More great animals in Belize

First up, a video of a coatimundi, the sort of raccoon thing native to Belize.


Next is a jaguarundi- a small cat that doesn't stalk but strikes it's prey. Many does it look fast.



Next up is a puma, just pacing his enclosure.



And a couple bonus pictures from our River Trip to Lamanai.


In the first, a Morelet's croc, in the second, we think a Hickatee river turtle.




So, yeah. Belize is awesome.

Close encounters with Belize's wildlife

One of the (many) things that made our time in Belize outrageously spectacular, was how close we could get to the wildlife. You'll see, this is partly because there is so much of it in this relatively undeveloped country, and partly because, unlike America, things are much less regulated.

At the Community Baboon Sanctuary (CBS), we took a brief tour of the sanctuary to meet the Howler Monkeys. Our guide, Robert, told us about the medicinal uses of the plants, pointed out the many birds, and then showed us the monkeys. This particular group of monkeys lives close to the visitor center, and our guide plied them down from the trees with a banana, and had them sit on my shoulders while we took pictures. Crazy! We were so close to the village at this point, you could still hear the Baptists singing Hark the Herald Angels Sing. Howler monkeys are really fluffy, not nearly as big as their scary noise would lead you to believe, and they have the cutest featheriest hands and faces.

I mentioned also the croc tour we took from the Lodge we were staying at. Our guide used lights to highlight the eyes of animals on shore, we saw many cool birds, lots of crocs (a creepy amount of spiders- their eyes glow blue), iguanas, and a porcupine. One of the agreements of the CBS is to leave vegetation on the riverbanks, so although we moved quite near villages, it felt like we drifted off to the middle of nowhere. Just before our tour was over, our guide, Russel, pulled the canoe to shore and pulled out a baby croc, barely over a foot long. It makes a kinda of dog toy squeaky noise. Amazing!

One of the reasons we went to Caye Caulker was to see the manatees. We took at little fishing boat to the sanctuary at Caye Chapel. Our captain turned off the boat, and asked us all (14 all told, including a couple families with kids) to take our shoes off. We were trying to make as little noise as possible, so we could catch a glimpse of the manatees. He asked us to be patient, but shouldn't have bothered. By the time we sculled through the entrance, there were half a dozen feeding on the weeds.

The water is shallow, and manatees aren't... well, shapely. But they are easy to see when they surface to breathe. And they are giant! After this, we went to the site of a major Britain vs Spain battle for control of Belize, and then snorkeling. Fantastic.

Another place with MAJOR encounters was the the Belize Zoo. Even though they had some damage to habitats as a result of Hurricane Richard, the animals were still healthy and out and about. We saw the national animal, a Tapir (a sort of pig/anteater), all kinds of wild cats (puma, jaguarundi, jaguar...), the coatimundi (a kind of raccoon) and some beautiful birds. The cats were beautiful, so I am sharing all those videos with you in the next post. While we were there, as I said, we ran into one of the families that was with us on the manatee tour. We were also approached by the zoo staff to participate in a "Jaguar Encounter." I was getting overheated, but Matt convinced me that this would be awesome, and I am SO glad we did it. The staff removed the reasonably domesticated Junior Buddy, and we entered his enclosure, and locked ourselves in a cage in the center. Then Junior Buddy came by to interact with us... and well, you just have to see this... watch both these videos.



The jaguar is soft like a cat, but has giant scary paws and feet.

Junior Buddy's mom was brought to the Zoo because she was a problem jaguar. 3 days later, she gave birth to Junior, and in the stress of captivity abandoned him. He was raised by caretakers, so he learned to like attention (which is why there is so much clapping and talking in the video), and hasn't ever attacked anyone (but the zookeeper did say by the time he was 3 months old he "played too rough" for the zoo keepers to just go into his enclosure to play with him).

