SOUTH AMERICAN EXPLORER
Summer 2005, Volume 79 - Buy this Magazine
In this Issue...
Kites, sarcophagi, travel writing, sailing, and organ
snatching - stories and history, legends and advice; this issue is packed with information useful for those on the road, and those entertaining and interesting for those safe at home. View the contents of the magazine online, or order a copy to curl up with!
When the winds drop,
the beautiful, giant
creations with their
jutting flags swoop out of the
heavens like whirling death stars
and come crashing to the ground.
Onlookers occasionally get nicked,
or worse, but this time no blood
flows, no one loses an eye.
I had come early to see the giant kites
fly on All Saint’s Day. Every November,
the community of Santiago Sacatepéquez,
Guatemala gathers in the town cemetery
to decorate the graves of loved ones, feast
on picnics, and fly homemade and often
enormous kites, some over five meters in
diameter. Read Full Story...
The ill-fated Scots colony of Caledonia in the
Darien isthmus of Panama was Scotland’s last
attempt at forming an independent colony at
the end of the 17th century.
Dr. Stewart D. Redwood, a Scot living in
Panama, describes the expedition to mark the
300th anniversary of the Darien Venture.
The full moon set in the west as the
sun rose over our yacht in the mirrorcalm
waters of the magnifi cent natural
harbor of Caledonia Bay, which was surrounded
by mountainous jungle. The absolute silence
of the tropical dawn was disturbed only by
the gentle splash of oars as the Kuna Indians
set out for the day in their dug-out canoes, or
cayucos, grinning silently as they held fishing
lines in their teeth, and the eerie cries of
howler monkeys far off in the jungle. Phil,
the captain, lay asleep on the cabin roof,
cooler than below-deck but wrapped in a
sheet against the chitras, small biting insects
like no-see-ums or Scots midges. We talked
in whispers, and it felt like sacrilege to shatter
the silence with the Avon dinghy’s outboard
motor as we set out to explore the bay. After
months of planning and a three-day sail from
Colon, we had fulfilled a long-held ambition.
The date was November 4, 1998: exactly 300
years since the day that the five heroic ships of
the Scots’ Expedition sailed into this harbor
and established the colony of Caledonia on the
Caribbean coast of modern Panama. Read full story...
The idea of having parts of one’s body removed is frightening enough; no one
looks forward to an amputation or surgery. Even people who must undergo
surgery do not necessarily want the affected organ or part
removed, just the malady itself. The idea of having a body part
forcibly taken is much more horrific. This is the basis for the organ
snatching urban legend, and references to it are common. The 1978
film Coma, starring Michael Douglas, depicted unethical doctors
taking organs from the comatose. A 1991 episode of television show
Law and Order titled “Sonata for Solo Organ” featured the theft of
a kidney. According to Barbara Mikkelson of the Urban Legends
Reference Page, the show’s writer said he had heard it from a friend,
and the friend assured him that the story was a true account that
had come from a newspaper. More recently, a 1992 fi lm titled The
Harvest involved a screenwriter in Central America who uncovers
a black market in kidneys. Organ-snatching was also an element
in Walter Salles’s acclaimed 1998 Brazilian fi lm Central do Brasil
(Central Station) in which a young boy escapes an “adoption agency”
that actually uses children for their organs. Guillermo del Toro’s 2001
Mexican horror fi lm El Espinazo del Diablo (The Devil’s Backbone)
also makes references to bodily theft when a character suggests the
fate of a missing boy: “They sell the blood to rich people to cure their
tuberculosis.” Read Full Story...
Clawing their way through the dense vegetation, they zigzag up the steep slopes. It had
taken several days to reach the cliffs. Now, inching their way up over the crumbling
limestone along narrow ledge above, they move slowly in the morning light, towards
the towering funeral statues perched high over the valley. Fragile structures of wood and clay,
these ancient tombs of a mysterious people crumble under the repeated blows of the grave
robbers. As dawn breaks, nothing remains of the imposing tombs but a few scattered bones,
pottery shards, cordage, pieces of basketry and scraps of cloth left to mark the site of a lost
archaeological treasure.
Many of the best sarcophagi of the ancient Chachapoya (Cloud People) stand beside immense waterfalls up to 100 meters high in la ceja de
la selva, the eyebrow of the jungle. A dense
cloud forest thrives at this altitude in the mists
overlooking the Amazon rainforest below. In the
high humidity, ideal for orchids and bromeliads,
wood rots and flesh decays. The sarcophagi of
this zone and the mummies within them have
managed to survive, a testimony to the skill of an
ancient people. Read Full Story...
In the year 1735, amidst the rapid expansion
of scientific knowledge that occurred
during the Enlightenment, two young
Spaniards, Antonio de Ulloa and Jorge Juan
y Santacilia, set out to measure the equator
and determine the true shape and size of the
Earth. The expedition chose the province
of Quito in Ecuador to take measurements
of the globe, where they spent 10 years
recording their scientific discoveries and
encounters with natives. What established
their reputations for all time, however, were
the two travel narratives that subsequently
emerged.
The first work, A Voyage to South America,
was published in 1748. The second, Secret
News about America, followed a year later. Both
texts offer considerable insight into the use of
travel narratives as historical documents, as
few would disagree that all historical texts are
biased in one way or another.. Read Full Story...
