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.

More adventures with Rental Baby

So I wrote the blog post from yesterday at around 8:30 or 9 PM last night, which is notable mostly because Jessie was asleep at that point. I stayed up for another few hours and then conked out next to her, and then I had to wake her up at 8:30 the next day. That’s right, Jess slept for about 12 hours. Being pregnant is *rough*.

Anyway, when we woke up Rental Baby was already here and being cute. Mom Swanson had to run off and do some errands, and we decided to babysit for her so she didn’t have to deal with all her stuff *and* keep track of a baby. I know how hard that is, now.

So we were in charge of him for quite a while. I changed his diaper successfully, Jess played with him a bunch, and I introduced him to my laptop. What is it with me and introducing florida family to technology? Anyway, rental baby thought opening and closing my mac to see the light turn on and off was a blast, and he liked hammering on the keyboard, too. Also, my mac is delicious.

After that, though, he seemed to get a little anxious, and Jess and I both successfully diagnosed this as ‘needing a nap’. Being a baby, he fought against the tendency, but I just laid him down in bed and hummed to him for a while, and when Jess came in to see if I needed any help, Rental Baby was drifting off to sleep. I feel accomplished.

Another lesson learned, however. When you put a baby to sleep in a bed, you have to hang around them so that they don’t wake up and fall off. In the future, they’ll definitely have to nap in a crib or bassinet or something. Somebody write that down!

-N

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!

Post-Christmas Sub-adventures

So other than massive holiday festivities, this break has had a few other nice highlights. Here’s a sampling of them:

-Jess knows a lot of people with Babies that are around our age. And what with our first on the way, we’re getting a lot of advice and some significant practice. In fact, I’ve gotten a lot of practice with the baby that Mom Swanson babysits most days. We’ll call him Rental Baby. Rental baby is about a year old, and very even tempered. Suspiciously so, in fact. I suspect that he’s being all nice to us so that we get over the initial fear of being parents, and so that by the time we have our own and realize it’s all totally different, it’ll be too late for us to do anything about it. Tricky baby.

Lifestyle changes notwithstanding, I have managed to get several important skills well practiced. The best is my new Baby Bjorn, one of my Christmas presents from Jessie. We put it together and looked over the instructions, but nothing beats practice with the real thing, so we loaded Rental Baby in and went out on the town for a while. After a few times, I was strapping him in and taking him out with well-practiced ease, and he really seemed to like the thing. it had plenty of support, he felt nice and safe, and I had my hands free to wander around Best Buy to make a fancy new laptop purchase for Mom Swanson.

I also got tips from Mom Swanson on changing diapers (she is a master!) and I got to practice feeding Rental Baby, too. A bottle one day, and baby food the next. The bottle went just fine, and I very nearly transitioned him neatly into napping afterwards by rocking and humming afterwards. The spoon feeding was nice, too. He definitely knows how the system works, and we got down the applesauce without effort. The veggie-food he didn’t feel like eating, and he did make the cutest face in the world to show is disapproval. We did manage to sneak some vegetables into him by feeding him fries and alternating them with green beans. He could tell there was a difference, but his body-programming just kept putting stuff into his mouth. He would have done better if he possessed more teeth, but I give him full marks for the effort.

I also got a taste, and just a taste, of what being a parent feels like. It’s just having this completely dependent person with you all the time. Clearly there are other emotions and concerns involved, but you really feel the difference when you realize that you have to add ‘and a baby’ to everything you do. Possible, but definitely different.

- Jess and i spent wednesday meandering around Ft. Lauderdale by car. We stopped off at the swap meet where we wandered around and looked at a whole bunch of stuff we didn’t want, and then we wandered by the farmers market on the way out. I got a 5 feet long piece of sugarcane. Turns out the only culinary thing you can do with them is chew on them, turn them into juice, or use them as skewers for something else. But for three bucks, it’s worth the pictures alone.

We also wandered around some shops near downtown and found a chocolatier, in much the same vein as we had found in Belgum when we went. There were definitely some flashback moments when we bought a bunch of little chocolate treats and then went out on the street to try them out. We got extras of the truffles and Spicy Aztec Chocolates. Yum.

-N

The orgy of unwrapping has finished

Aaaah...

Merry Christmas, everyone. Over on the east coast, we have finished opening our presents and are enjoying the post-gift-giving afterglow. All is well here in Florida. The flight went uneventfully and we’ve been enjoying time with our Florida-family ever since we landed. Jess even ran into one of her TXRD buddies who was going to Florida: also for christmas, also for family, also with her husband, and also while pregnant. The parallels are *eerie*.

Oh, and if I may aside for just a minute: if flying to your location involves going through a full-body scanner, I’m not flying there anymore. And that means that if Austin gets body scanners, I’m not flying anywhere anymore. Think about it this way: make a list of the activities that you would do that would offerer even a *chance* of your wife or *child* to be seen naked by strangers or actually, properly molested. If your list has more than zero entries, you should reconsider. It’s a downer, I know, but I’m just not having it. Until our country get it’s head out of the rear end of the TSA, I’m done.