Mayans of Belize

Belize has a fascinatingly diverse population. 10% of the country are Low German speaking Mennonites, there is a prominant Chinese population, many East Indians, on top of the expected mix of Kriol, Garifuna and Mayan people. Mayans have a particularly interesting history in Belize, until 1985 they were allowed to live by their traditional lifestyle, cultivating the jungle and living in a subsistence manner. In 1985, to support the creation of a National Wildlife preserve, the government told the Mayans they were no long allowed to live in the jungle, but was unable to provide them much support beyond that. Imagine coming out of the jungle with your entire community, and trying to incorporate into a modern society.

When we stayed at Tutzil Nah Cottages, our host, Gregorio told us about his experience making this transition. He had only 4 years of primary schooling before he turned 16 and was no longer eligible to go to school. It is a combination of his tenacity and naivete that has allowed him to accomplish all that he has. By the time he was 22, he was working as a tour guide, living at a resort, away from his family for the first time. He was a popular guide, but he worked every day of the week, wasn't allowed to have guests- he was lonely. He told us he went home for a couple days one time, and looked at all of his family sitting around sharing dinner and he realized he wanted to be a part of that again. He ran away from his job in Dangriga and decided he should start his own business is Mayacenter. He wanted to be a guide in the Cockscomb Basin Reserve, where he grew up and knew his way around. So he wrote up a business plan (with a pen) and took it to the bank. They said they couldn't loan him any money- he had no experience, no education and no collateral. Fortunately, he found a Development fund that was willing to take a chance with him. They gave him US$6000, which was more money than he could have imagined. He bought a used car, and almost immediately his contacts from the old resort starting sending him people to take on tours. It was working! He even recruited one of his brother's to help him with the business. People would come to Mayacenter for the day to take his tours, and they starting asking him about a place to eat or stay over night.

That's when he decided to open the cottages. He went back to the Development fun and borrowed US$16000 to build a restaurant and places to stay. He and his brothers built the place in something like 6 months. At the same time, he had heard many of his clients talk about the emails, and websites, so he found a business that would make one of those for him, too. Not that he knew what they were for. He said, "People drive down this highway and we just hope that they pullover here." The cottages were due to open in late December. In mid-December he got a call that his website was ready to go up, and he should be ready to start getting emails. He falters a bit here, and the woman asks "Is there a problem?" "Well, no, I don't think it is a problem. But what is this email?"

The website was delayed until Gregorio could buy and learn to use a computer. His brothers wanted nothing to do with this- they were scared and intimidated by it. So Gregorio had to learn. Imagine trying to use a computer when you've never seen one before. A friend came out and helped him get it plugged in, and then told him to play around with it. "I don't want to play with it." He explained to him about the mouse, that you could wiggle it and interface with it. He HATED the mouse. It was always zipping away from him or he couldn't find it. He spend several hours every night on the machine before they got back to the issue of email. Things would go wrong. Almost everyday it would freeze, or crash or not do what he wanted it to do, and he would take the entire thing, still plugged together, to a shop in Dangriga. He was frustrated and embarrassed, but slowly it started to get better. Finally, he decided he is ready to get these emails.

When the first email comes in, both his brothers are there. Neither one knows what to say or do. His friend comes back to help them write an email. Gregorio had some sense that there should be some form to this kind of communication, but no idea what it should look like. The next email, he wrote a response with a pen where he is more comfortable, and then typed that up. It went slowly. He tried his first hunt-and-peck typing. He looked on his keyboard for one letter, and then hits it. He looks for the next letter, can't find it, maybe he doesn't have that one? keeps looking, finds it, hits it... he said it took him 6 hours to write a 10 line email. But by now, you know Gregorio will just keep working at it until he gets much better.

The business is up and running well, until someone sets fire to the cottages. They were unable to save anything. He was devastated, emotionally and financially. He had loans amounting to more money that he could fathom, and no way to every make that much money back. But he decided the best revenge would be to have a successful business to pass on to his kids. He makes some fliers about his situation, and goes to beg at the hotels and resorts in Dangriga. After a full day of rejection, he makes his final stop at the upscale resort, where the manager told him he had seen and liked those cottages, and if he would go to his brother's hardware store in Belmopan, he would give him some cement to start the project. The hardware store fills his van with as much cement as it will carry. And other people are donating things too, money and lumber. This is how nice people are in Belize. The new cottages were up in only 3 months. To all the emails he got during this period, he would say "we don't have any vacancies." The first people he accepted a reservation for was in December. When the Swiss couple arrived, they were putting the door on the outdoor bathroom.

