These notes are part of a loose series of letters to a former employee of the U.S. Department of the Interior. The first notes are Goatsuckers of the Troposphere.
Dear Lola,
The Chinese have this saying. They say the frog sees only the sky from the bottom of the well. We travelers are like this too, the way we travel two thousand miles to isolate ourselves in museums and preserved antiquity. I sense that what happens now, or is about to happen tomorrow, reveals more about our world than tumbled-down bricks and aged parchment. To travel into today is to climb out of the well.
That's why I am writing you from the small town of El Valle de Antón, which sits inside a volcanic caldera, and which is sometimes known as ground zero for global extinction.
Old Highways of Peten From Belize into the jungles of Northern Guatemala, we travel with redheaded triplets who insist our theories about the Mayan past are all wrong.
The Howling Coast From the isolated Pacific Coast of Nicaragua to its bustling center.
Granada Libre Nicaragua from its tourism mecca, and the choices it faces as it enters a brave new world.
Jungle in the Sky A walk in the Nicaraguan volcanic cloud forest of Mombacho with an odd cast of characters.
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Carved wooden golden frogs for sale at El Valle market.
