Exploring Nuevo Durango: Casa de los Insectos

Welcome to the House of Insects, Nuevo Durango

Ismael - The Museum's Caretaker and Resident Insect Expert

Our days in Nuevo Durango have been filled with adventures of many types.  For being such a small town, there really is so much to do!  On the edge of town, we visit the Casa de los Insectos, an insect museum with quite an interesting story.  Ismael, the son-in-law of the museum's forefather (who passed away in 2006), led our tour and told us the details how such an extensive collective of bugs exists in a town of fewer than 300 people.  There are more than 2,000 insects in the museum,  which focuses primarily on species from the region and has about a thousand visitors each year.  

The famous cucaracha (cockroach) - along with other insects

Wasps collected this year

The community's tradition of collecting insects began more than thirty years ago, when a man named Eduardo Cecilio Welling from Southern California met Pedro Canche May and offered him a strange job: collecting and preserving insects which Welling would sell or keep for his collection in the U.S.  While most insects that Don Pedro catalogued were exported by Welling, several cigar boxes of insects, with their detailed labels, would become part of the museum's initial collection.  Enrique, one of Nuevo Durango's residents, remembers catching butterflies as a young child which were sold to manufacture makeup.  During the early-eighties, the nation's financial crisis meant hardship and suffering for the small town.  It was the income from bug-collecting that kept the village alive during these years.  The 2-3 pesos earned for each insect sold to Welling "meant that we could eat," recalls Enrique.  Manuel (see previous post) also remembers these years and the villagers' identity as "bug collectors".  Ironically, the insect trade has recently been revived in the town, as children collect live butterflies which are sold to a company who resells them for release at weddings and other celebrations.  In 2012, the butterflies sell for more than 20 pesos each, ten times their value three decades ago.

           Pic - Transmits Chagas Disease

Lovely Specimens from 2012

To this day, Ismael continues collecting insects for Casa de los Insectos, which are labeled "New Collection 2012" and comprise the center displays of the museum.  The specimens are categorized according to species and orders of insects.  A short description accompanies some insects, such as the Pic (Chinche), a dangerous beetle who is found in the woods and causes a disease like cancer, I'm told.  I recognized this beetle from a my undergraduate parasitology course as the vector for Chagas disease.  It's not a type of cancer, but rather the T. cruzi protozoan which is transmitted by the Pic insect, which we call the kissing bug.  Early signs of Chagas disease include a characteristic swollen eye.  Incredibly, millions of people in Mexico and Latin America unknowingly carry the disease, which will cause debilitating heart and digestive problems in some.  Like malaria, one strategy for prevention is sleeping with a bed net, as the Pic usually sucks its victims' blood at night.  Ismael told us that some cases of the disease have occurred in hunters, who were bitten at night while hunting in the forest for the illusive and highly-prized, tepezcuintle, the rodent for which the town's alternative tourism project is named after (A'aktun Jaleeb - Cave of the Tepezcuintle in Maya).

Wooding carvings in N. Durango, including the famous Tepezcuintle or Jaleeb (left)

The museum also houses an incredible collection of beetles, several of which we saw around (and inside) of our cabana during our stay!  Most memorable, perhaps, is the elephant beetle who can grow to more than five inches in diameter.  We observed several species of leaf-cutter ants (also spotted throughout our days in the jungle) who are, in a sense, some of the most ancient farmers of the region.  These ants grow, fertilize and harvest a fungi, which is their food source.  In return, the ants feed the fungi, with chewed up pieces of leaves.  The ants are also capable of producing an antibiotic, which kills a bacteria that attacks their precious food, the fungi.

 Butterflies of the Region.. one of several cases

Scorpions, spiders, and a white snake...just because

Near the Arachnid display, which included many scorpions and spiders, I was grateful to confirm that a large brown spider (about 2 inches in diameter) that I spotted during my shower the previous evening, was not venomous.  The Arachnid display was not completely reassuring, however, as I found out that not all specimens in the museum are "preserved".  It just happened that a live scorpion scurried by as we were observing the labeled arachnids.  Ismael tells me not to worry - while the sting would be painful, it's not deadly. I appreciate the advice, but I prefer a visit to the museum with dead insects!