Gregorio tells us that he is lucky to have all these things work for him. He knows how to live the traditional lifestyle, but now he can't be an hour away from his cell phone. But the Mayans further south are much more traditional. They have the slat and thatch houses, they grow their own livestock and crops. We see a lot of this when we travel down south- and you can kinda see that in this picture.

The Itinerary of Belize

I wanted to give you all a picture of the kinds of places and things we did in Belize, the awesomeness of which is self evident when you look at our Itinerary. I sent this out before we left, but I wanted to annotate this a bit more, the flush out the awesomeness and add some pictures.

We spent our first couple days in the Community Baboon Sanctuary, which is an agreement between several villages to leave habitat in place for the Howler Monkeys along the Belize River. We stayed at a guest house in Bermudian Landing, where we had a hammock and meals prepared for us and could hear Howler Monkeys all night long. Among its great features, I instantly fell in love with the place names in Belize. There is a major highway junction at Burrel Boom, and we launched our croc tour from Double Head Cabbage- how could you not love that?


From there, we took at water taxi out to Caye Caulker, which is one of many Cayes of the coast of Belize on the Barrier Reef. This community is uber laid back, there are a lot of Rastafarians and a couple dive shops. People generally don't wear shoes. The roads, such as they are are made of dirt and driven on by golf carts. From here, we took a boat tour to see the manatee sanctuary.

On our way to our next point south, we stopped at the Belize Zoo, where we saw a family from our manatee tour. Yes, the country is that small. The zoo is practically a post on it's own, thoguh, so I'll get back to that later. We headed to the community of Maya Center, a village at the mouth of the Cockscomb Basin (Jaguar) Preserve. The village had a major boom in 1985 when the government told the Mayans they were no longer allowed to live in the jungle. Our host told us about his experiences transitioning from living the traditional lifestyle in the jungle and being a modern bussiness owner. The next day we went into the Preserve, and while we didn't see jaguar, we did take a dip at the waterfall. The picture is of a Blue Morpho butterfly, which is such a brilliant blue color it overexposed in the picture. Beautiful!


It took a few hours to drive to the south to Punta Gorda, which has unencombered views of the Bay of Honduras, and hosted the market that brought people from all the Mayan villages in the south and a few Mennonite farms to share their produce and wares. From here we were able to tour a cocoa farm, and visited the ruins of Lubantuum. We stayed in this kitchy quirky hotel, with over grown vegetation, carved woods and no other guests.


On Christmas Day, we moved to the Garifuna community of Hopkins, and stayed in a classic beachside bungalow owned by a couple from Canada. Once you leave the highway, you drive 3 miles down a red clay road to the community. The beach was fantastic. It was pretty clear if we would have stayed up past about 8, the entire village was going to turn into one rockin' block party. It's here we tried the cakes and Cassava bread.

On Boxing Day, we headed a couple hours north to Orange Walk Town, to a St. Christopher's Hotel on the New River. Very modern. The community was pretty well shut down for the holiday, but there were some bilingual taco vendors out and a lot of Chinese restaurants for us to choose from. Lobster Fried Rice? Sweet and Sour Conch? The next day, we took a boat tour to the ruins of Lamanai, which our tour guide told us was so powerful it caused the Great Hiatus in Mayan History. The site is giant, and only barely explored. The picture at the bottom is me on top of the main pyramid, you can see the river we came in on.

From there we moved to the Crooked Tree Preserve. We took a bird tour, and spent a lot of time walking around looking at birds. This is actually an inland island, surround by lake and lagoon. The preserve includes all the land in the village- the directions for the 'self guided tour' takes you down the main roads and then has you turn and walk up the beach. It makes you feel like you've come to gaze at someone's yard, but it is someone's yard with 4 snowy egrits and a tricolored heron in it. It seems to work.

