What's it like to travel through Central America with nothing but a bicycle, a laptop computer, a satellite dish, a few supplies, and a few hundred thousand friends?
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What's it like to travel through Central America with nothing but a bicycle, a laptop computer, a satellite dish, a few supplies, and a few hundred thousand friends?
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What if you had the chance to go on a three-month trip to Central America to explore la ruta Maya? What if you planned to cover over 2,000 miles but had only your bike for trans-portation? What if you brought the maps you needed, but wouldn't know exactly where to go until students from over 40,000 schools sent you e-mail to vote on your route? What if you had to go on this trip with your brother?
Explorers (and brothers) Dan and Steve Buettner did all this and more on their MayaQuest expedition. But this wasn't their first bike trip. They rode 15,536 miles from Alaska to Argentina, covered 12,888 miles in the former Soviet Union, and biked 12,107 miles from Tunisia to South Africa. During the MayaQuest trek, each team member rode over 1,200 miles.
Dan, team leader, and Steve, team journalist and videographer, were joined by Julie Acuff, who served as the epigrapher, and photographer Doug Mason. To prepare for the trek, they consulted with Maya researchers, including archaeologists and ethnobotanists. They studied Maya history for clues to the collapse of this advanced civilization during the ninth century.
The team limited the supplies they brought-clothing, passports, money, bicycle repair supplies, maps, medical supplies, sleeping bags, tents, pots and pans, food, and toiletries. Water bottle purifiers allowed them to drink whatever water they could find.
A unique aspect of the trek was the technology that encouraged anyone with access
to the Internet to interact with the team. Using a laptop computer powered by
solar panels, team members recorded daily journal entries, calculated distances,
and communicated via
e-mail with students and others who followed the trek. With a portable satellite
telephone, the team sent faxes, photos, and data and voice transmissions. Using
two 8mm video cameras, they recorded sights and discoveries and transmitted the
images via satellite.
Team members entered information onto a computer, connected to a suitcase-sized satellite transmitter. The information was sent as a radio signal to a satellite orbiting 22,400 miles above the equator. The satellite relayed the signal to a station in Southbury, Connecticut, which transmitted it over 800 miles of phone lines to Hamline University in St. Paul, Minnesota. There the message was placed on the Maya-Quest home page on the Internet. In just three months, it received over 1.1 million visits.
Connections
1. What effect might the MayaQuest trek have on the lives of modern Maya?
2. Why do we study other civilizations?
archaeologist a scientist who studies the life and culture of ancient people
e-mail electronic mail sent from one computer to another by means of special
software and a modem connected to a telephone line, or between computers
connected to a network
epigrapher someone who deciphers hieroglyphs
ethnobotanist scientist who studies how humans use and relate to plants
la ruta Maya Spanish for "Maya route." The term refers to the regions
of Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, and Honduras where the Maya lived.
videographer person who records events with a video camera
Main Activity
Want to design your own bicycle trek? A lot of careful planning is required to make sure everything's ready before you get started.
Materials
Much of what we know about a culture, including our own, is found in folk
stories. Many folktales explain why something happened, or how something got its
name. Write your own folktale to explain something about your culture. You could
even be the main character!
In the math you do daily, you use a base 10 system. Computers use a binary system
(zero and one are the only numbers). The system developed by the Maya was base
20. It used a dot for one, a bar for five, and a shell for zero. How would you
create your own math system using another base? What symbols would you use to
represent each group of numbers?
The MayaQuest team traveled over 1,200 miles on their bicycle trek through the
Maya region. Set up a stationary exercise bicycle (someone's parent probably has
one you can borrow) in your classroom. Attach an odometer if it doesn't already
have one. Take turns riding it daily, and keep a journal of how "far"
you travel, how long it takes, and how you feel when you're done. What is the
ratio between how far you ride each day and how far the trekkers went daily? How
long would it take you to match the miles ridden by the MayaQuest team?
We encourage duplication for educational
Newton's Apple is a production of KTCA Twin Cities Public Television.
Made possible by a grant from 3M.
Educational materials developed with the National Science Teachers
Association.