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San Jose, Costa Rica, 30 June 2003

Semuc Champey, El Salvador, Granada and Ometepe

Odv
2004-09-15 11:54:15

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p.p, good and cheap food, bike and canoe rental. Together we spent approx. 20 USD per day and had a great time.

Unlike Altagracia (where the ferry arrives from Granada), Mérida actually has water coming out of the tap. What´s more, the water came straight from a source on the volcano and was fresh and drinkable.

While cycling to the biological station to see the waterfall and the petroglyphs, we came across many aggregations of butterflies and "highways" of leafcutter ants crossing the street. A truly amazing sight! Much larger soldier ants came to check the threat our presence posed to the colony.

We later learned that the leafcutter ants actually do not eat the leafs, but chew them into pulp to feed a fungus (this particular fungus is unique to the leafcutter ant colonies). Besides the soldiers and the workers another cast of leafcutter ants, the minima, harvest the fungus and feed the queen and the colony. All the ants in the colony are female.

About 40,000 kings are produced once a year together with 10,000 new queens, these leave the colony and mate outside in the air. A queen will collect 300 million sperm from several kings, which she will keep to use during her entire life time (which can last up to 20 years). The males die upon performing their duty.

Less than one percent of queens manage to start a new successful colony. When the queen dies the colony disintegrates. What´s more these ants have a burial chamber, they collect their dead, even from outside, and dump them in this chamber. The last little detail is that approx. 15% of all leafs are harvested by leafcutter ants.

All in all these ants have a very sophisticated farming society where every individual performs her duties selflessly and each is dependent upon the others for survival. I wonder if anybody would notice if you were a lazy ant...

Cycling further along the unpaved roads of Ometepe, we encountered pigs cooling of in potholes and nearly all small children greeted us with a friendly "Hola!".

The petroglyphs on this side of the island were difficult to find. After asking some people, they showed us some in their backyards and fields.

Back at the hacienda, we learned about less fortunate times. In 1979 the Sandinistas expropriated all the land and houses belonging to their political opponents and from people who just happened to own something that a Sandinista wanted to have.

After a decade without free elections the Sandinistas were tricked into organizing a free election, being under the illusion that they would win. When they didn´t, they used the last 3 months of power, before having to hand it over to the newly elected government, to appropriate as much as they could. This period is now referred to as "la pińata" (which normally refers to a birthday doll filled with candy, which upon breaking everybody rushes to collect). In 2003 many people are still trying to get their properties returned but the Sandinistas still hold many positions of power.

This problem reminded me of the post-communist countries in Europe that also had to return properties to their rightful owners after the fall of communism.

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