We flew home from there, and although for most of the time it seemed like we were some of the few travelers in the country, there were at least a couple planes full of Americans heading home. I half expected to see someone we knew there, we'd been getting so familiar with the place.

Bird's of Belize

Although I should give you a general run-down of our itinerary, I'm going to skip straight to the birds because I am so excited about them. In the many kinds of places we went, there were always amazing birds, but we specificaly stayed at 3 nature preserves (Community Baboon Sanctuary, Cockscomb Basin and Crooked Tree Preserve) that had an abundance of amazing birds.

The first morning at the "Baboon" (actually, Howler Monkey) Sanctuary, I woke up at sunrise to the sounds of wild bird calls. We snuck down to the river (the Belize River set one boundary of the Lodge) to look at the birds. We repeated this routine all over the place- for some reason we were always waking up at dawn (which is 6:30 in December), and you may as well go look at the birds.

Belize is positively lousy with colorful birds. I finally broke down and bought Jones' "The Birds of Belize" because I knew I would never remember them all. On our first day, we were seeing Snowy Egrits, 3 kinds of Herons, bright yellow fly catchers and little yellow warblers. We saw, I think, rufus tailed hummingbirds in several places- probably because there are so many flowers and flowering trees. The red spot (top wire of the fence- this is why we don't have many bird pictures) in this photo is a Vermillion Fly catcher- he's dashing!

While not birds, I'll include them because they fly, we also encountered lots of bats. There were some living in the Community Baboon Visitor center, there were some swooping through the night blooming flowers on Caye Caulker and there were some living along the river to the ruins of Lamanai. Good thing I'm not afraid of bats. In the picture, you should be able to see 4 brown spots on the burnt underside of the tree that are 4 sleeping proboscis bats.

Betty arranged for us to take several tours, and one of my favorites was the early morning bird tour at Crooked Tree. We rose at 5:30 to get (coffee and papaya, then) to a little motorboat at 6 to peer at the Early Birds. And there were tons! Spotted Sandpipers ran along the shoreline, and Northern Janaca's walked on the lily pads that scops were dabbling from. Herons and Egrits waded along the shoreline, and when out boat picked up speed we were positively blitzed by 3 kinds of swallows (mangrove, barn and northern roughwing). Overhead, Snail catcher kites drifted idly. Oh! And we saw WILD parrots! How ridiculous is that??

The video shows a bit of the terrain, but watch for the swallows to dart along the edge of the boat- Ruben, our guide, said the boat scares of bugs that they were eating. The second video is of the Northern Jacana, also known at the Jesus Christ Bird for its ability to walk on water. It's one of my favorite birds, and so Matt staked this one out so you could see it's fantastic colors.

And as fantastic as this was, we were approached by several people- especially at Crooked Tree, who seemed worried that we weren't seeing the best birds. They were sorry we hadn't come in March to see the Jabiru stork and the Roseate Spoonbill. I tried to explain to the park ranger that the dozen or so kinds of birds we saw by the hundreds that morning were all birds we'd never seen before- so really, we felt we were having a sufficiently splendid time. Really, it's the kind of place that could inspire you to start a Life List.

Delicious Belize!

Matt and I are back from our most awesomest vacation to Belize. It was such an amazing time, we had great adventures, saw fantastic things, met interesting people and it was all thanks to my most talented mother-in-law, who managed to find some of the most interesting and unique things to do in Belize, and fit them into a 12 day span that didn't seem hurried, but punctuated regularly with splendid-ness. I'll get to more of that later though, at her suggestion, I am going to break down the follow-up posts by theme, and I'll start with food. I'm also planning to do Birds, Animals, Maya (past and present), People and a general post of our itinerary, and more might occur to me too. But loading the photos is slow, and food seems to require the fewest.