Will checks out some of the original collection...
moments after our scorpion encounter

Spider Monkeys at Punta Laguna

On our first full day in Nuevo Durango, we rent bikes and head toward the most visited nearby attraction: the conserved jungle at Punta Laguna. On the ride there, the landscape is a patchwork of agriculture (including one of Nuevo Durango's milpas), small towns, and forest. At Tres Reyes, a long mural promoting environmental education and care for the planet stands between the main road and the town. Nice!

"Whoever takes care of the environment demonstrates a
great education. Don't litter!" We agree.

The lake from which Punta Laguna
derives its name. After the morning
of jungle trekking, I took a swim.

Arriving at the reserve, we meet our guide, Agosto, who takes us into a small museum near the head of the trail into the jungle. He explains that there are two types of monkeys found in the jungle here: howler monkeys and the main attraction, spider monkeys. Because the area at Punta Laguna is only a small part of a larger nature reserve called Otoch Ma'ax Yetel Kooh, many of the monkeys only occasionally pass through. However, a group of 25 or so spider monkeys can generally be found nearby. These social monkeys have a strict dominance hierarchy but often separate into smaller groups or forage individually. Pointing to large photos of individual spider monkeys, Agosto calls them by names like Tula and Juan, explaining that a research study he helped with required the identification of individual monkeys.

The reserve's English translation (from Maya):
The house of the monkey and Jaguar. 

One of the largest chaca trees
seen yet!

In the museum, Agosto also explains the origins of the reserve and associated villages. Initially, the villages were chicle camps. Chicle, or chewing gum, originally came from extraction of gum from trees such as the sapote, Manilkara sapote, a native of the Yucatan. The area around Punta Laguna once had an abundance of sapote trees, and beginning in the 1930s several villages came into being because of chicle production. Eventually, chicle production died out due to declining tree populations and synthetic alternatives. By the 1980s, however, the people of Punta Laguna realized that an ecological reserve comprising the jungle surrounding their villages could help revive a viable economy. Among these original chicle extractors-turned-conservationists was Agosto's grandfather.

You can make out the zigzag cuts in the sapote tree
for extracting chicle. This is no longer done here.

Long before the 20th-century chicle extracting villages,
there were the ancient Maya.
These ruins are associated with nearby ruins at  Coba.

Entering the jungle, one of the first things I notice is the size of the trees- these are much larger than what seems typical for the area. This forest is older and more mature than most of the surrounding woods. The next day, Marco, a resident of Nuevo Durango, tells us that he remembers the trees around the pueblo were once much larger and supported a population of spider monkeys. Hurricane Gilbert, in 1988, however, destroyed most of the largest trees and drove the spider monkeys out.

Make a tea with the leaves of the guarumbo and whatever
your ailment, odds are you'll feel better.

When we ask Agosto if he knows much about the plants of the jungle, he tells us that he learned some things about medicinal plants from his grandfather. For example, the herbaceous contrayerba (Dorstenia contrayerva) is an antidote for venomous snake bites. Agosto also is very knowledgeable about the forests' flora in general. He points out the huano palms (chiit, in Maya) used to make the thatch roofs (including ours back in Nuevo Durango) traditional to the area. Agosto describes some of the medicinal uses of the guarumbo tree  (Cesropia obtusifolia). He tells us how in May, the spider monkeys come to the tallest trees in the jungle, Pich trees (Enterolobium cyclocarpum) to enjoy their annual fruits. And he shows us the trees where we will eventually find spider monkeys- the ramón (Brosimun alicastrum), also beloved by Manuel's deer.

Where did all the leaves go? The ants got 'em.

Of course, the jungle being what it is, the fauna we encounter are not limited to monkeys. Among the most prominent are the huge morpho butterflies, in blue and coffee varieties. Other insects include the mound building Leaf-cutter ants. Among many varieties of birds, the beautiful iridescent Ocellated Turkeys foraging on the jungle floor are the most memorable, not least because they are endemic to the Yucatan. While we see no large cats like the like the locally endangered ocelots and jaguars, in the museum we do see the bones of a howler monkey, which Agosto tells us was killed by an ocelot (which, unlike the larger jaguar, are agile enough to climb trees). Agosto also assures us that remote cameras have detected the wild cats at night.

