Searching for a Signal

Ezequiel's been trying to track the King Vulture while Mauro and I were at Nuevo Becal, but hasn't been able to get a signal for days. Last time Mauro and I saw the bird, we watched it reach back and bite at the backpack-like straps keeping the radio transmitter on. No signal could mean a few things - the bird bit off the strap and dropped the transmitter in the water, the bird chewed on the transmitter and disabled it, or the King Vulture simply flew far outside the one to three kilometer range.

Mauro's hoping its the last one, so today we decided to visit all of the highest points we could reach. This gives us greater range on the radio reciever, and also makes for a great excuse to see some pretty epic landscapes.

I've been wanting to climb the ridge along the entrance road since I saw it on our first day in Ejido 20 de Noviembre, so I was pretty excited to do so today. The view from atop it is incredible (click on the picture to see it full size).

We heard nothing but static and a faint, possibly imaginary, pause in static once in a while. "Ghosts in the Machine" as Asimov would say.

We moved on, hopping on top of whatever hills we could find. Turns out except for the ridge, all other hills in this area are ancient Mayan Ruins. These piles of rock covered in trees show almost no sign of being Man Made. That is, until you notice many of the rocks are shaped like large bricks. But that's another story...

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