1. Central American Landscapes
Belize and the Peten
Crystalline Highlands
Volcanic Highlands
The Mosquitia Coast
Nicaraguan Depression and Pacific Lowlands
Talamanca and Pacific Peninsulas
Canal Zone and Darien

6. Red line = our path of slide and Google Earth investigation
Hopkins
Red line = our path of slide and Google Earth investigation

7. A cay in Belize’s barrier reef

8. Outhouse at Hopkins, a Garifuna village on Belizean coast.
Coconut palm being blown by which wind?
Young Garifuna boy
Esposa
Men’s room

9. Coconut palms
My accommodations in Hopkins, a Garifuna village on Belizean coast

10. Coconut palms
Dog
Gringo graduate student trying to pass as a Garifuna

11. Typical beach scene in Hopkins
Typical beach scene in Hopkins. The Garifuna call dugout canoes “dories”. Made out of caoba/mahogany.

12. Red line = our path of Google Earth investigation
Hopkins
Red line = our path of Google Earth investigation

13. I don’t have any slides of limestone interior or Peten.

14. I have lots of slides of the Crystalline Highlands.
This region of volcanic highlands extends from southern Mexico to southern Nicaragua.
Carr’s article, “Weeping Woods” describes the forest communities of this physical region.

17. Cloud forests somewhere in the high relief Crystalline Highlands

18. Ocotal somewhere in the high relief Crystalline Highlands

19. Ocotal somewhere in the high relief Crystalline Highlands
Ocotal somewhere in the high relief Crystalline Highlands. Many of the tropical montane forest tree species (pine, oak, sweet gum) migrated from mid-latitude regions during the Pleistocene to the highlands of Central America.

20. Pino or ocote, depending on which country you are in.
Liquidambar, one of the few deciduous trees in the highlands…the Crystalline Highlands
Pino or ocote, depending on which country you are in.
Somewhere in the high relief Crystalline Highlands

21. Liquidambar, one of the few deciduous trees in the highlands…the Crystalline Highlands
Somewhere in the high relief Crystalline Highlands

22. Life is lonely in the highlands…the Crystalline Highlands
Life is lonely in the highlands…the Crystalline Highlands. Young boy herds goats.
Another settlement on the other side of the valley
Indigenous peoples comprise the majority of humans who inhabit the highlands…the Crystalline Highlands.
Somewhere in the high relief Crystalline Highlands

23. Did I mention that life is lonely in the highlands… the Crystalline Highlands?
Young boy rakes his family’s coffee beans.
Hella high relief!
In which season would you want to harvest and dry coffee beans?

24. Lenca village in Honduras’ portion of the Crystalline Highlands
Lenca village in Honduras’ portion of the Crystalline Highlands. Indigenous settlements tend to be where elevations are high but the relief is relatively low.

25. Many still must cultivate steep hillsides for subsistence.
Village
Milpa

26. Lenca children in the highlands …the Crystalline Highlands.

27. Life is lonely for livestock in the highlands…the Crystalline Highlands. Cattle graze naturally occurring grasses in a sparse ocotal. Transhumance?

28. Life is becoming less lonely highlands … the Crystalline Highlands.
Cell phone technology is connecting isolated settlements with the larger world, outside of the Crystalline Highlands.
Many of these settlements never had telephones.
Cell tower
They are leapfrogging from telegraph lines to cell phones.
Ocotal

30. The previous photograph was taken from Honduras’ portion of the Crystalline Highlands, looking southward to the next physical region we’ll look at: the Volcanic Highlands

31. Volcano in El Salvador
Window in Honduras
Ocotal

33. Red line = our path of slide and Google Earth investigation

34. Road cut between Ciudad Vieja and Antigua, Guatemala (Two colonial capital cities that were destroyed by volcanoes (1541 and 1773 and earthquakes). The undulating layers are volcanic ash deposited by different volcanic events.

35. Volcan Agua, looking south from Antigua, Guatemala. Season?

36. Volcan Agua, looking south from Antigua, Guatemala. Season?

37. Volcan Agua, looking south from Antigua, Guatemala.
And, turn your head ~30 degrees to the right and you’ll see the next slide.