A cafe morpho. The larger blue ones seem to
never rest for photo ops.

Lurking in the shadows, the most beautiful
turkey I ever did see. 

But the spider monkeys are the biggest draw to Punta Laguna, and we were not among the unfortunate who leave without a sighting. Walking through the jungle, Agosto occasionally stops, cups his hands around his mouth, calls the monkeys, pauses briefly, and quickly moves on (see video at bottom). Agosto tells us that monkeys often congregate near a depression filled with water here. He asks us to wait while he briefly walks off to attempt to track the monkeys. Before long, he returns and tell us that he hears something coming from the opposite direction. We follow the sound. I spot the giant spider monkey near the top of the canopy first, not expecting something so large. Soon, the monkey leaps away from the path, and we follow.

Yes, that's a spider monkey. Nice shot, Jenny!

Later I notice that when moving from tree to tree, the monkey appears to fall before regaining composure, either with limb or prehensile tail. Too interested and busy with my binoculars to take a photo (our only shot comes from Jenny), I notice, on Agosto's prompting, that we are actually watching two monkeys- a mother and child on her back, moving at high speeds at the top of the canopy, only occasionally stopping to forage for food. Later we spot another mother-child pair, doing much the same- leaping 10 or 15 feet through midair, eating a few ramon leaves, and leaping again. Interesting take on childcare.

Manuel de los Venados

Mother deer with her fawn

Manuel Poot Hau never realized how his life would change when Hurricane Wilma swept through his pueblo of Nuevo Durango in 2005.  As a result of the fierce storms, many wild animals, like ocelots, began to emerge from the jungle and torment the town's chicken population.  He built several enclosures and captured the animals, which solved the problem until the National Environmental Protection Agency (PROFEPA) arrived to tell him his was not licensed to keep such animals and removed them.  However, another opportunity was presented to him: he could complete paperwork and become a registered sanctuary for White Tail Deer, which is a protected species in the region.

Seven years later, Manuel's property has blossomed into a wildlife sanctuary and farming project.  Children and adults come to admire his community of deer, which has grown to more than twenty.  He hopes to instill in them a love for wildlife and an awareness of the beauty of the deer, which is still a hunted species.  "Even the men in the town who hunt will sometimes come here and see the baby deer with his mom and then they will understand the animal more, feel a connection"  he explains.    
Sometimes individuals will come to Manuel to buy a deer.  He makes sure that each buyer has a reputable nature sanctuary for the animal and they are not just buying it for food.

Mucuna seeds saved from earlier in the season

Manuel with pineapples grown from his grandmother's seeds

Just beyond the deer enclosures, Manuel has an extensive garden, which includes many native species of both medicinal and edible plants.  He shows us a field of pineapples, which are a heritage variety that was cultivated by his grandmother more than 46 years ago.  Each year, she saved the seeds and eventually passed them on to Manuel.  There's a large avocado tree, three types of corn, and several varieties of sweet potato.  Manuel is also growing a type of Mucuna, a legume whose pods will help produce a rich compost.  Nearby, Manuel points our a Dzidzilche tree which he has planted.  In less than a year, it will be covered with thousands of white flowers and is known to produce some of the best honey in the world.  Nearby, Manuel's  beehives are buzzing.      

Watering system on a young Ramon

In a field behind the property, Manuel has planted 3,600 Ramon trees (breadnut).  The small orange fruit tastes somewhat sour.  The seed inside can be  ground and used to make bread or a type of porridge.  He shows us an irrigation system that is created by nesting a smaller plastic bottle inside of a larger one.  When the water heats up, it evaporates and condenses, eventually dripping on the soil.  The best part of this system, it's free and recycles plastic bottles!  Manuel uses this system in many parts of his garden, including his Ramon field.  One morning, he found that nearly all of the bottles had been removed, likely by a mischievous coati, an animal related to the raccoon.

