GUATEMALA, CELEBRATING LENT IN THE HISTORIC FORMER CAPITAL: Guest Post by Tom Scheaffer

Antigua, Guatamala. Former colonial capital.

My brother Tom Scheaffer loves to travel and has recently returned from a trip to Guatemala. I thank him for sharing his excellent pictures and impressions of his trip.

Antigua, Guatemala, a colonial city going back to the early 1500s was once the capital of Guatemala. Now it is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Situated at the base of a volcano, it is famous for its celebrations of Semana Santa (Holy Week), the last week of Lent and the week before Easter. My brother Tom was there at the beginning of Lent. On the first Sunday of Lent processions of people carrying huge shrines march around the city on streets carpeted with colorful floral designs. Crowds of people dressed in purple line the streets to watch. It is an impressive sight.

Here are a few photos taken by Tom during his visit:

Painting the carpet.

Tom writes, "They are painting these huge carpets with flowers and other things on the street because today is Cuaresma, the first Sunday of Lent. There is a huge procession with people carrying huge shrines through the streets." (Cuaresma is the Spanish word for Lent, the forty days before Easter. It comes from the Spanish word for forty--cuarenta.)

Cobblestone streets and colorful buildings are typical. (Paint colors are restricted to a few choices.)

St. Catalina Arch. Volcanos tower over the Antigua. Some of them are active.

Waiting in front of the historic Church of San Pedro for the Cuaresma procession to arrive.

Enormous shrine carried through the streets by teams of young men dressed in purple.

Antigua, Guatemala. High altitude (5029 feet) promotes a mild climate.

For more information about visiting Antigua, Guatemala go to this website.

BERGEN, NORWAY, 3 DAYS IN MAY: Old and New and a Walk About Town

The Domkirken (Cathedral) in Bergen, Norway, dates to the 12th Century.

Conventional wisdom says to always carry your umbrella when you are in Bergen, and on our recent trip to Norway in May, we were glad we did. Unlike Oslo, where we had enjoyed warm, sunny weather, it was cool and cloudy in Bergen with periods of rain. But that didn’t stop me from going out and walking around the city.

Our hotel and the colorful building fronts of Bryggen.

Our hotel, the Radisson Royal Blu, where Art’s conference was being held, was in the heart of Bryggen, the historic center of the city, now preserved as a UNESCO Heritage site. 

Historic buildings of Bryggen. View from our room at our hotel.

From medieval times through the late 1800s, Bergen was the focus of trade on Norway’s west coast. Colorful storefronts facing the waterfront were once busy offices and warehouses and other buildings connected to the shipping business. Today they are restaurants and souvenir shops.

Entrance to the Bergen Castle.

Just beyond the warehouse district is the entrance to the old castle/fort and its large ceremonial hall, the Hakenshallen, a structure dating back to the 1200s. The opening reception of Art’s conference was held there and we were greeted by the mayor. It was not hard to imagine knights in armor dining in the magnificent room long ago.

Hakonshallen (ceremonial hall)

My first job after arriving in Bergen was finding a laundromat to do our laundry. I learned that, like virtually everything else, all the machines were operated by credit card. We had gone to an ATM machine when we arrived in Norway and gotten cash (Norwegian kroners), but almost never used it. Even the smallest purchases (like a cinnamon roll at the local bakery or the toilets at the train station) was paid for with a tap of a credit card. 

Spring flowers in the Bergen city park.

Armed with a map picked up at the hotel, I took a self-guided walking tour through the streets of Bryggen, then circling the city park, where strollers ambled down flowered paths and swans floated past a fountain in the center of lake. 

Swan in the lake at the Bergen city park.

Bandstand at the Festplaza.

Tulips, rhododendrons, and all kinds of flowers were in the glory of the spring bloom, brightening the overcast weather. At one end of the park a bandstand was ready for summer concerts.

Sample piece (from Brazil) in the Indigenous Histories exhibit at the Kode art museum in Bergen.

Facing the park on one side are three of Bergen’s art museums. One afternoon I met a friend for a visit to a fascinating exhibit called Indigenous Histories. (For a virtual tour of some of the pieces in the exhibit, go to my June 22, 2024 post my Art and Books blog.)

