhospitable. The Rarámuri indigenous people continue to call them home.
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The Barrancas del Cobre & the CHEPE Iron Horse

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¡Ay Chihuahua !

Mexicans have adapted this expression as one of their favorite manifestations of surprise. While we wander through the capital of the homonymous state of the Northwest, we often exclaim it.
Real de Catorce, San Luis Potosí, Mexico

From New Spain Lode to Mexican Pueblo Mágico

At the beginning of the XNUMXth century, it was one of the mining towns that guaranteed the most silver to the Spanish Crown. A century later, the silver had been devalued in such a way that Real de Catorce was abandoned. Its history and the peculiar scenarios filmed by Hollywood have made it one of the most precious villages in Mexico.
Real de Catorce, San Luis Potosí, Mexico

The Depreciation of Silver that Led to that of the Pueblo (Part II)

With the turn of the XNUMXth century, the value of the precious metal hit bottom. From a prodigious town, Real de Catorce became a ghost. Still discovering, we explore the ruins of the mines at their origin and the charm of the Pueblo resurrected.
Xilitla, San Luis Potosí, Mexico

Edward James' Mexican Delirium

In the rainforest of Xilitla, the restless mind of poet Edward James has twinned an eccentric home garden. Today, Xilitla is lauded as an Eden of the Surreal.
Residents walk along the trail that runs through plantations above the UP4
City
Gurué, Mozambique, Part 1

Through the Mozambican Lands of Tea

The Portuguese founded Gurué in the 1930th century and, from XNUMX onwards, flooded it with camellia sinensis the foothills of the Namuli Mountains. Later, they renamed it Vila Junqueiro, in honor of its main promoter. With the independence of Mozambique and the civil war, the town regressed. It continues to stand out for the lush green imposing mountains and teak landscapes.
Host Wezi points out something in the distance
Beaches
Cobue; Nkwichi Lodge, Mozambique

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During a tour from the bottom to the top of Lake Malawi, we find ourselves on the island of Likoma, an hour by boat from Nkwichi Lodge, the solitary base of this inland coast of Mozambique. On the Mozambican side, the lake is known as Niassa. Whatever its name, there we discover some of the most stunning and unspoilt scenery in south-east Africa.
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safari
Masai Mara, Kenya

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Annapurna (circuit)
Annapurna Circuit: 2th - Chame a Upper BananaNepal

(I) Eminent Annapurnas

We woke up in Chame, still below 3000m. There we saw, for the first time, the snowy and highest peaks of the Himalayas. From there, we set off for another walk along the Annapurna Circuit through the foothills and slopes of the great mountain range. towards Upper Banana.
by the shadow
Architecture & Design
Miami, USA

A Masterpiece of Urban Rehabilitation

At the turn of the 25st century, the Wynwood neighbourhood remained filled with abandoned factories and warehouses and graffiti. Tony Goldman, a shrewd real estate investor, bought more than XNUMX properties and founded a mural park. Much more than honoring graffiti there, Goldman founded the Wynwood Arts District, the great bastion of creativity in Miami.
Bungee jumping, Queenstown, New Zealand
Aventura
Queenstown, New Zealand

Queenstown, the Queen of Extreme Sports

In the century. XVIII, the Kiwi government proclaimed a mining village on the South Island "fit for a queen".Today's extreme scenery and activities reinforce the majestic status of ever-challenging Queenstown.
MassKara Festival, Bacolod City, Philippines
Ceremonies and Festivities
Bacolod, Philippines

A Festival to Laugh at Tragedy

Around 1980, the value of sugar, an important source of wealth on the Philippine island of Negros, plummeted and the ferry “Don Juan” that served it sank and took the lives of more than 176 passengers, most of them from Negrès. The local community decided to react to the depression generated by these dramas. That's how MassKara arose, a party committed to recovering the smiles of the population.
Hué, Communist City, Imperial Vietnam, Imperial Communism
Cities
Hue, Vietnam

The Red Heritage of Imperial Vietnam

It suffered the worst hardships of the Vietnam War and was despised by the Vietcong due to the feudal past. The national-communist flags fly over its walls but Hué regains its splendor.
Obese resident of Tupola Tapaau, a small island in Western Samoa.
Lunch time
Tonga, Western Samoa, Polynesia

XXL Pacific

For centuries, the natives of the Polynesian islands subsisted on land and sea. Until the intrusion of colonial powers and the subsequent introduction of fatty pieces of meat, fast food and sugary drinks have spawned a plague of diabetes and obesity. Today, while much of Tonga's national GDP, Western Samoa and neighbors is wasted on these “western poisons”, fishermen barely manage to sell their fish.
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Culture
Las Vegas, USA

Where sin is always forgiven

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Competitions

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It's in our genes. For the pleasure of participating, for titles, honor or money, competitions give meaning to the world. Some are more eccentric than others.
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Traveling
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Up Streymoy, drawn to the Island of Currents

We leave the capital Torshavn heading north. We crossed from Vestmanna to the east coast of Streymoy. Until we reach the northern end of Tjornuvík, we are dazzled again and again by the verdant eccentricity of the largest Faroese island.
Dances
Ethnic
Okinawa, Japan

Ryukyu Dances: Centuries old. In No Hurry.

