I set off to do my Metro Marathon and raise some cash for the turtles today. It came to a very quick end - Linea 4 is closed all day Saturday and Sunday until December! But fear not, I shall do it tomorrow instead - I don’t have any classes on Mondays till the evening. This does of course mean that you can still sponsor me!
A few weeks ago my life suffered a terrible blow. A real, life altering disaster of unprecedented proportions. The battery of my Archos AV440 Pocket Video Player died. And the battery isn’t an easily replaceable model - it’s a foil covered cell pack type thing. I know what you are thinking…this isn’t a disaster on the scale of the 2004 Tsunami, 9/11 or Hurricane Katrina. And I guess it isn’t, but still. I use (used) my Archos a lot. 20 hours of weekly metro and bus travel passes so much quicker when I can watch the latest episode of the Bill, Match of the Day or Top Gear. I need a new Archos. The latest models are awesome - touch screen, WiFi and an Opera browser for surfing the web. Apple may have it’s new iPod Touch coming to the market, and it might look swish, and it will probably sell better - but it’s a second rate product compared to an Archos 605. It costs a $100 more and for what? A smaller screen, half the memory capacity, limited playback options, fewer features
Amazon.com: ARCHOS 605 WiFi Portable Media Player (30GB): Electronics
ASIN: B000S5ZUH0
Well, not any mountain. In fact, not a plain old boring mountain at all. My next big adventure plan type thingy, once Sunday’s Metro Marathon is done and dusted, is to climb a volcano, Iztaccíhuatl. It’s a pretty big old beast - 5320 metres above sea level. That makes it the third highest peak in Mexico - second highest is Popocatépetl which is 100 metres higher, and right next door, but unclimable as it’s very much a live volcano. For comparison, Mont Blanc, the highest mountain in Europe is a mere 4808 metres, whilst the UK’s Ben Nevis is a seriosuly feeble 1344 metres. For me to be at the same height as Ben Nevis right now, I’d have to leave Mexico City and descend about 1,300 metres!
So I have some planning to do. I’ve downloaded all the literature from the websiteof the national park, that the volcano lies in. November sounds good to me. Maybe. We’ll see. It doesn’t seem so hard! But maybe I really should quit smoking first…
Damned hurricanes, terrorists and inflation in general! The price of gas has gone up and everything else is following suit. I had heard that prices of groceries were going to go up in January, but today’s little trip to the shops suggests that they’ve gone up already. My 1 peso bread roll is now 1.2 pesos, and milk has gone up for 9.7 pesos a litre to over 10 pesos. Chicken apparantly will go from 38 pesos to 49. This is about 20%, which seems crazily high to me! I like my milk (leche) so my students had better watch out! Mind you, if I stuck 20% on my hourly fees, I’d probably get a lot of students quitting!
I saw this article in the Daily Mail today, and to say it features one of my biggest pet hates is an understatement. I’ve blogged about this more than once! It’s simply a feature of life in Mexico City, and elsewhere in the world, but it’s one of the few things I just can’t get used to. Of all the things the British have exported over the years, why couldn’t good queuing manners be one of them?! Perhaps I should start my own ‘Queuing School’. Surrounded by more than 20,000,000 people, I feel it might be a doomed mission though!
Foreign students are to be educated in one of Britain’s most important etiquettes - how to queue properly. Our European neighbours prefer to jostle for a place on public transport, rather than form an orderly line. And, during visits to the UK, their youngsters have been upsetting the locals by barging past them in queues. Now, in a bid to smooth international relations, language schools on the Isle of Wight are being asked to provide tips to their students on the correct - and, of course, polite - way to catch a bus. The Hampshire island’s bus company, South Vectis, said regular visits were made by youngsters from across Europe, including Scandinavia, Italy and Germany. Operations manager March Morgan Huws, who has made the request to local colleges, said: ‘On the Isle of Wight we get lots of foreign language students staying with families. "In their cultures, they do not queue for buses where they live and there is a scrum every time a bus turns up, while in British culture there is a nice orderly queue. We have had quite a few complaints from residents who queue up in an orderly fashion then all those foreign students push past them. What we have said is that we will work with the language schools to provide some instructions on the etiquette of queueing. We won’t be marching the students up and down showing them how to queue, we will just leave it up to the group leaders to pass on the information." Colleges are considering the plea, but are thought unlikely to object to passing on such a gentle piece of advice. The Government has itself realised that things which are second nature to the British - such as the offer to buy somebody a new drink, in the event of an accidental spillage - are alien to many of our neighbours. The Home Office’s own Life in the UK handbook says: "Public houses or pubs, as they are known, are an important part of local life in many parts of Britain. Groups of friends normally buy “rounds” of drinks, where the person whose turn it is will buy drinks for all the members of the group. If you spill a stranger’s drink by accident, it is good manners (and prudent) to offer to buy another."
The turtles don’t seem entirely enthralled at the prospect of their race. Where’s the passion, the desire for glory?! Tsch…young turts these days. When I was a youngster, in my day….
The event you have all been waiting for! All two of you. Maybe. That many? Well, I do have a bit of an obsession for all things turtley, and this amuses me, so that’s good enough! The date - Friday 28th September. The place - my backyard. Seven fighting fit (well, some are fighting the flab it must be said!) will race across a stretch of patio about 2 metres long. It might not be a long distance, but anything could happen, and they’re all in with a shout of becoming the Turtle Derby Champion of 2007. What direction will they go in? Will they move at all? Or will they rush to the nearest hiding place and wait it out? All will be revealed in 8 days time! It will be video-ed of course, and ready to view on my blog by the end of the afternoon. The theme tune has been chosen. The excitement can be cut with a knife! One of those flimsy plastic ones they give you on airplanes to eat with….
