tbz adventures

During our recent group trip to Belize, the 16 of us had the chance to make two special visits to The Belize Zoo (TBZ). On the day of our arrival (Saturday) at the Tropical Education Center, where we stayed for the first five nights, we took a quick bus ride over to TBZ and had a night tour of the zoo. The animals were particularly active at night. Unfortunately, I was on the dopey side and forgot my camera, so down the road, I may add a few photos when others from the trip share more with me. For now, I am including a couple of photos from participant Wendy, who snapped some good ones of the fer de lance and the "friendly" boa constrictor.

A few days later, on Wednesday, January 7th, we had a special half-day tour of the Zoo led by founder and director herself, Sharon Matola! Everywhere Sharon led us, she would call out to the animals and they would gather round and noisily greet her. It was amazing. I didn't forget my camera this time.

We stopped off to see April the Tapir, along with Tapirs Ceiba and Navidad. We spent time with the Scarlet Macaws, including Blue, the Scarlet Macaw that Sharon rescued, as shared in the book about Sharon, The Last Flight of the Scarlet Macaw, by Bruce Barcott. We also got to see Panama the Harpy Eagle.

We saw the spider monkeys, noisy howler monkeys, CT the jaguar, a gorgeous puma, the Aracari Toucans, and a keel-billed toucan.

A very special thing we got to do, thanks to Sharon, was a jaguar encounter with Junior Buddy. Junior Buddy is special. His mother was very sick when she came to TBZ a couple of years ago. The staff was nursing her, and didn't know she was pregnant. They soon found that she was, and Junior Buddy was born at the zoo. His mother was so sick that she rejected Junior Buddy, and he ended up being raised by Sharon and the staff. What we were able to do in small groups was to go inside a small safety cage inside Junior Buddy's larger area. He would come up to the cage and we were able to feed him chicken bones and pet him. As you can see from one of the photos, Junior Buddy enjoyed "grooming" Henry through the cage. Junior Buddy enjoyed rolling over and doing some field routines for us, and we clapped and cheered with delight. He patiently went through four or five rounds of these small-group "visits." What an experience it was.

We also got to visit with Wild Boy, a rehabbed jaguar whom Sharon trained to give "high fives" when you carefully high five just a little distance from his enclosure. We also got to see some white-tailed deer, a group of odoriferous peccaries, and several birds that are native to Belize.

That is the thing about The Belize Zoo. Visitors get to see the animals that are native to Belize. One won't see elephants or giraffes, but native Belizeans will tell you that before Sharon founded TBZ, some had never seen the animals of Belize. Many myths were taught to children about the animals. With Sharon's educational efforts, species in danger of extinction will be preserved, and the people of Belize have the opportunity to value these special animals rather than fear them. All the exhibits contain large areas full of the native rainforest plants and topography. The setting is as natural as it could be.

The highlight of the TBZ visit for me was a visit to see Cortland the Margay kitten. Cortland is not on exhibit, but she is being conditioned to have people enter her large enclosure to take photographs. She peacefully and regally sat in her tree perch while we took photo after photo. What an adorable and beautiful cat she is! And she is named after our college!

Our visit to TBZ certainly was memorable. In addition to seeing all the animals, we learned a great deal about the ecology of the area, and the conservation efforts that the zoo supports. I included photos of just a few of the many educational signs that are placed all over the Zoo grounds to give you a sense of the ubiquitous education. I hope you will be able to visit The Belize Zoo some time soon."Cortland"

Lamanai - Maya Site

Many people who visit The Belize Zoo also travel to various Maya Sites throughout Belize. The following post describes one of those sites from our group trip to Belize at the beginning of January 2009.

On Tuesday, January 6th, our group got up early and had breakfast at 7 a.m. and departed on our bus for our trip to the Lamanai Maya Site. The bus ride was about 90 minutes long, and Peter, our guide, took that time to get on the mic and provide a very good historical overview of the Maya. We arrived at a boat launch on the New River to take a large tour speed boat to the Lamanai site. The boat ride was also about 90 minutes long. Our boat driver Amad had an eagle-eye for spotting birds along the way, and he would slow the boat down to show us various birds and plants and wildlife.

This was my second Maya site visit. Two years ago, we visited Xunantunich, located south and west of Lamanai.

Some of the things that Peter shared with us:

**There are many ancient cultures -- Aztecs, Incas, cultures in Asia and Africa. The Maya is believed to be the oldest civilization.

**Evidence has led to the opinion that ancient humans came to the New World via the Bering Strait (Russia-Alaska-South to Mexico) hunting large animals. Different tribes chased different animals, and drove those animals to extinction.

**The last ice age was approximately 10-11,000 years B.C. Over the years, hunters evolved to settlers and began planting corn and vegetables, domesticating plants. They stuck around rather than moving to wait for harvests. They began to develop pottery to store food.