38. Volcan Acatenango
Volcan Fuego

39. The ruins and volcanoes are tourist destinations
Antigua was a colonial capital. Volcanoes and earthquakes destroyed many of its buildings. Some have been restored. Others, like this church, are still in ruins.
The ruins and volcanoes are tourist destinations

40. Lake Atitlan, a large caldera that filled with water.
Volcan Agua. The same one that you can see from Antigua.

41. Lake Atitlan
Volcan Santo Tomas

42. Lake Atitlan
Tourist cop
Tourist
Locals
The stunning geography of Guatemala’s portion of the Volcanic Highlands attracts tourists to the region.

43. Almolonga, Guatemala: Fertile soil derived from volcanic ash.

45. Coffee and volcanoes?

47. Red line = our path of slide and Google Earth investigation

48. El Tigre, Honduras: a volcanic island just off of Honduras’ Pacific coast.

49. Volcan Telica
Jicaral, Nicaragua

50. Arroz. Kind of like looking at the Sutter Buttes from south of Durham
Volcan Momotombo
Arroz. Kind of like looking at the Sutter Buttes from south of Durham

51. Volcan Momotombo
Others

52. Volcan San Cristobal
Volcan Casita
Click on the link below to learn what happened here in northwestern Nicaragua in October of 1998.

53. San Cristobal

54. Landslide scar on Volcan Casita caused by Hurricane Mitch

55. Memorial to the victims.

56. Memorial to the victims.

57. Some settlers have returned to live in the devastated area.

58. Volcan Momotombo
Volcan Momotombito
Lake Managua

59. My Miskito friend, Conrad Hooker
My Miskito friend, Conrad Hooker. I met him while traveling through the Nicaraguan Depression and looking at the volcanoes there.
Conrad is from Sandy Bay, Nicaragua. His village was destroyed by Hurricane Felix fall of I have loaned him money to rebuild. The next slide is the latest that I have received from him.
Conrad’s first language is Miskito. His second language is English, which sounds similar to Jamaican English.

60. dear sbrady Im verry happy to hort from you all so your family all so from, allof my people from, my villege 
whe send you greathing I gate here managua yesterday im in managua for this reason I looking sea food market all 
so I fine the market  Iwat trasport lobster height  quality so they will paid me 12 us dollar per paunds bot now Ihave problems Its Ineed 
Ice chest to transport. each ice chest take 120 paunds lobster so Ineed 10 Ice chest because 
this Its the verry long whe journey   So here in managua have this ice chest  so  ech ice chest cash 120 us dear my friends dont worry  i wat you are  loan me this money to buy this ice chest so with 
second journey  I will paid yuor money With interes dear  my friends with this transport sea Ican build orphanage  children house
because whe have verry hard ship live for our  people because whe dont  have harvest.
yet  so sbrady  dont live me along because I stay in gueest house this is my ID Nomber T My neme Its Conrad  Hooker  Evans I will waith your answer. today 15 th febrary  Im in managua

61. Conrad is trying to buy large ice chests so that he can sell lobsters from the eastern coast to markets in western Nicaragua. Although Hurricane Felix destroyed much of the village, this year’s lobster crop is bountiful. To rebuild, however, the people of Sandy Bay need to sell the lobsters in markets in the west. The distance is not long. The time of travel is. La Mosquitia is poorly linked to the large population centers in the west. Only one road is passable, and only during verano, between western Nicaragua and coastal Mosquitia.
Read the link to learn more about Sandy Bay and the hurricane.

64. Yellow line = route of Google Earth – slide excursion

65. Restrooms
Mosquitia International Airport

66. Wet savanna. The savannas of Mosquitia receive enough rainfall to support a tropical rainforest. Nevertheless, a savanna (tropical grassland) grows there. Check Rains article for the explanation.

67. Rain in coastal Miskito settlement

68. Miskito taxi at the mouth of the Rio Paulaya

69. Mahogany pipante

70. Inland port, Mosquitia

71. Miskito fishing village

72. From local Wal-Mart

73. Not Mosquitia. Just a one of my pics nice that I found
Not Mosquitia. Just a one of my pics nice that I found. What landscape region? Season?

74. Commercial lobster operations can afford this type of ships
Commercial lobster operations can afford this type of ships. Miskito lobstermen rely on much smaller dug out canoes with sails. We’ll read about the competition between commercial and Miskito lobstermen later this semester.
Lobster ships

75. Miskito ferry

76. Frontier boom-town in Mosquitia

77. Palacios, Honduras. 1993