Today, Patrick (my guide) and I went off to see Xunantunich, the second-largest Mayan ruin in Belize. It’s not one of the big Mayan sites–Tikal, 2.5 hours away in Guatemala, is supposedly much more impressive–but it was damn impressive nonetheless. One massive stone temple, at least 4 stories high, a large courtyard, and several partially excavated smaller structures. The scale was amazing–I hadn’t envisioned such a giant mass of stone. Now I really, really want to see the “big” Mayan ruins. It’s too bad I won’t get a chance on this trip. (Life is too damn short, dammit.)

I’m amazed by the engineering, especially since the bottom layers appear to be haphazardly arranged bits of rock. I wouldn’t have expected it to hold up under the enormous weight of the upper layers. It must have been damn, damn impressive when it was first built…the estimates are that it was built in 800 AD and abandoned by 1100 AD. I have a hard time imagining anything that old. Angkor Wat was incredible and beautiful (and very well-preserved), but it only dates back about 600 years. 600 years I can imagine, but a thousand?

Anyway, verbal descriptions can’t do justice to the place, so I’m going to post photos once I get back. But to really “get” it, you have to go there yourself…the sheer scale of the place is hard to feel from a photo. I got vertigo several times on the way up (especially since it was a narrow staircase with no handrails).

And this is a minor ruin.

Now I must see the other great Mayan sites…aack! Life is so short. But I still must see them before I die. And the Great Pyramids, and…

Here’s a link to a webpage about Xunantunich.

We had an interesting moment on the way over to Xunantunich. I got to go on a hand-cranked ferry. The road crosses a small river, and a small wooden ferry takes the car and passengers across. The ferry is not paddled or motor-driven, however; there are cables running across the river, and a small winch is used to pull the ferry along the cables. I tried cranking it (traveling tigresses must stick their paws into everything) and it was surprisingly easy. I conned the ferryman into letting me crank it all the way across. (He probably thought I was nuts, but it was fun.)

As I was getting ready to board the ferry, Patrick suddenly said, “Hey! You want to take a photo of that iguana over there?” I looked over, and damn! there was a GIANT iguana standing not ten feet from me. Unfortunately, as I got the camera out, he lumbered off the grass and climbed lazily up a tree, whereupon I noticed another enormous iguana in the same tree–on the same branch. Two iguanas on one branch created a little iguanajam, and I snapped a photo.

(I am becoming darkly suspicious of all trees. Even the most innocuous-looking one could be secretly harboring iguanas…! I am scanning them all as I pass.)

At any rate, we made it up and over the ferry to the ruins. I asked Patrick about a lot of trees on the way–he pointed out several that had edible fruits, and I tried one–tart, a little astringent, but not bad at all, though there was only about 1/16″ of fruit over a giant seed. There was also an intriguing tree called “Monkey’s Ear”, which had giant brown seed pods in the shape of a flat curl (thus the name “Monkey’s Ear”), and beautiful black-and-red-striped seeds inside that I’ve seen in local jewelry. Patrick said there was a close relative of this tree with hypothermic properties. If you rub the seeds, they get really hot–hot enough to burn. The local kids used to have fun suckering each other into touching the seeds (dropping them down people’s shirts, etc.).

On our way back from the ruins, we stopped by a butterfly-rearing house, where the guy apologized and said he only had four or five species right now, as it was the worst possible season for butterflies. (We’re now near the end of an exceptionally long dry season, and the hot dry weather is forcing many species into hibernation.) He had some beautiful blue morphos, though, and giant owl butterflies. I asked him how they got their name, and he picked one up, gently opened its wings, and showed me an owl’s face! Two big brown “eyes” on the underside made the owl’s eyes, and the fat bottom half of the body made a perfect owl’s beak. I took a photo, which I will post later.

He also showed me their butterfly-rearing center–how they collect the eggs, hatch out the caterpillars, and rear them to the chrysalis stage, at which point they put them in the butterfly house. This is not a commercial butterfly farm–they’re breeding them strictly as an educational display. (I was a bit disappointed, as I had been hoping to buy a few butterflies as paperweights, etc.) I was fascinated by the whole thing–I hadn’t realized there were so many species of butterfly in Belize. The morpho larvae were particularly beautiful–bold shades of yellow and maroon. The owl-butterfly caterpillars looked like giant green slugs–but kinda cute in their own way.

The last stop on the trip was the Blue Hole. It’s a tiny lagoon set in lush jungle–a clear, shallow sandy slope (with six-inch fish darting about) leads gradually down into a deep blue swimming-hole lined with limestone formations. It’s wonderful for swimming–especially after a hot day among the ruins. I spent at least twenty minutes frolicking in the water, chasing the tiny sandy fish, and sitting on a crinkly piece of limestone, gazing down into the blue water.

