Danube last

A last lot of photos from tuesday, our last day touring in the delta. Photos are not in order, I still have not figured out how to do that, but will try to talk to all photos here. a few shots will show our morning outing to see the sunrise and one of the sunset from the night before. In the morning we went up to the top channel to get into a certain lake to look for shorebirds. We went past some old Russian infrastructure put up in the
70s when they were draining wetlands to turn land into agriculture. All that is abandoned now so you see buildings like these and the odd herd of animals, but otherwise the land is just sitting high and dry. On this last day we got to a number of large lakes but they are still shallow, so getting across them is very slow and before lunch we actually got stuck and had to shimmy around quite a bit and move from one side or the other of the boat to get it moving again. Heading back to Tulcea we saw numerous fisherman all along the way who looked like fisherman. Our vary last lake had hundreds of pelicans and because my camera is not good for distance you will only see a line of white in the distance. This lne of white is around 500 white pelicans which were wheeling around whenever we got a bit closer. I think I put in one of my frog photos as well. All in all it was a wonderful few days seeing a small portion of the delta. I hope you have enjoyed my amateur photographing efforts. Home soon.

Leaving Tulcea

This is the morning that I start my homeward journey. I will do one more posting on the Danube when I get to a better connection.
We are back in the town of Tulcea where we will be transported back to Bucharest by car. There is a free city wide wifi service here but you have to find the spots. There is one spot on the boat and we have all been sharing it.yesterday morning on the way into tulcea we passed a lot of ships that looked like old military. Florin told us this was all of the Romanian army, they are building up capacity to take over turkey. He was probably joking, but you never know. Last night they gave us a small send off party with a very large cake and a couple of local musicians.
This morning we all got smiley eggs for breakfast.

Danube 3

The real bird watchers in our group tell me that we saw approximately 55 species of birds over the past few days. I have probably seen half of those, but that is ok with me.
This morning we left earlier to go to the north to visit Latea Forest via the village of Latea, perhaps the most remote village in the Danube Delta. In the whole of the Danube there are approximately 15,000 people but there are only a few towns, maybe 3. ptherwise it s dotted with villages! Some of them quite traditional. In the village of Latea there are approximately 400 people. It is right on the northern most edge of the Delta and close to the Border of the Ukraine, so this village has a lot of people of Ukrainian descent people living in it, but our guide tells us that they are still Romanians and they do speak Romanian. But I think the village sign is written in both western script and Ukrainian script.
You will see in the photos that we had a welcoming committee on the shoreline, a small dog with a bad underbite and a very interesting truck that was our transport to the forest.The village was lovely and I would have quite happily stayed there while everyone else went to the forest, but that was not to be. But you will see some pictures of the houses and other things in the village.
The forest is what they term a primordial forest, one of the oldest oak forests in Europe, approximately 700 years old. There is no water visible, only lots of sand and oak and poplar trees. However, the water is not far away in reality. The forest is a groundwater dependent wetlands. it is a very old sand dune system that has built up over the years, much like Stockton Bight. At the highest point it is 12 meters above sea level and there is a picture of this high point, but in many areas it drops to below sea level and in these locations it hits ground water and this is where the oaks and poplars are growing. Along a path on the forest is a well and you can see this in one of the photos. there is a bucket on a pully and you can pull up water from the well.
We met up with our hotel boat along the old Danube and had a swim in the river before lunch. After lunch we went back out in the small boat to visit the many small lakes between the northern and middle channels. One of the Most interesting things we saw was the Floating reed islands which are huge. They are groups of plants which have grown on a platform of built up rhizomes from many seasons of reeds. In most cases they are sitting on the floor of the wetlands, but they are not really connected by anything. because there is also a lot of air trapped in the base, if the water is high enough they will come loose and float and can even move about. The one we stopped at was about 2.5 metres thick, as demonstrated by Florin shoving a very long stick down into it and then pulling it out and watching the water bubble up.

We saw lots of frogs and dragon flies along the way. Then a storm came out of nowhere. We could see it in the distance and did not think it was anywhere near us, but came around the corner of one of the channels and ran right into it. this caused a bit of excitement, but we arrived back into the main channel to find our hotel boat waiting for us. We enjoyed a beautiful sunset and the plan is to get up very early to be on the closest lake for sunrise at 5.30.