Another reason that I wanted to start with Food is that it highlights the Language. The national Language of Belize is English, but locally people speak Kriol. The effect is like using a volume knob on the accent, they would speak to us in the gently accented (think generally Caribbean island), then turn to eachother and the accent would become impenetrable. When you see it written (as here), you can usually get the phonetics, but the spoken word flies by so fast!

Belizean (Bileezan- yeah, I was saying that wrong) Kriol has no past tense, which is why menus are always peppered with such charming dishes as Stew Chicken, and Fry Beans. These were some of the foods we ate the most of, so it made quite an impression. Stew chicken was always served, fall-off-the-bone soft, in a broth with annato and lime. It usually came next to a giant pile of rice and beans, although occasionally we would get beans and rice. I'm not trying to be funny- Rice and Beans is a Vigo-like dish with coconut milk to season it, while Stew Beans and white rice usually came in two separate vessels. I LOVED the Rice and Beans- one of my favorite souvenirs is the cook book I bought from the Woman's Group in Crooked Tree, that has recipes for all these things. When we were very lucky, there would be a couple fried plantains as well, and often a tiny salad or coleslaw. And every table always had a bottle of Maria Sharps Hot Sauce, a habanero sauce with a bit of carrot for color.


We also got to over-indulge in a lot of fresh fruit. Papaya was just coming into season, we polished off a 3 lb one for breakfast on Christmas morning. Citrus and bananas are also grown all through the country. We got to drive the Hummingbird Highway a couple times, where long stretches are lined with citrus groves and banana plantations- and let me tell you, a seriously fresh banana puts our fruits to shame. The picture is a banana plantation- the banana's hide blue pesticide bags. Another highlight, both fruit-wise and Belize-is-awesome-wise, was having our host at the Cocoa Farm knock some end of season starfruit off his tree so we could eat truly fresh starfruit, which is citrusy sweet and tart but not ascorbic.

While at the Cocoa farm, we also tried the fruits of the cocoa tree, which has a creamy mango-banana-pineapple flavor. Not sure why anyone ever decided to process the seeds, but I sure am glad they did. Our host, Juan Cho, of Cyrila's Chocolates, showed us how cocoa is grown on his organic farm, how it is processed, and even walked us through grinding it into a chocolate paste (by hand! See picture!). We tried Cocoa fruit wine he makes, and the chocolate- which is so amazing. It is more coarsely ground, and unendingly rich. These are the same beans that go into Green&Black's Maya Gold bar (one of my favorites), but when his wife makes it... let's just say I didn't bring back nearly enough, and all my luggage smells like chocolate. This was one of the best things we did in Belize, not just for the deliciousness, Juan and his wife Abelina were really charming and it was a delight to meet them.


We also sampled some other wines- not that anyone grows grapes. Cashews are fairly common, and the cashew fruit wine is considered a holiday beverage. This is raiseny and sweet, like a port almost. Although, I felt the black berry wine was very similar. Belize also has an affection for bitters, and we tried the most popular one- Kid B's Bittaz. This wasn't as bitter as Campari, and had a warm almost anise flavor, which is surprising since it is brewed from a mixture of jungle herbs. The other fairly common possibly holiday drink we had was a Rumpunch, or as it was called on Caye Caulker, a Pante Rippa. This is pineapple juice and rum, and out on the island, several places included this free with the meal, all you can drink.

And cake! One morning over a breakfast of Egg Bean and Fry Jacks (~Indian Fry Bread), our Garifuna hostess came in to cut a piece of cake for another customer, and when she caught us looking, insisted we try some (Choo, have some cayke, Eets da holidays!). She gave us Black Cake (a moist molassas cake with citron fruits) and Lite Cake (lite because it isn't black- it's actually a buttery pound cake). She also insisted we try the garifuna standby- Cassava bread. This is made by grate and straining cassava ("You get your fattest friends to sit on the strainer"), then sieved and baked into a flat, crispy tortilla shape. She said it keeps for years- Matt thinks it must be like dwarf bread- not really for eating. I think it is more like hard tack, not glamorous, but staple.