There are seven runners - who do you fancy cheering on? Pick a turtle and cross your fingers! And if you want to be really supportive, this is your chance to back a turtle with cash, and Donate Direct to Wildcoast. Go on, you know you want to! Just $5 will do! Of course, you can still pick a turtle to win without donating!
Joint Favourite @ 5/1 - Rosita and Bob
Bob is a bit of a lumberer, given his size, but he isn’t shy and will be straight out of the blocks! Rosita on the other hand can be shy, but if she gets going she is the quickest across the ground!
7/1 - Angel and Baby
Angel is almost as speedy as Rosita, but she does have a tendancy to go off in random directions. Baby, like Bob, is a bold little turt and will be straight off. She does like to go into the kitchen as well, which is in the right direction!
10/1 - Mr Patel
Patel is another speed demon, but his starting technique - hiding in his shell - is a worry!
12/1 - Homer
A bit slow, a bit inclinded to wander about in circles…but he will get going, so he isn’t a write off!
16/1 - Angus
Fat boy Angus is the biggest and slowest of the bunch. But you just never know - if he gets it into his head to stroll in a straight line, and the others zoom off randomly, this is one little dark horse that could being the bacon home! Or should that be tuna?
Woohoo! El Globo, a posh bakers in Mexico, has brought the Homer Simpson donut to a store near you! If you live in Mexico City. Yes, this rather insignificant event got me sufficiently excited to not only buy one, but photograph it and blog it! Along with the Simpsons Movie logo, just as a comparison to see if it’s really like the genuine article!
I’ve passed the $100 dollar target I set myself, so a few turtles will avoid ending up in a soup bowl. But no need for me to stop there! Every buck counts. Or pound. Or peso. Whatever it is where you come from. But I know that most people who visit my blog won’t know me personally, and are probably gonna be a bit wary about sending cash to a stranger! A strange stranger at that….
I have a solution! Donate to Wildcoast directly through their website, and if you feel so inclined you can then send me a message or comment on this post - I’ll add the amount to my total as an indirect sponsorship.
Click here to go to Wildcoast’s Donation Page
Tomorrow I will post to reveal all about the Grand Turtle Derby! If that doesn’t get a dollar outta your wallet, nothing will!
Earlier this year I blogged about the Great Turtle Race, a bit of fun organised by Conservation International to raise awareness to the bleak plight of the Leatherback Turtle. I got their Newsletter through today, and apparantly four turtles have gone missing. Hopefully they will reappear when they’re good and ready though!
With the excitement of The Great Turtle Race behind us, you’re probably wondering, “What are the turtles up to now?" Seven of the eleven turtles - Genevieve, Sundae, Turtleocity, Freedom, Purple Lightning, Billie, and Saphira - are well on their way to their feeding grounds off Peru and Chile. Unfortunately, two turtles, Stephanie Colburtle and Drexelina, haven’t transmitted any information on their locations for over 100 days. We are also concerned about two other race contenders, Windy and Champiro, who haven’t been heard from in a while. Leatherback turtles face many threats on their ocean journeys. Below are some possible explanations for the silence from Stephanie and her fellow racers: Did they die of old age? “It’s not likely that Stephanie died of old age,” says Tagging of Pacific Predators (TOPP) researcher Jim Spotila, a turtle researcher who has been monitoring leatherbacks at Playa Grande, Costa Rica, for decades. Though it is difficult to tell a turtle’s exact age, scientists did not consider any of the racing turtles old, based on their nesting histories on Playa Grande. Did the leatherbacks’ harnesses fall off or were their satellite tags broken? If seaweed, slimy algae, or barnacles have covered the tag, information on the location of the turtle cannot be transmitted. “We’ve had tags go offline for as much as six months until the turtle moved to colder latitudes where the hitch-hiking critters presumably died and allowed the tag to restart,” notes TOPP researcher Scott Eckert. Also, the tags are attached to the turtles with specially designed harnesses. The harness can fall off if the turtle gets entangled in a fishing line or encounters an aggressive male turtle. Sometimes, missing turtles have been known to reappear on nesting beaches without their tag. Did commercial fishermen or shark-finners working off the Galapagos or Peru accidentally kill Stephanie, Windy, Drexelina, and Champiro? It’s possible that the turtles were caught by commercial fishermen. Though fishing policies are in place to protect the turtles in certain areas, illegal fishing does occur. Also, fishing by-catch in many areas, especially in the waters off Peru, is still unmonitored, so we don’t truly know how many turtles or other ocean creatures are incidentally caught in fishing gear. Did they eat too many plastic bags that looked like jellyfish? Leatherback turtles can mistake plastic bags floating in the water as their favorite food, jellyfish. Ingesting plastic can weaken or even kill them. Because they are then unable to digest their real food, they can starve, or they may choke on the plastic and drown. Reducing your plastic bag use is one simple way you can take action in your daily life to improve life for leatherback turtles. Take action today to reduce your plastic bag use and sign CI’s Plastic Bag Pledge now! It’s difficult to track the mysterious lives of leatherback turtles. We can only speculate on what may have happened to Stephanie, Windy, Drexelina, and Champiro, but given all the things that could go wrong, we feel lucky that we’re still hearing from seven of the eleven Great Turtle Race leatherbacks. As a part of the global conservation community, you have a chance to make a real difference in the future of our planet. I hope you’ll take action today by taking the Plastic Bag Pledge to help secure a future for leatherback sea turtles. Sincerely, Vinnie Wishrad Director, Online Community and Membership Conservation International
My own Grand Turtle Derby will be on Friday the 28th September instead of the 23rd - I’ve been busy! More details tomorrow!
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