(It was SO nice to be able to bathe in fresh water. The drought here has been so bad that I’ve been taking very spare showers–just enough to wet down and rinse off. Being able to soak in fresh water and get clean–really clean–was wonderful.)

Tomorrow Patrick and I are going fishing and snorkeling–he promised Tricia (my landlady) fish for dinner, and I want to catch and eat a barracuda. Tonight, Tricia went out looking for breadfruit for me (I was curious about it and wanted to try some)–once I get back, I’ll find out whether she succeeded.

Conch are also very common in the waters around here, and we’re going to try getting some…Patrick assures me that conch soup is very tasty, and he wants to take a photo of me diving for one. LOL! I’ll be happy if I can just catch a barracuda.

Oh, and there are reputedly 30-40 pound grouper in them there waters, too.

I’m still debating what to do about Friday. I don’t have to be at the Belize City airport until around 3pm, but the only bus out of Hopkins leaves at 7am. I’m highly tempted to wait a little later, then bribe Tricia into hitchhiking to Dangriga with me. I’ve never tried hitchhiking before, and think it would be cool to try. (Almost everyone hitchhikes around here, because there are so few buses.) But I’d rather not try it on my own (especially since I don’t understand the protocols yet), so I think I’ll try conning her into coming with me. A “hitchhiker’s guide”, if you will–but, alas, only to Dangriga, not the galaxy. 😉

From Dangriga I plan to fly to Belize City, then to Guatemala, then home. I’ve already achieved my primary goal, which is to get a really stunning tan, the kind to make all my once-and-future coworkers jealous. And have a great time, of course.

Tien

I have turned into a crazed iguana stalker.

Iguanas, you see, live in trees. I had never realized this before, having only seen them in terrariums, and, hilariously, once in a kiddie wading pool at the International Reptile Breeders’ Association show in San Diego…there were dozens of baby iguanas skittering around the bottom of the wading pool, and enthusiastic six-year-olds would lean precariously over the edge of the pool, waiting for an unsuspecting baby iguana to come within reach, then teeter over the edge, grab, and come up with a baby iguana. I had never before seen “bobbing for iguanas”, but I think it would make great Halloween entertainment.

…uh, where was I?

Right. I was on the river, in a boat, and Patrick, my guide, suddenly pointed thirty feet up into a tree and said, “Look! An iguana!” I looked up, couldn’t see a damn thing, followed his pointing finger, still couldn’t see anything, and FINALLY, just as we were going by, saw it: a giant male iguana, at least four or five feet long, draped insouciantly over a branch, complacently happy in his iguana-hood.

I was floored. Iguanas can climb trees! They live thirty feet off the ground! They don’t spend all their time in terrariums! And man, that was one honkin’ big iguana.

After that, I started looking for iguanas as we floated downriver. I couldn’t see any, couldn’t see any, couldn’t see any (even with Patrick pointing them out), and then…hey! Is that an IGUANA??

Sure enough, I’d spotted a big old male sunning himself in a tree. After that I started scanning every passing tree, and found a total of five iguanas. And now I know: iguanas DO grow on trees. LOL

We saw quite a bit of wildlife on the river trip. My crocodile hopes were dashed (apparently the crocs weren’t croc’ing today), but we saw blue heron, yellow flycatchers, plover, a hawk and two vultures. And then there was the magical moment when Patrick cried out, “Look! You see that toucan flying over there?” And by God, there WAS a toucan there. I’d never seen one outside the zoo.

We also saw a parrot fly by. I’d seen parrots in the wild once before, in Rewalsar/Tsol Pema, India, in a surreal moment: I was standing at the top of a ridge, in a bamboo forest wreathed in fog, and saw many blunt-headed, green birds flying by. It took me a moment to realize that yes, I was standing there, at the top of the world, watching parrots fly by.

This was like that, except on the river. It was a lovely parrot, too, green with a red head. I love the way parrots fly–they have a distinctly bullet-shaped profile, very cool.

The vegetation along the river was also varied. I am fascinated by mango trees–they grew wild along the river, and Patrick told me there were twenty or thirty varieties of mango at least. I of course must try every single variety–especially a particularly beautiful purple-blue mango that leaned out far over the water–but unfortunately, most of them weren’t ripe yet. It’s just the beginning of mango season.