The Ryukyu kingdom prospered until the XNUMXth century as a trading post for the China and Japan. From the cultural aesthetics developed by its courtly aristocracy, several styles of slow dance were counted.
portfolio, Got2Globe, Travel photography, images, best photographs, travel photos, world, Earth
Got2Globe Photo Portfolio
Portfolio Got2globe

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Champagne Beach, Espiritu Santo, Vanuatu
History
Espiritu Santo, Vanuatu

Divine Melanesia

Pedro Fernandes de Queirós thought he had discovered Terra Australis. The colony he proposed never materialized. Today, Espiritu Santo, the largest island in Vanuatu, is a kind of Eden.
Playa Nogales, La Palma, Canary Islands
Islands
La Palma, Canary Islands

The "Isla Bonita" of the Canary Islands

In 1986 Madonna Louise Ciccone launched a hit that popularized the attraction exerted by a island imaginary. Ambergris Caye, in Belize, reaped benefits. On this side of the Atlantic, the palmeros that's how they see their real and stunning Canaria.
Northern Lights, Laponia, Rovaniemi, Finland, Fire Fox
Winter White
Lapland, Finland

In Search of the Fire Fox

Unique to the heights of the Earth are the northern or southern auroras, light phenomena generated by solar explosions. You Sami natives from Lapland they believed it to be a fiery fox that spread sparkles in the sky. Whatever they are, not even the nearly 30 degrees below zero that were felt in the far north of Finland could deter us from admiring them.
Lake Manyara, National Park, Ernest Hemingway, Giraffes
Literature
Lake Manyara NP, Tanzania

Hemingway's Favorite Africa

Situated on the western edge of the Rift Valley, Lake Manyara National Park is one of the smallest but charming and richest in Europe. wild life of Tanzania. In 1933, between hunting and literary discussions, Ernest Hemingway dedicated a month of his troubled life to him. He narrated those adventurous safari days in “The Green Hills of Africa".
Kayaking on Lake Sinclair, Cradle Mountain - Lake Sinclair National Park, Tasmania, Australia
Nature
Discovering tassie, Part 4 - Devonport to Strahan, Australia

Through the Tasmanian Wild West

If the almost antipode tazzie is already a australian world apart, what about its inhospitable western region. Between Devonport and Strahan, dense forests, elusive rivers and a rugged coastline beaten by an almost Antarctic Indian ocean generate enigma and respect.
Mother Armenia Statue, Yerevan, Armenia
Autumn
Yerevan, Armenia

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Heiress of the Soviet civilization, aligned with the great Russia, Armenia allows itself to be seduced by the most democratic and sophisticated ways of Western Europe. In recent times, the two worlds have collided in the streets of your capital. From popular and political dispute, Yerevan will dictate the new course of the nation.
Pitões das Junias, Montalegre, Portugal
Natural Parks
Montalegre, Portugal

Through Alto do Barroso, Top of Trás-os-Montes

we moved from Terras de Bouro for those of Barroso. Based in Montalegre, we wander around the discovery of Paredes do Rio, Tourém, Pitões das Júnias and its monastery, stunning villages on the border of Portugal. If it is true that Barroso has had more inhabitants, visitors should not miss it.
Glamor vs Faith
UNESCO World Heritage
Goa, India

The Last Gasp of the Goan Portugality

The prominent city of Goa already justified the title of “rome of the east” when, in the middle of the XNUMXth century, epidemics of malaria and cholera led to its abandonment. The New Goa (Pangim) for which it was exchanged became the administrative seat of Portuguese India but was annexed by the Indian Union of post-independence. In both, time and neglect are ailments that now make the Portuguese colonial legacy wither.
Visitors to Ernest Hemingway's Home, Key West, Florida, United States
Characters
Key West, United States

Hemingway's Caribbean Playground

Effusive as ever, Ernest Hemingway called Key West "the best place I've ever been...". In the tropical depths of the contiguous US, he found evasion and crazy, drunken fun. And the inspiration to write with intensity to match.
Bather rescue in Boucan Canot, Reunion Island
Beaches
Reunion Island

The Bathing Melodrama of Reunion

Not all tropical coastlines are pleasurable and refreshing retreats. Beaten by violent surf, undermined by treacherous currents and, worse, the scene of the most frequent shark attacks on the face of the Earth, that of the Reunion Island he fails to grant his bathers the peace and delight they crave from him.
Djerba, Island, Tunisia, Amazigh and their camels
Religion
Djerba, Tunisia

The Tunisian Island of Conviviality

The largest island in North Africa has long welcomed people who could not resist it. Over time, Phoenicians, Greeks, Carthaginians, Romans, Arabs called it home. Today, Muslim, Christian and Jewish communities continue an unusual sharing of Djerba with its native Berbers.
On Rails
On Rails

Train Travel: The World Best on Rails

No way to travel is as repetitive and enriching as going on rails. Climb aboard these disparate carriages and trains and enjoy the best scenery in the world on Rails.
4th of July Fireworks-Seward, Alaska, United States
Society
Seward, Alaska

The Longest 4th of July

The independence of the United States is celebrated, in Seward, Alaska, in a modest way. Even so, the 4th of July and its celebration seem to have no end.
Daily life
Arduous Professions

the bread the devil kneaded

Work is essential to most lives. But, certain jobs impose a degree of effort, monotony or danger that only a few chosen ones can measure up to.
Newborn turtle, PN Tortuguero, Costa Rica
Wildlife
Tortuguero NP, Costa Rica

A Night at the Nursery of Tortuguero

The name of the Tortuguero region has an obvious and ancient reason. Turtles from the Atlantic and the Caribbean Sea have long flocked to the black sand beaches of its narrow coastline to spawn. On one of the nights we spent in Tortuguero we watched their frenzied births.
Full Dog Mushing
Scenic Flights
Seward, Alaska

The Alaskan Dog Mushing Summer

It's almost 30 degrees and the glaciers are melting. In Alaska, entrepreneurs have little time to get rich. Until the end of August, dog mushing cannot stop.