Blogs from Gallon Jug, Orange Walk District, Belize, Central America Caribbean

The bird watchers clucked that persistent rain was going to diminish the annual bird count. After the morning tour, Maureen and I hiked a few miles on our own through the jungle, which is impossible to capture in a photo, though we tried. I showed Maureen one of the tombs which a prior guide had shown me. Like most sites, this one had been pretty much pillaged by tomb raiders. Nowadays, archeological excavation is directed by infrared satellite photography, very effective. My Mayan guide was quite sad about the resulting loss of his history and therefore identity. He was the carrier of oral tradition for his clan, worrying about whether his son would carry on this tradition. We took the rest of the day off to relax, idly watching one of the staff -there were forty ... read more

Guides and birds We had individual guides. I do like to start with guides, not so much for the information, but more to chat them up about their lives. Here, the guides grew up in the jungle, swimming, he said, with the crocodiles. That evening we took Night Walk which was a bit spooky, with flashlights, rain dripping, howler monkeys in the back ground, looking for jaguar eyes in the darkness. Maybe we would see the armadillo here. We only saw wolf spiders, bats, and crocodiles. Wolf spider eyes could reflect a flashlight beam from a hundred feet. Dark, slippery in the mud, I fell and cracked my view finder. I now had a 1950’s camera and I did not know when batteries were low. I don't have any of the photos I took on the ... read more