
Google Earth has sent ‘congratulations’ notices to say that a few of my images – like this one of Poza Honda – were very popular.
Poza Honda/ManabiProvince Ecuador – Have any of you ever added images to Google Earth-Maps? It’s always been interesting to peruse those images and explore areas that we know well or to ‘cyber travel’ to new destinations without leaving home! The Satellite Image option helped me fine-tune my search for a new place to live, and reference images were very helpful.
This past week on Google Earth, I entered some GPS points for where I live – before passing them along for scientific reasons; almost immediately I hit a glitch. I could not find a place to type the coordinates. Perhaps that option is somewhere on the page, but I did not find it. Next I looked for my pinned images, and they were gone! In fact, there were no pinned images to anything on the map. Towns and places of interest were marked by name only. The letters were small and difficult to see – and my laptop has a large screen!

Google Chrome browser… note how tiny the bottom right options appear. That’s where one finds the photo options.
Eventually I found the image option, which on my windows browser showed in a long horizontal strip at the bottom of the page. There were photos from different areas, and mine could not be accessed until scrolling east on the map, leaving the house site out of view. After I selected and enlarged one of my ‘popular’ images, a little arrow-type bar zipped from the photo and pointed into the middle of the lake! Ha, I had to laugh – it was several kilometers from the right location and was obviously submerged at the bottom of the reservoir!

Opera browser provided slightly-easier to view options.

The Dec 3rd earthquake, which rattled the house for almost a minute, must have nudged this particular GPS point into the lake!
Unable to drag it back in place via the old system that worked well, I opened a new window and did a search which took me to a Google Earth/Maps forum. Oh my, demons must have firmly attached themselves to those who make decisions for Google Earth/Maps, and they have made a lovely mess of what was once a well-managed site.
I moved to another quadrant that I know well – the area around Jama, and I remembered that someone had posted a picture of a Royal Poinciana/Flamboyant. I was curious to see if it still marked the correct spot. In real life, the tree was within view of where I once lived near the mouth of Rio Jama.

Royal Poinciana (Delonix regia)still stands, though the nearby farmhouse was destroyed in the April 16, 2016 earthquake.

Flamboyant/Royal Poinciana paired with the Green Kingfisher for a great photo op – The rear balcony of Casa Loca. 2013
There were zero photos of that area, but there were new ones from 2018 of the community of La Division. Checking various photos in the town a few kilometers inland, I discovered that the lovely flaming Poinciana tree had been magically transplanted to Jama! (Jama, still recovering from the earthquake, could actually use several dozen of those lovely trees!) Continue reading →
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