There were also wild cashews growing along the river! I hadn’t realized that cashews are native to Belize, but they apparently are…I recognized the distinctive fruit immediately. I was tempted to ask Patrick to come in a little closer so I could pick a couple of cashew apples, but remembered in time that the flavor is, well, not too good.

We saw breadfruit trees–“like potato, but better”, and a tree fruit called wild grape that tastes like blueberries. Patrick informed me that iguana was called “bamboo chicken” locally, and that both iguana and iguana eggs were tasty, but they weren’t eaten anymore. There were a few other edible foods whose names I can’t remember.

(If it sounds like I was obsessed with food, I was. It was nearly sundown, and I hadn’t eaten since breakfast.)

I am fascinated with the number of wild fruit trees here. In the U.S., there aren’t many fruit trees growing wild–if it’s a fruit tree, odds are it was planted and odds are it’s a specially bred variety. Along the river bank, they grow lushly, and seemingly without premeditation.

There were plenty of other trees along the river, probably the most photogenic being the mangroves. They rise up out of the water on their elevated roots, and have long, bean-like fruits which drop off into the water and float–often for amazingly long distances–until they find a new spot to sprout in. There were also emery trees, mahogany, and ceiba trees (which are the national tree of Guatemala).

Sadly, we saw no crocs and no manatee, but I was so thrilled about the toucan (and the iguanas!) that I wasn’t too disappointed. And the iguanas looked so cool while sunning themselves on branches. Henceforth I shall check every passing tree for iguanas. 🙂

Tomorrow I’m going out to see some Inca ruins and a lagoon called the Blue Hole; Thursday, we go out fishing and snorkeling. Friday, I head (regretfully) home.

Tien

This is fascinating. Sand dollars are actually very flat sea urchins (weird, eh?). The rough “hairs” are actually miniature spines (sea urchin spines), and they have little tube feet they use to walk around and keep from getting buried. The hole in the center is a very powerful mouth, and the five little “doves” that fall out of broken sand dollars are teeth. The five gills make up the five-petaled “flower” on the top of a sand dollar.

Most sand dollars live about 30-40 feet under the ocean, in the subtidal region (so you have to dive to see them). They’re quite abundant at that depth, though. It’s quite unusual for them to be so shallow (here they’re only 2-3 feet underwater), but there isn’t much tidal variation here, and the slopes are long and gradual, so they get water all the time. They either feed by moving around on their little tube feet and eating whatever’s underneath them, or by sticking themselves vertically in the sand so water washes through them. The little “grooves” in live sand dollars are actually feeding areas, where food gets trapped in mucus and moved along to the mouth by little cilia.

Now I have to go find another sand dollar and take a closer look at it. I’d love to dissect one, but that would be kinda rude. (I might do it anyway, but curiosity isn’t a very good excuse for taking a critter apart, IMO. If it isn’t hurting me and I don’t want to eat it, I’d rather live and let live.)

However, I think someone brought a live (now dead) sand dollar to the inn yesterday–I may ask them if I can dissect it, since it’s there anyway.

At any rate, I’m sure that’s way more than you ever wanted to know about sand dollars, but dang, they’re cool.

Today the waters are a bit rough, so I’m going out on a river tour in an hour or two. I’m torn about what to do over the next few days–there’s snorkeling/fishing, but there’s also an Inca ruin and a very beautiful lagoon (the “Blue Hole”) that would be another good day trip. Either would be $150 for the day, which is a big chunk of change, not sure I can really afford that and the river trip. I may ask the guide if he can bring it down a little for the two-day package. Or I may just soak up the cost; I’m only going to be in Belize once, and I fly home (actually, to Guatemala) on Friday.

If I can find someone else to go along, of course, it’ll be cheaper. Even one other person would bring the cost down a lot.

Anyway, I’m off to prep for the river trip…

Tien

Went diving this morning. The reef is GORGEOUS–lots of coral everywhere, moray eels, bright yellow-and-blue fish that flash as they swim by, schools of tiny electric blue fish. Sea fans, purple tube-like coral, brain coral, big lobsters with wavy antennae, small coral shrimp, and eagle rays flapping by. Awesome, awesome experience. (The Similan Islands were a little nicer, but this is still incredible.)

That said, I wasn’t in much shape to appreciate most of it, as I spent a good chunk of my time concentrating on not drowning. I hadn’t been diving for two years, so little details like breathing through your respirator, clearing your face mask, etc. were a bit rusty. At one point, when my mask flooded, I nearly panicked completely–almost started gulping water before I remembered I could clear my respirator and breathe through it. Two or three (very long) minutes later, I finally remembered how to clear my face mask. After that I managed to enjoy the rest of the dive.