At the main shopping plaza in downtown Bergen, a modern portico has been added to provide protection from rain or snow. Look carefully at the metal column and you can see multiple images of me with my camera.

I then returned to the waterfront by walking through the business district of downtown Bergen. There a wide plaza with memorial sculptures is flanked by commercial buildings dating from the 19^th Century.

A food stand at the fish market offered burgers made of salmon, whale, elk, and reindeer meat.

In the fish market along the waterfront stalls were filled with artfully arranged fish, caviar, and sausages made from reindeer, whale, elk. There were also stalls with various cooked foods to go. (I didn't try any.) The fish market seemed to be more of a tourist draw than a place where locals went to purchase seafood to cook at home.

White building at end of the street is the beginning of the Floibanen Funicular.

A popular attraction in Bergen is the funicular, a skyride that whisks you up from town to the mountain overlooking the city for a spectacular view. But on the day I planned to do it, it was raining and the clouds were so thick that I knew it would be impossible to see anything from the viewpoint. So, instead, I went to the archeology museum next to our hotel and joined a one hour tour.

Trade routes from Bergen in the Middle Ages.

In the Middle Ages, Bergen was a transportation hub, sending ships to ports in Europe, Asia, Africa and North America.

Layers of history revealed in the archeology museum.

Over the centuries the wooden buildings of Bryggen burned many times and were rebuilt many times. As archeologists dig through the layers of remains they have uncovered evidence of life going back to medieval times. In the museum there were displays of ancient shoes, combs, tools, knitting needles and more--even a communal wooden toilet seat! I was particularly fascinated by the display of wooden sticks covered in runic writing.

The Futhark are ancient writing systems used by the Old Norse people of Northern Europe.

Both sides are carved with Runic inscriptions. "Hakon carved me, but the boy owns me." and "Bard owns me. He found much to object to in the person who carved me."

And on our last morning, after the conference was over Art and I did a tour of another museum in Bryggen, which introduced us to life in Hanseatic times. (Bergen was a member of the Hanseatic League, a confederation of German city/states involved in trade in the 14th to 16th centuries. Norway did not become an independent country until 1905.) We then checked out of our hotel and made our way to the ferry building to board the ship for our overnight trip to Alesund. As the ship steamed out of the harbor, the sky cleared and the sun came out as we said good-bye to Bergen. We no longer needed our umbrellas.

Leaving the harbor and the cloudy skies of Bergen.

For more about our ferry trip from Bergen to Alesund go to my post of May 27, 2024, Two Weeks in Norway: Trains, Planes, and Automobiles, and a Few Ferries, Too.

And for an overview of our three days in Oslo, go to my post of June 17, 2024, Oslo, Three Days in May: Opera, Art, History and Sunshine. 

 

The Bryggen waterfront, historic buildings, with the addition of a modern Ferris Wheel, constructed while we were there, perhaps in preparation for the summer tourist season.

 

 

 

MADAGASCAR: Guest Post by Karen Minkowski

Red-fronted brown lemur, Madagascar

My friend Karen Minkowski, a frequent contributor to The Intrepid Tourist and definitely an intrepid traveler, is currently in Africa, a place that she has visited often. She writes:

As well protected from Covid as I could be, I decided it was time to return to southern Africa.  When I called my friend who lives in Zimbabwe and told her “I’m ready”, she said “Great, how about joining us in Madagascar first”?  Madagascar had never called to me, but without giving it two seconds’ thought I said “Yes!”.  I’m happy that I did. We saw landscapes and wildlife that were completely new to me and enjoyed many amazing experiences.

A full report of Karen's trip to Madagascar, filled with her wonderful photographs, is HERE  Just click to download the PDF. Karen's report is filled with incredible close-ups of lemurs, lizards, birds and other unique Madagascar wildlife as well as pictures of her tour group visiting Tsingis de Bemaraha National Park, where you have to cross a rope bridge to reach the other side, remote villages of the Zafimanairy people, and other World Heritage sites. Karen's text makes you feel as if you are a vicarious visitor to Madagascar. Enjoy!