Recycling Station

In the middle of Manuel's garden, is a large newly-constructed cistern which will collect all of the rainwater that falls on the property.  In this way, he will be able to water his crops year-round.  "Things aren't the way they used to be.  At the beginning of each year, the elders used to know very well when it was going to rain and how much.  Now, not even the TV broadcast can predict the weather for the next three days."  Manuel told us.  He watched his grandfather save water in recycled rain barrels for years.  His cistern is a much more modern, efficiently-designed system based upon the same principle:  water means life for his plants and food for his family.  Nearby, a large pig grunts.  The pig will be Manuel's gift to Nuevo Durango in December when the entire village celebrates the Day of the Virgin of Guadalupe.

Water Collection System

Manuel's Pig for December 12th

               Seed Starting Trays

Closer to his house, Manuel has several raised beds, where he grows herbs, peppers, and tomatoes.   Several habanero peppers are ripe and ready for harvesting.  Small trays in the shade of the bananas house newly germinating seeds.  As we leave Manuel's, we make plans to go together tomorrow to a permaculture project, about an hour away in Chichimila.  In addition to caring for his deer and running a large farm, Manuel is a "taxi driver" when his friends and neighbors need him.  Never a moment to rest for Manuel in Nuevo Durango!

Walking back to town with our guide, Jose

A Visit to the Milpa with Don Fausto

 

Leaving for the Milpa with Don Fausto

It's 6 am in Nuevo Durango and dozens of roosters are announcing the dawn.  A sliver of moon hangs in the sky.  The chairs in front of the little store have been stored away for night, so Will and I stand in the road waiting for our visit to Milpa, a term used to describe the traditional farms of theYucatan region.  After a few minutes, Don Fausto approaches us and asks if we are going to the Milpa.  Then he nods toward the South and begins walking briskly, requiring us to maintain nearly a slow jog to keep up with him (perhaps a descendant of a Tarahumara, his son Enrique later joked).  The distance between us and Don Fausto only increases when the road ends - we're lagging behind as he agilely steps over and between the uneven rocks, chopping down wild chaya which his machete as he goes.  At one point, we duck between two barbed wires, a treacherous game of limbo.  "Don't worry, we're close," Don Fausto reassures.  "You walk very fast," I reply.  "T'hat's how you need to walk in the forest," he tells me, continuing his fast clip.  

 

A not-so-friendly tree along the pathway



Another day begins in the fields

We arrive to the Milpa as the sun is rising. This 12 acre plot of land is thriving in a rainier than usual season, and, pending no natural disaster, it will grow enough food to feed the village of more than fifty families next year.  For a week or so in April, many workers from the town help to plant the Milpa.  In February - the staples of corn, beans, and squash, - as well as other crops like jicama, amaranth, and melon - will be harvested and distributed to the people of the village.  The Milpa will be burned, covering the soil with nutrient-rich ashes and preparing it for another planting season.  Store houses will preserve crops like corn and beans in lime and families will return there weekly for their staples.  

"3 Sisters of the Milpa":  Corn, Squash, and Beans



Last season's corn, preserved with Lime

The Milpa is cultivated without fertilizer or pesticides in a field filled with rocks and trees, and everything is thriving.  One threat is the birds, Don Fausto tells us.  He will wake up as early as 4am in order to arrive to scare away the birds in the morning.  If they are really bad, he builds scare crows.  Other risks include hurricanes that can wipe out an entire Milpa in one evening.  Fortunately, growing is a long-term investment.  Some seasons, a good milpa will provide beans and corn for two or more years.
  

Stone markers every 20 meters measure the fields


Don Fausto seems confused when I ask him where he gets his seeds for the Milpa.  "From here, at harvest time" is the obvious answer.  This is a contrast to modern farmers in the region who receive sterile corn seeds, corn fertilizer, and about $100 U.S. dollars each season.  At the beginning of each season, they receive new seeds.  Many find that their land is stripped of nutrients after several years of corn farming and they are unable to return to growing other crops on it.  As of this post, beekeepers and farmers in the region are fighting with Monsanto to prevent the introduction of thousands of acres of transgenic soy and corn in the region.  Such a measure could destroy the honey industry in the Yucatan as well as the integrity of the heritage crops that grow there.