On to better news: presents! All the gifts given by us were quite well received. In fact, William is playing Sonic Colors as we speak! We got an air hockey table (mini-sized) for Johnny, and as soon as Jessie wakes up from her nap, I look forward to her wiping the floor with me. Lots of presents for the boys: lots of Harry Potter stuff, and random clothing. The big ones: William got a Bike, and Johnny got a laptop, and they botch got to go to see NC State (dad’s Alma mater) at a bowl game and then go to disney world afterwards. Yay! Jess really liked her presents from me, some more Venture Brothers, card games she wanted, and some certificates to let her be lazy and have her husband take over all responsibilities for after the baby shows up and she needs a break.

Oh, and she’s getting us a *baby*, so that’s nice of her also.

I suppose the rest of the week will be some baby shower and a lot of relaxing. I’ll probably get plenty of video game time with the boys as they challenge me to various games or show off how good they are at their favorites. Also, I got a new Wii game for Christmas, and so I’ll probably shanghai their system for a while to check it out.

In other ‘being adult’ news, Jess and I are putting together a list of things to do, hopefully before the baby shows up. We want to paint the room and get a few more things, but also stuff like visit a financial planner or consolidate our bank accounts. We’ve already done some of that: I’ve officially closed by bank of america account, which means one less thing to keep track of...and also that I don’t have my credit card number memorized anymore, which was always convenient. Also starting up a college fund for Tyler. Time is the best lever for stuff like that.

Oh, and when visiting the mom/grammie house yesterday, we went across the street to visit ‘J’ and ‘J’ and their little baby ‘J’. I got to hold him and we waited until Santa came down the street with a police escort. Good practice in holding up a heavy baby, I need to do some more bicep curls. But he didn’t fuss or anything. I felt pretty sharp.

Responsibility, ahoy!

-N

I am Less Exciting

Well after the initial flurry of pregnancy related craziness, the last few weeks have been relatively sedate. Tyler is still getting his daily workouts, though, and the kicks are getting stronger and stronger. I’m hoping that when he gets large enough, he won’t have the space to really wind up before delivering swift kicks to Jessie’s insides. He’s certainly getting stronger now, but he still gets a little performance anxiety whenever I put my hand on him. I can usually get him to wake up and kick around by talking to him, though.

Judo continues: our teacher is even opening up another school. It sounds like it’s a combination of factors, including space, the fact that the rent is pretty cheap, and that we might get kicked out of our current space. It’s a little bit farther away from me, but not significantly so. Certainly not so far that I wouldn’t drive to go learn.

Jessie got her raise today. Let me reiterate. Jessie got her RAISE today. I won’t discuss specific numbers, but remember how we used to have pretty much the same income? THAT ISN’T THE CASE ANYMORE. There are some big numbers on that sheet. BIG ONES! I’m really quite proud of her, because she works hard, gets important things done and, most importantly, her bosses *recognize* her hard work. It really is a great company to work for. I am jealous, but only because I wish that I was that well regarded and rewarded. So jealous in a ‘want to work harder so I get better’ way, not a ‘wish Jessie got worse’ way.

In a real sense, this means it’s looking more and more like I’m going to start stepping down to part time. We both still make enough that having us work is worth the investment in child care and whatnot, but if we have the opportunity to take less time working and more time for family, we might as well take it. Tyler is only going to be a baby once. We’ve floated the ideas to our higher-ups, but they understand that our plans must remain somewhat fluid because we’re about to have a BABY so things can change pretty quickly.

So proud of Jessie! Applause for her!

In ‘clothing my future son’ news, we have discovered a nearby ‘used baby clothes’ store, and I have convinced Jessie that we don’t need to buy them completely out of their stock until at least after christmas. Once that’s done, though, we are going to help those people pay their *bills*. Also, mom sent me some of my old baby clothes (still adorable) including one that I recognized. Jess said I couldn’t have, because it’s baby sized, but I figured it out eventually. It’s the same ‘georgetown’ white t-shirt that I’ve seen on a lot of old pictures of dad when I was a little baby myself. So cute! Also, go georgetown! Woo! Wikipedia.com has just informed me that you are also known as the Hoyas! So go Hoyas, as well!

If anything else interesting happens, I’ll be sure to let you know.

-N

Leaving for Belize - Tomorrow!

One last check in here before we go on our trip to Belize. We've shared around the itinerary with of few people, in case we get lost. We've checked in for our flight, and now we are second guessing our choices of packing.

I am still stuck on Step 1 of the writing process. I've told my boss I am going off the grid for the next week. While this might not be absolutely true- I certainly won't be spending any time redrafting while I am in Belize. I'm sure he'll be relieved to stop hearing from me for a few days, he will be in Israel the whole time.

For the rest of you, we'll endeavor to get online when possible, and hope to have unlocked a phone to use down there. I'll probably be off the blog until we get back and I can brag about how awesome the trip was.

To all my favorite readers- Merry Christmas!