Belize - The City

The City - March 17 - 19, 2008

"Junior"

When I arranged my trip, I thought I should at least spend some time in the largest city in the land. That would be Belize City. Belize City used to be the capital but, after being destroyed be one too many hurricanes, the capital was moved inland to Belmopan. I drove Belmopan several times going to San Ignacio and other destinations west.

I departed San Ignacio mid-morning on Monday, March 17. Delia had arranged for a driver to pick me up and deliver me to the Best Western in Belize City. It actually sits just outside the City on the way to the Northern Highway and near the airport. It took about 2 hours to get from San Ignacio to the Best Western. And, once there, I hated it. There is nothing to do in Belize City. I was almost in tears.

The one really good thing about the locations of the BBB (Belize Biltmore - not sure where the third "B" came from but that's what others called it) is that just down the road was something of a department store/grocery store. I walked down there a time or two (or three).

So the first day, after I got over my initial issues with Belize City I went swimming in the pool. And I arranged a tour for the next day to go River Tubing.

River Tubing (no pictures)

I was picked up in a van at the BBB the next morning. There were 5 others in the van already - they had come over on the water taxi from Caye Caulker, my next destination. We headed west on the Western Highway back towards San Ignacio. We did not go that far, however. After driving by the Zoo (more on that later) and Belmopan, we turned south to where the Tubing starts.

We were given an innertube, a life jacket, a headback with a light attached, and off we went to float down the river. There was actually a large group of us - there were about 8 people already at the site waiting for us before tubing. We hiked inland a bit with our tubes. I know we crossed a stream that had a large boulder nearby that the guide let us jump off of on the way back - the rest of us just went swimming. When I say large boulder, I mean about 20-30 feet tall. I did not jump off the boulder - fear of heights and all. We also made a second stop in a cave without water to see some of the formations we would see in the larger cave. We also saw bats - those were cool.

Eventually, we reached a cove where we entered the river, sat down in our tubes, turned on our headlamps, and floated. We floated for about 1-2 hours downstream through a large and long cave. It got very dark in there. But it was very relaxing. And a heck of a lot better than sitting in the hotel.

Afterwards, we went to the restaurant (lunch was included in the tour) for chicken, beans and rice, and cole slaw. Then back to the hotel where I bothered the poor hotel staff until they told me how to get to the zoo via the national and local bus system. I did that the next day before going to the Island.

The Zoo

Along with A.T.M, this trip ranks near the top of the most memorable tours/trips I took on this vacation. I think that is because I had to get outside of my comfort zone and, in the case of the zoo, figure out how to get there and back before I needed to catch the water taxi to Caye Caulker. It turned out to be much more simple than I thought it would be. I caught the local bus outside the hotel and it dropped me off at the central bus station. From there, I caught the bus going to Guatemalan border via the Western Highway (I spent a lot of time on the Western Highway). The Zoo was about 30 minutes outside the City and I think it only cost me about $5 round trip on the bus.

The Belize Zoo is not the size of a typical United States Zoo. It contains animals native to Central America (specifically Belize) that the Zoo has acquired through some means (most they rescue them). The Zoo attempts to rehabilitate the animal and then release the animal back into the wild. There weren't what I consider to be many exhibits. However, the visitor to the zoo was pretty much right next to the exhibit. I could reach out and touch cages and animals with no obstructions.

One other thing about the zoo - each exhibit had great signage. There was always some verbiage about the what the animal was, its name (they all had one), and then some funny comment. Outside of the Tapirs, their sign basically warned the visitor of getting to close or else one of them might "pee on you".

I remember a couple of animals particularly well:

	Grey Fox The minute I walked up to its cage, he came right over and was very friendly. A very cute little animal. I adored him.		Black Jaguar Along with Junior, who had his own cage, there was a black jaguar and a spotted jaguar. I had the most diffiuclt time getting any sort of picture of the black jaguar or the spotted jaguar - this was the best I was able to do.
	Emerald Toucanette There we a lot of birds at the Zoo. All of them had fantastic coloring.		"Junior" Junior is a jaguar which was born and raised in the Zoo. I don't believe he can ever be released. He was out and about while I was, playing with his ball, wading in his pool (see pictures above and below - they are of Junior).
	White-Tailed Deer This animal, besides the vultures, was the first animal I saw in the zoo. There were a number of them in the enclosure. They seemed to have no fear at all.		Great Egret The Great Egret has a very regal bearing. And I think this is a good picture of it.
	Tapir I believe they were also referred to as the Mountain Cow. There were three of them in the Zoo. They were very active and were very entertaining.		Paca If I remember correctly, the pacas (there was more than one) were very active. They ran all over their enclosures, they just ran in circles to move about.
	Keel-Billed Toucan His bill is pretty cool, no?		Puma I believe a Puma is another name for mountain lion or even panther. This Puma was very mellow, laid back. She seemed to be purring when I was around her cage. Not that I believe it had anything to do with me. Maybe she is just a happy cat.
	Spider Monkey The spider monkeys got more active as the day went along. Both the spider monkeys and the howler monkeys are not really enclosed - they could leave if they wanted via all sorts of trees which border the zoo. They choose not to.		Harpy Eagle I just think the Harpy Eagle looks cool.