I am planning on hosting a New Year's Even party for my friends who are in town. I think I'll make a pot of Rice and Beans, and some Stew Chicken, and bowl of Rumpunch. That should commemorate the trip pretty well. I'll try and get some posts with pictures up soon- but we had a great trip and a great holiday!

This is the year!

Every year, about this time, I get this serious yen to make Graham Cracker Candy. Well, to eat it actually, but I've been stuck on this first step for year and years now. Every year I get this craving, and I get to thinking about how all the people in my life have never experienced the joy of Graham Cracker Candy, and so I should make some to share with every person I know... Every year, something horrible happens to the recipe, and I end up with a thick syrup with soggy cracker crumbs floating in it. That is, I say that like it is bad- I usually eat this syrup with a spoon until Matt gets so overwhelmed by my bad eating habits he throws is entire gloppy mess away, even though it is stuck amorphously to wax paper. Frankly, eating poorly made graham cracker candy is the nouveau tradition at our house.

Some of you may have been on the receiving end of my tragic email last year about the gooey failure that was "fat-free evaporated milk candy." Nana gently clued me in that candy should be made with fat, and magnanimously sent me a candy thermometer, in case I was ever inclined to butcher the family recipe again.

This year, I got to thinking again about Graham Cracker Candy, and I decided this would be a great gift for a friend of mine, and then I decided I absoloutly can't get through another holiday season without some proper Graham Cracker Candy for myself. This is the trifecta of candy failure- desire for candy, desire to gift candy, and inability to make candy. True to tradition, I got all the ingredients (not all the right ones, I used pecans this year), and in the midst of a lot of other distractions, set to making it.

Picture me in my kitchen, focused on grinding nuts and measuring sugar like I am making TNT, and Matt keeps wandering through the kitchen. At first he tried to help, then he tried to help clean up, and finally he just got on to some other things- namely permethrin treating our clothes to fend off malaria in Belize on the back porch, and then trying to un-treat his hands. I've got TWO candy thermometers going in my pot of boiling sugar, and I am mentally noting every slight change in the bubbling sugar, and completely blocking him out. "Hmm...? What was that about poison control?" I was expecting this to fail, so I started to get stressed when I mixed with graham crackers in and the mixture got really stiff! Like, hard to stir! And then I mashed it all into a shallow pan and gave it a good squish to make it all stick.... and I think it worked! For the first time EVER, it came out crumbly, not gooey!

I cannot recommend a candy thermometer enough. It's the best substitute for actual confectioner skills money can buy. Either classic analog or new fancy digital- as I mentioned, I used both.

I'm including the recipe here, both for posterity and also to include my own incredibly helpful notes- in italics.

Graham Cracker Candy
I always make a 1.5X batch because I don't know what I'd do with a half can of evaporated milk. Suggestions welcome.

In a VERY large stockpot (trust me, you'll thank me later), combine:
2 c sugar
1 c evaporated milk
1/4 t salt
Turn your burner on HIGH and boil this to soft ball stage, or 235F.
As this passes ~180F, it will quadruple in size and the temp can rise quickly. You are trying to drop the liquid content of the sugar, from 220 to 235 will be much slower. The total volume will shrink to nearly half the peak.
Remove from heat and cool slightly.
Add in 1 T butter
1 t vanilla
3 c (2 packages) graham cracker crumbs
1 c chopped walnuts (apparently pecans work too)
3 c mini-marshmallows or 24 large

Stir well. Use wax paper to Pat into a a shallow pan and "store in the icebox over night" or your non-insulated pantry for 20 min. or as long as you think you can wait. Cut into indulgent little squares and share with everyone.

----
As hinted at, Matt and I leave Friday for Belize. It is TWELVE stupid degrees here right now, so I am really looking forward to some Caribbean sunshine, even if it puts us at a slight risk for contracting malaria. That's why Matt was spraying insecticides on our back porch! I was just realizing that this is going to be the longest vacation we've had since we've come here (11 days!), and just in the nick of time, too. Now that the semester is over and I don't have adrenaline to keep me up all night, I can hardly stay away until 10pm. Yes, time for some time off.