**The Maya Chronology spans approximately 3000 years -- somewhere between 1500 B.C. to somewhere between 1340 A.D. There were three stages, Pre-Classic, Classic, and Post-Classic. The Pre-Classic spanned from approximately 1500 B.C. to approximately 300 A.D.; The Classic period was from approximately 300 A.D. to 900 A.D., and the Post-Classic was from approximately 1000 to 1340 A.D. The latter period was marked by decline and starvation -- believed largely to be a result of overpopulation and overuse of resources, coupled with probable drought.

**At peak, there were up to 20 million people in the Maya world. While other cultures had many similar aspects to the Maya (same sports, worship of multiple Gods, plaza architecture, governments), the Maya surpassed others in a key area: communication. They were the first tribe of ancient man to be classified as a civilization. They were the only culture that had a writing system -- hieroglyphics. (The Olmec culture of Mexico had a symbolic system, but the Maya refined the pictographic to ideographic in terms of writing.)

**The Maya mastered mathematics, construction, astronomy (they plotted the eclipses) and they created a perfect calendar! (They actually had two calendars -- a sacred/ceremonial calendar of 260 days, and then a long calendar for calculating the reigns of leaders). Some Maya sites were considered to be astronomy observatories. Others were trading posts.

**Lamanai is the second largest Maya site in Belize (only Caracol is larger). It is accessible by boat, and it is distinguished as the longest occupied site in all of the Maya world (probably due in large part to the fact that it had plentiful supplies of water.) Lamanai was a trading site (jade, obsidian, flint stone).

**The Maya didn't "disappear" or collapse quickly. It was a slow long process, and there are still descendants of the Maya today. The population of the Maya dramatically decreased in the Post-Classic period. They began to reuse/renovate buildings, by building over previous structures. They did not do a lot of new construction during this period, making it very hard for archaeologists to analyze.

**The Maya world is a fairly small area -- 100,000 square miles -- Yucutan Peninsula. The Maya map stretches across five states in Mexico, all of Belize, all of Guatemala, and the northeastern parts of El Salvador and Honduras. Archaeologists define the area by pottery, tools, masonry construction style and evidence of the culture (plants and trees).

**Approximately 100 years ago, sites were often discovered by chicle farmers/workers/hunters. Sometimes the sites would be reported and sometimes not. Today, NASA imagery helps to locate sites through analysis of topography and plant coloration. Culture influences or gives advantages to certain kinds of trees, so often near Maya sites, the trees they used are still growing: Breadnut, Copal, Cohun, Silver Thatch Palm, Ceiba.

**The Maya had raised roads/networks for communication. The rulers wore special feather headdresses and regalia. The burials did not involve mummification; the bodies were wrapped in cloth. Archaeologists found skeletal remains with necklaces, bracelets, anklets. The amount of jade is believed to indicate status. Sometimes people were buried with items that symbolized their roles in life. A musician would be buried with an instrument. A warrior with a weapon, etc. They were buried with food, pottery, water, etc. in order to navigate through the nine levels of the underworld before emerging to a new life after death.

**Rulers would be buried in a room of a house, and that room would then be filled in to serve as a foundation for the room of the next ruler, usually a descendant, to be built on top of it. The Maya believed that the first house/building had "life," so they would take some element of the prior structure and build it into the new structure (tricky for archaeologists to figure out). Different times would have different building styles, and the rooms would be built up and up.

**Lamanai was excavated between 1974 and 1986. Dr. David Pendergrass of the Royal Ontario Museum was the chief investigator, and the decision was made to map, but not uncover, all the buildings in the interest of true preservation. There were 714 buildings over a 4.5 square mile area located. Pendergrass noted that the quality of materials appeared to decline from the Pre-Classic to the Mid-Classic period (a phenomenon not unfamiliar to us even today . . . sometimes our older homes are made with much better quality materials than our newer homes.)

**It was determined that when the Spanish arrived at Lamanai in 1644 A.D., they met an active Lamanai Maya site -- one of only 2 active sites found by the Spaniards. Others had all been abandoned.

**The story is that the Spanish built a Catholic Church at Lamanai. When they left for Spain, the Maya burned it, and had buried a ceramic icon under the door depicting a human in a crocodile's mouth (with jaguar spots on the croc). When the Spanish returned 20 years later, they were angry to make the discovery of the burned church. So, they made Maya labor build another church. When they left again to go to Spain, de ja vu, the Maya burned it, burying another ceramic icon depicting a human in a crocodile's mouth. These two icons are pictured here, with a bit of the glare of the glass encasements from the museum center. I don't know about you, but if I were the Spanish back then, I would have taken these acts as a very clear rejection of their forced Christianity.

**It is estimated that at its peak in the Mid-Classic period, between 40,000 and 60,000 people lived at Lamanai. We looked at the epicenter of the plaza where the ruler class/government would have been located in stone and masonry structures with steep stairs. There would have been compounds for farmers and lower classes located in raised wooden structures with thatched roofs around the periphery.

