Sadness of Stray Dogs & Awesomeness of Tikal

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I begin this blog with a bit of sorrow. There are lot's of stray dogs; in Belize none that I saw looked too bad but here in El Ramate there are some very skinny ones. One in particular that is hard for me to look at. Tonight we were eating dinner outside and this one dog and another thin one were just staring at us. Nauseated doesn't even begin to describe how I felt. I looked for dog food at the little store near our hotel and they had none or anything that I thought would be good for the dog. I bought a can of corn thinking that it would be better than nothing and after all they have corn in some dog food right? I waited for the dog to reappear and he did not. I looked for him but couldn't find him. Finally on my 3rd attempt I found him and gave him the can of corn. He didn't eat it. I was dumbfounded, he looks near death how could he not eat whatever I gave him? He ran off and seemed scared so I'm hoping after I left that he came back and ate it. I don't want to give it chips or some processed garbage, that can't be good for dogs. I wish I were a vet, then I could travel around and neuter all these dogs. That is the real problem, they just keep having babies. *sigh* Now that I have that off my chest I can tell you about the wonderful day that we had. We awoke at 5:00 am to get ready to catch our 5:30 bus to Tikal. It was night when we walked outside but by the time we arrived it was light out and totally misty. All the trees in the jungle were dripping water, it was gorgeous! The ruins were truly amazing, it's crazy to think about the amount of man hours that went into creating all of the structures. We climbed countless stairs and at one of the temples you could see the tops of a few other temples and the jungle in every direction. It was breathtaking. I know the pictures will not do it justice. There were so many buildings and monuments. I kind of regret that we didn't get a guide because we didn't know much of the history of each temple but we already spent money to get there and to get into the park and after all we were able to roam around everywhere. I suppose that is what the internet is for...if we get back to a place with internet we can actually use. When we tried to connect to the WiFi it actually said "avoided poor internet connection" I laughed out loud 😉 Back to the ruins- We saw tons of spider monkeys, they are awesome, such long legs, arms and tails withe little pot bellies. Our first encounter was thanks to a couple of Europeans tellings us they had just passed some. Sure enough we looked high up into the trees and saw them. Later we got great video of one moving around and eating. As the day went on, when you heard things falling out of the trees you would just look up and see them. It was very entertaining. We also saw lots of pretty birds including brightly colored turkeys and coatis (not sure of the spelling, a local animal) It was quite the experience for me. I think 8 hours was more than we needed but if we had had a proper breakfast we may have had more energy. We went swimming again when we got back to the hotel, it really is a lovely place.

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Comments

[Wendy Bailey]

Dogs
Hey Eya...thanks so much for including me in your blog post! Great to hear from you and to read of your adventures. A thought on the dogs....the food that wild dogs need is more than likely raw meat....corn and other grains are not a natural food for wild dogs....and many domestic dogs have issues with grains and corn additives to their food. Perhaps, if you can find some, raw meat would be something easy for them to digest and part of their normal diet. Cooked meat is good as well, however, the cooked bones can be pretty harmful, as they can really shred their intestines/stomachs. I have done a fair amount of research on this, as I have a domesticated dog that has some pretty severe stomach issues....she does really well on raw meat and raw bones. Hope you are enjoying every minute of a great adventure. Cheers to you for a festive holiday out of the country!!! Wendy Bailey

[eyaaaaaaaahhhhhh]

Thanks for the info, I will look for raw meat next time. We are in Antigua now and I haven´t seen any stray dogs, it is a rich city. So glad you can enjoy my blog!