Thursday, May 19, 2011

Weekend of The Zoo and Lamanai

Hi everyone!

FRIDAY

Our weekend started with a bang when we took the bus straight from work to the Belize Zoo for a night tour. The zoo is for injured animals or animals that have been kept as pets, like a natural rehab centre for wild Belize animals.

We had to wait a wee bit in the dark on the side of the road before the guide finally showed up with flashlight in hand!

During our night tour of the zoo we got the chance to see Belizian-native animals including:
     -the Harpy Eagle (HUGE weird looking tuxedo guy)
     -Junior the Jaguar
     -Carlos the Puma who we got to feed raw chicken claws (oopsies, salmaonella)
     -Gibnuts (aka The royal Ra)- they are huge rat things that are a delicacy to eat here- creepy
     -a clan of Howler Monkeys- We couldn't believe how LOUD they were. They sounded like haunted lions              (Poh has perfected her Howler Monkey mating call).
     -huge, smelly pig-like creatures that have an extra smelly hump on their back which you need to cut off before you cook them or it will contaminate the meat-eww
     - saw HUGE crocs held back by a shotty fence that was like two feet high. Our guide told us that they hadn't attacked humans.....yet. We decided to move on quickly.
     -Tapirs, the national animal, one of which was blind. They look like a cross between a horse and a rhino kinda. They have a weird snout. We got to feed them veggies.
     - On our way out of the tour we came across a little visitor- The most poisonous snake in Belize (Fer de Lance) It was just roaming free on the zoo path. Could've died. A weirdo lady from Slovenia was convinced she could wrangle it no problem. She was prepared to grab it with her hands and put it in a bucket. She also proceeded to poke it with a stick. "Oooooh!  I love de snakes!  Let meee have it!"
     -At the end, we held a boaconstrictor!!

Trusty Mr. Gomez took us in his cab home. It was a great experience.

SATURDAY

To the Mayan ruins we go!  Shockingly, we had to get up at 5am.  Got to the boat dock for Lamanai, joined by an annoying family and bratty (yet cute) child "Excuse me! Excuse me!  Um, what is that leaf?"  Saw some cool things on our boat ride including "Jesus birds" that walk on water and spider monkeys.
        Once we got to Lamanai we toured and climbed the multiple temples.  Due to our rapid physical deconditioning we have been experiencing here, we almost collapsed from severe exhaustion and heat.  Climbing up temples + 100 degree weather = Poh sweating out half her body weight, Sulls' heat rash blossoming rapidly and Kit's heat induced delirium resulting in vision loss, limb weakness and loss of reactive balance (almost fell off the temple side).  Had a lunch of rice and beans (shocking) to revive ourselves.
        Best part of our entire Belize experience:  the annoying family gave us a pimp AC ride home to Belize city.  So happy!

The Leiva Girls

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