In terms of profit, Don Fausto says the goal is feeding the town, not making a large profit.  Nonetheless, the Milpa does allow him and those he shares the land with to survive.  He excitedly shows us the squash, which are spreading across the fields. "Look how well they're coming along with all of this rain" he tells us.  The flesh of the squash will be candied or eaten cooked.  The seeds will be dried on the the town's roofs and sold for more than 4 dollars/kilo.  When the harvest is good, this can mean a profit of $900 or more.


Squash growing over a bed of rocks


A healthy bean plant

Fausto, 60, has been coming to the fields each day since he was 8 years old.  Later in the day, he'll wrangle his 3 cows and return them to their pasture.  He used to have many more, he tells us, but he sold them for his son's two wedding parties.
  

Talking to Don Fausto about his lifetime of farming


As we leave the Milpa, the sun is shining brightly and the field is heating up.  H. Garrison Wilkes, a Maize researcher calls the Milpa "one of the most successful human inventions ever created".  The success of Fausto's Milpa is clear - likely a result of both his labor and love for the earth.

  

Don Fausto in the field were he's worked for more than fifty years



Nuevo Durango´s Famous Golondrinas

We were lucky enough to arrive in Nuevo Durango at the right time- just before 6 in the evening. Every day around 6 o´clock, between the months of May and December, one of the major natural wonders of the village occurs. Watching the descent of hundreds of swallows (in Spanish- golondrinas) into an old well near the center of town was a great start to a great stay in this Maya pueblo.

 

Turkeys on the road to the sparrows` well.

The well, just past the church from the town´s center, has a raised limestone lip and, like the nearby cenote, decends at least 20 meters before arriving at water. We peered in and were able to see 5 or so meters down in the late afternoon sunlight, enough to make out several resting birds, which I wasn´t able to identify (and, unlike Jenny, still wasn´t sure what the ``golondrina´´ signified in English).


The well, with Pedro about to show
depth with a match.

Pedro, who lives across the street from the well and took us there from our cabanas in the town´s center, indicated that we could watch the show sitting on some nearby cut tree trunks. These seats were less than ten feet from the well. I asked if we wouldn´t scare off the birds from our vantage point. Apparently not. And right then, the first four or five swallows arrived, flying in circles around the well.

Jenny and Pedro approaching the well. In front, the
audeince seating.


Occationally, on their loop around the well, it appeared that some of the swallows were going to dive into the well, but at the last minute they swooped upwards, and towards us. More than once, the birds came so close to me on their ascent back towards the other side of the well that their individual wing-flapping sounded loud. Eventually, more birds joined the initial few. And soon, we saw the first bird make an actual descent into the well. This would be the first of hundreds we would see enter the well that evening. We did not see a single swallow leave the well, which according to residents only happens in the morning, either very early or towards midday.




Couldn´t hold off eating the seeds
of the passion fruit before snapping a photo

 As more birds joined the circling flock, and we watched with delight as 3, 4, 5 and sometimes many more birds at a time gracefully dropped in the well (video below), we got a preview of the generosity of the people of Nuevo Durango. First, some young girls brought us several bunches of guaya fruit, which Jenny wrote about in a previous post, from a nearby tree. Delicious. Then, someone else handed each of us a freshly picked guava (guyaba in Spanish). The rind and pith are the edible parts of this somewhat sour, green fruit that looks similar to but is nothing like a lime. We were told to avoid eating the seeds. Next, another villager arrived with a passion fruit (maracuya in Spanish) for us to share. Here, the seeds are the edible part, and their delicious, sweet flavor is somewhat well-known around Chicago because the artificial flavoring of passion fruit is common. It was recommended that I try eating the fruit with chile powder, which later I did, and I now recommend to anyone reading.

For the next hour or so we enjoyed our fruit, the spectacle of the golondrinas, and conversation with the villagers. We heard that these swallows are unique to the area- Nuevo Durango has the only known nesting site around. There was some dispute about how many sparrows there are, and some laughing at the prospect of counting each individual (one local tour company claims there are 5,000- which seems a bit high to us). And there was interesting speculation, like the idea that the golondrinas descend simultaneously as family units, or that the last golondrina to enter the well is dominant among the entire flock. Watching thousands of birds circling and entering a well less than a meter in diameter right before sunset has a way of generating lots questions in one´s mind. One of these, for me, was, "How can Nuevo Durango out-do itself after these unforgetable first hours?"