Unfortunately, on surfacing I ran into more trouble–couldn’t catch my breath, and was gasping rapidly by the time they got me onto the boat. My lungs hadn’t fully recovered by the time of the next dive, so I missed it, staying on the boat (alas–they saw a bunch of eagle rays!). And then, to top it all off, I got severely seasick on the way back. There’s a great irony in throwing up *just* as the boat is docking. I think I must have offended the sea gods or something.

To recover from all that unpleasantness, I decided to go wade in the ocean for awhile–which is delightful: blood-warm, gentle waves lapping at you, shallows that slope very gradually out to sea. And sand dollars. Lots of sand dollars.

This is how you hunt sand dollars: you go wading out until you find a mud flat (i.e. not sand), then shuffle your feet along the mud as you frolic in the water. Eventually, your foot hits something flat, round, and hard, you reach down (getting knocked over by a couple waves on the way), and you pick up a sand dollar.

This is not a bleached, nice white sand dollar. It’s a live sand dollar, kelp-green, covered with bristly green “hairs”, and usually sporting a couple tiny, translucent crabs clinging to the bottom. It feels rough when you pick it up, but they don’t bite or sting or anything.

So what do you do with one, once you find it? Well, you can dry it out and bleach it, or you can etch it with muriatic acid to produce a very beautiful geometric pattern (natural to the sand dollar), and you can then paint it. I collected three sand dollars in short order–mostly because they were so much fun to hunt for. But, on further reflection, I decided that they probably needed to be sand dollars much more than I needed them to be ornamental kitsch, and released them back into the ocean. (I don’t have a huge problem with killing a creature for food, but I think it’s *extremely* rude to kill some poor critter just to get a souvenir that will wind up in a dusty box somewhere. If it were something I’d deeply treasure, I might reconsider.)

I suppose it was a bit disrespectful of me to play sand dollar frisbee while returning them to the water–but dang, it was fun. They do fly quite nicely, and it got them further out to sea. I was tempted to try skipping one, but enough is enough. (Besides, I’m lousy at that kind of thing.)

So now, having encountered a real live sand dollar, I must look up everything I can find about sand dollars. I know almost nothing about them–how they manage to stay on the bottom, how they keep from getting covered, what do they eat/what eats them, can they move on their own? and all the other interesting things about the critters. I had never really thought about them before, having only seen them as pretty shells, but now my curiosity’s been piqued. It’s always different meeting something in living color–live sand dollars are WAY more interesting than bleached shells.

And I’m definitely going to look for more of them (it’s such a thrill when your questing foot meets one), but strictly on a catch-and-release basis. They are SUCH cool critters.

(One of the beautiful things about travel is that it makes you look at old things in new ways…I had never really thought about sand dollars before!)

Anyway, given today’s excitement, I think I’m going to skip diving tomorrow. If the weather is nice, I’ll probably go on a fishing/snorkeling tour with a private guide, and if the weather is not so nice, I’ll probably go on a river tour. Fishing/snorkeling gives me the opportunity to catch and eat my own barracuda, which would be kinda cool, and see a lot of marine life while snorkeling (hopefully with less histrionics than diving). The river tour sounds equally nice–float down the river, lots of animals (including crocodiles!), lots of interesting plants. My private guide has led tours for the local high-end resorts for nine or ten years, and is now freelancing, so he knows a lot about the local ecosystem, animals, etc. I’m really looking forward to it.

I’m not sure what happened while I was diving. I had the flu up until a week or so ago, so it’s possible it was affecting my lungs–or I might have gone too deep for a first dive. If anyone knows about those symptoms when diving, please post a comment and let me know. I may try diving again near the end of the week–this time, with Dramamine. I really do enjoy diving, but not when seasick/having breathing problems.

Tien

P.S. Still no armadillo. *sigh* I wonder if I could con my guide into taking me armadillo-hunting? It would be pretty cool to see a wild armadillo…

Just a short note to say that I made it to Hopkins, a sleepy little town near Dangria, in the central coast of Belize, and am going diving tomorrow. I plan to dive for the next three days, then move on to San Ignacio in western Belize–but haven’t really decided yet. I may well decide to spend the next week here.

To my delight, I have discovered that one can (occasionally) get armadillo around here, and am trying to lay my hands on some. I’ve had the innkeeper put in a request with a guy who goes hunting a lot. I guess the town is too small to support an armadillo farm. LOL

I’m also trying to find a guide who is willing to show me around the Jaguar Reef Reserve, which is a wildlife preserve wherein I will probably not see jaguars, but lots of other cool stuff.

Oh, and I may take up windsurfing.

Tien