Danube2

Day2
On our hotel boat we each have a small cabin downstairs and upstairs is a large room dominated by our dining table, which was set up for a welcoming dinner on the evening. this morning I am first up and it is already set For brekkie. Gabriella is taking care of us on the boat, Nellu is the boatman and Florin is our Danube Delta Guide.
Our first day took us eAst into the Delta in a smaller boat which could navigate the places we were going. there are 3 main channels in the delta. The Northern channel is on the border between Romania and Ukraine. the middle channel is a mixture of the old Danube and a man made channel that goes to Selina on the coast. This has been maintained for years as the main navigable channel We took the middle one in the morning and explored many lakes via a series of smaller channels. The bird life is huge in numbers, with the most famous being the White Pelican and there are hundreds of these wheeling around all the time. There is hardly any time when cameras are at rest, especially with this group. We have some serious bird people here and they have cameras to match. you will see some in the pictures. Their Binoculars are equally serious but those only get so big.
I can keep up with the general groups of birds but once we get down to the grey sandpiper vs the common sandpiper I am gone. Our guide is really on top of his birds so that is good for the rest of the group.
some 6 hours later we hooked back up with our hotel boat for lunch and then back into the small boat to go north. By evening we were on the old Danube somewhere south of the the Oak forests. This is where we will go tomorrow.
It is hot, but when the boat is moving it is fine as long as you are under cover, so we are all hovering under the small roof area on the boat. It is amazing to think that in the winter the delta freezes over for 4 months and most channels are unnavigable. There are pictures in the books and it looks so special, but I cannot imagine how they get in there to take the photos.

Danube1

Danube1
To get to the Danube delta we drove northeast towards the Black Sea on a small bus with our guide Laurentsio, who is young and very confident and a self proclaimed expert on many things. he gives us a running commentary for most of the trip. The seaside town is Costanza. The town on the Danube River is Tulcea and this is where our boat awaits us. The first part of the journeying across flat country covered with either sunflowers or corn, one for oil and not sure about the other. We pass through a couple of small towns or villages and horse and carts were very common. Every village has a church and in all cases the churches are very fancy compared to the houses, which are mostly smallish and one story. this is the case except for the town which Laurentsio tells us is kind of owned by the gypsies. He says that if you had a car stolen in the UK it is probably here! Sure enough you can easily see loads of cars with UK license plates. Laurentsio has strong opinions on gypsies, some good and some bad, and he shares with these with us, where they came from (India), why their culture is different, why there are so many in Romania, why it is impossible to assimilate them, and many other things. In this town there are many very large ugly houses that are definitely different, with these big front doors with panes of rounded glass that had a very shiny effect. L said these were all gypsie houses as this is what they liked to do with their money.
L also hates idiots and there are a lot of them in Romania, especially government officials, bad drivers and kids who vandalize. If he had his way he would take care of them with a baseball bat. L is also a biologist, and he does know his stuff. he was born in the Danube and will die there and would sell his family to protect it!
Our group of 8 is now 9 as we have been joined by young Pierre from France who was also at the COP. Others are Sandra, my Scottish friend who I see in Switzerland every year, Max and Pierre from Australia, Randy from Canada, Lisa and Mathew from Kenya and UK and Chris from UK.
Once our things are on the boat we do a short reccie in the town and there are a few photos of a typical Saturday afternoon in Tulcea.

Last shots of Bucharest

Leaving for the Danube this morning. I have no idea what wireless connection we will have there so this could LMBR the end of the blog or at least a 4 day gap between postings.
This morning I did a last who around to look for music and anything interesting and unfortunately I found a few things. Hopefully there will be nothing to buy in the Danube, just wonderful things to see.

Last hours of the meeting

We are definitely in the final minutes. The sticking point has definitely been the Climate change resolution around the inclusion of terms and mechanisms around forests. Countries with lots of forests do not want to sign anything that will limit what they can do with their forests. Brazil has been the biggest objector and just in the last half hour the final group of countries went into a huddle out on the balcony to find words they could agree with. They are still not fully satisfied but they are going with the group. The chair has just thanked them for not being stubborn.
I have included a photo of Prof Tsugi from Japan who has seen it all before and was not getting into a lather.
Other folks were using the break
In proceedings to take a few photos. Of you are silly enought to want more detail here is the site for today's news.
http://www.iisd.ca/ramsar/cop11/

Bucharest buildings

Last day of the meeting here and we are down to the difficult ones. There are 40 minutes left and still 6 resolutions to approve. Those countries who are involved in discussions are doing the Most work but in general most countries are still in the plenary.
I am trying to listen but use the time to write up my notes from the meeting.
Just a bit about my tour Wednesday and the view of buildings from the top of the bus. The city really has a great collection of monumental buildings. Here and there you can see buildings that are not in use at all and are falling apart. Others have been taken over by hotels. But by and large most are still in use. one of the pictures is the palace of the people where the ramsar meeting is being held. It was only built in the
1980s but you can see that it is mimicking the style of an older buildings. It is grossly overdeveloped and the guide book says hundreds of houses and churches were razed or moved for the building. Sounds like it was the last straw for the people because in the 1989 revolution the crowds poured in and he had to escape by helicopter but was tracked down somewhere in Romania and shot.
You will also see an unusual sculpture, a black blob on a white arrow like structure. There are two of these and they were designed Nd installed to remember those who dies in the
1989 revolution. Locals call them olives on a stick. When you get close the black blobs look burned and there is a smear of red which I think is supposed to be blood. There are also some lovely parks in the town, one that was like a small forest.