Chameleon

Madagascar Paradise Flycatcher

Tsingis de Bemaraha National Park, a World Heritage Site

Rice paddies in village of Antoetra

The photos in this post are just a small sample of the more than two dozen amazing photos in Karen's report linked above as a PDF. 

 

CANADA’s JOGGINS FOSSIL CLIFFS – Guest Post by Caroline Hatton

Joggins Fossil Cliffs, Nova Scotia: Visitors listen to a guide from the Joggins Fossil Centre

My friend and fellow children’s book writer Caroline Hatton explored the Joggins Fossil Cliffs, on the shore of the Bay of Fundy in Nova Scotia, Canada, in October 2014. She wrote this article especially for her friend Charlie, a very young, budding fossil scientist.

Fossil Belinurus (extinct animal)

Credit: Courtesy of the Joggins Fossil Centre

When I visited the Joggins Fossil Cliffs on the shore of the Bay of Fundy in Canada last year, I felt like I had traveled back in time and arrived 315 million years ago, when giant insects and some of the earliest reptiles lived in a warm swamp forest. I wondered, how did a forest full of life become cliffs full of fossil remains? 

Matching cast fossil (left) and mold fossil (right) of tree trunk

First, floods buried the base of the trees in sand and killed the trees. The tree tops broke off, leaving standing stumps. The insides slowly rotted and the stumps became hollow. Flowing water carried matter and left it in layers of sediment, which piled up around each stump. When the sediment spilled over the rim, it filled the stump, like plaster filling a mold before becoming a cast. Over time, the sediment hardened and became a fossil, preserving the shape of the inside of the stump. 

Can you spot the two chunks of fossil tree trunks?

Dead animals, their footprints (tracks), and poop (called coprolites) also turned into fossils. More sediment piled up and buried the fossils deep below the surface of the ground for millions of years.

Then as Atlantic Ocean waves gradually dug the Bay of Fundy, they carved the Joggins Cliffs and exposed the fossils, much like cutting the first slice of a giant cake and taking it away to reveal the layers inside.

Path from top of cliffs to stairs to beach

Inside the Joggins Fossil Centre at the top of the cliff, I saw fossils (like the one in the photo at the top of this page) and learned about them. Then I followed a guide down the path for a walk along the beach where he taught me and the other visitors what to look for.

Soon everyone spotted fossils in the rocks on the beach or on the cliff. Collecting fossils is not allowed, but keeping human-made objects, such as sea glass (broken glass polished by sand and waves) is okay. Taking photos is the best!

Fossil: standing tree trunk with attached root and rootlets

At other places around the world where fossils are found, the fossils of tree trunks, their roots, and rootlets might be broken into many pieces and scattered far apart. At the Joggins Fossil Cliffs the guide showed us a fossil tree trunk with a fossil root and fossil rootlets still attached.

The fossils of the Joggins Cliffs are special because the forest and the animals are preserved as they lived. And there are fossils of many kinds of plants and animals, telling the story of life in the ancient forest. The Joggins Fossil Cliffs are like an ancient book written in stone. They are a UNESCO World Heritage Site, a treasure for everyone on Earth.

Fossil track of giant millipede

Of all the fossils that the guide showed us, the one I liked best was the track of a giant millipede. Experts think that when it was alive, it might have been 6 feet (2 meters) long! I’m glad I live now and it doesn’t.

The Bay of Fundy is home of the world's highest tides, rising and falling up to 42 feet (13 meters) a day at Joggins. In strong storms, waves pound away the base of the Joggins Cliffs and expose new fossils. Who knows, the next new fossil, perhaps of an insect or reptile never known before, might be discovered by a kid!

 

Location of the Joggins Fossil Cliffs

Joggins is a small community in western Nova Scotia in Canada. The area was known to the Native American Mi'kmaq people as "Chegoggins" meaning place of the large fish weir, a name modified by French and English settlers to Joggins. Now the town is famous for its fossils.
 
For more info

See an artist’s vision of the prehistoric forest and more at http://jogginsfossilcliffs.net/.

Read a scientific description of the Joggins Fossil Cliffs at http://www.whaton.uwaterloo.ca/waton/s931.html

Acknowledgment

Many thanks to Melissa Grey, Curator, Joggins Fossil Institute, for fact-checking this post.