**Rulers would have had knowledge due to their precise calendars. They could predict the agricultural cycles, rain, etc, which gave them power over their people. They had a large agricultural economy (not hunters largely), and the rulers would have history, both literal and symbolic, in being built atop their ancestors, which would reinforce their power and prestige. They knew geometry, shown in construction, and they had irrigation systems. Their knowledge was written down (until the Spanish burned all but three texts in order to write their own version -- none of which is maintained in Belize. One is in Germany, one is in Mexico, and one is split into two locations, and I didn't catch where).

**All in all, we spent about three hours hiking through the site, with beautiful lush trees and vegetation all around us. At about 2 p.m. we had a lunch, brought in by Amad, cooked by his mother. It was a most delicious stewed chicken, rice and beans, coleslaw, potato salad, homemade salsa, and soda in a bottle. It was a traditional Belizean meal, and food never tasted so good as it did that afternoon.

On the bus ride home, we discussed why the Maya declined. There are many theories including that the lower classes abandoned Maya civilization out of frustration with the upper class's failure to mitigate the drought, hunger and warfare among sites. Some may have wandered off/dispersed to farm their own lands. Overpopulation is believed to have contributed to the downfall of the Maya. They had likely deforested the land in the height of the Classical period; there was climate change and lack of resources at a time of great population growth. The natural resources were stripped due to overpopulation.
There are still Maya today, and a large number of Mestizos (Maya-Spanish descendants). A census of Maya was conducted recently, and it found that there are 11.5 people of Maya ancestry, half of which are direct descendants. Twenty percent of the Yucatan Peninsula is Maya, and many are in Guatemala.

We climbed to the top of N10-43, above. It was very steep, indeed. The photo on the right and below are from the top!

Below is our group shot, with our wonderful group of 16! Notice Matt is at the top of the pyramid. Also below is a little someone we saw on our boat ride back.

** As always, to see a photo or map in greater detail, click on the image to enlarge.

Check Out Accommodations at TBZ

Many of our readers might be surprised to learn that The Belize Zoo has excellent accommodations just adjacent to TBZ, and it offers an great base from which to explore the entire country of Belize. For those planning to visit The Belize Zoo, this post contains a description of our experience, including the delicious food, on our recent group trip.

We stayed at the Tropical Education Center of The Belize Zoo. This was a great home base for our many excursions, and the rainforest grounds themselves were full of beautiful trees, vegetation, and flowers -- perfect for hiking around and bird watching. The TEC has a pond that is full of crocodiles, turtles, and has a host of birds hanging out. We were able to feed the turtles and crocodiles one evening and got to see quite a few up close. One evening, staffer John caught a baby crocodile and let Matt hold it. I am hoping to get a photo of that to add!

Tom and Matt and I were housed in one of the three VIP cabins.
Our cabin was up on stilts so that it sat up in the canopy of trees. It had a wonderful screened-in porch on two sides, and inside it had two double beds, a small counter area, and a small bathroom with a hot shower stall! The cabin had electricity, and it was wonderful to have a small refrigerator and lights to turn on at night. The cabin had a large jug of drinking water in it, and it was very clean and comfortable. At night and in the morning, with eyes closed, we could hear the sounds of the rainforest . . . birds, critters, tree frogs and crickets. It was a symphony of nature. The air is earthy and moist and fragrant. The whole atmosphere is rejuvenating.

The students stayed in dormitories, two beds to a room, and there were bathroom facilities a short walk from the dorms. There are also some great cabanas available a short distance away.

The dining hall was a short walk from the dorms, and we had buffet style meals cooked up by the talented Miss Muriel. Our meals were traditional Belize dishes. For breakfast, fresh fruit (pineapple, watermelon, and papaya) was plentiful, along side scrambled eggs, refried beans, tortilla or Johnny Cake biscuits or Fried Jacks (fried tortilla dough with sugar or syrup).

Lunches were mostly packed to take on trips, and they included the most delicious burritos or sandwiches and cakes. The beverages were usually lime-aid or sometimes soda in a glass bottle. The Coke tastes so much better there because they make it with cane sugar rather than high fructose corn syrup. The difference is noticeable! Some of our group bought Belikin beer by the bottle for a cocktail.

Dinner entrees included stewed chicken barbecued chicken, curried pork stew, fried tilapia and spaghetti. Sides were steamed vegetables, rice and beans, potato salad, and coleslaw or cooked cabbage. The fresh salsas were incredibly flavorful, and the habanero hot sauce was in jars on the table. Desserts were simple and delicious. They included bread pudding and some cinnamon and plain cakes without frosting. The food was absolutely delicious, and because we were active all day, and didn't snack between meals, we ate quite a bit, and felt incredibly healthy with such a good diet. I managed to clean my plate at every meal, something I don't often do when I am home.

We traveled with our guide Peter on a large white bus, driven expertly on the bumpy and dusty roads up and down the mountains by Stanley, assisted by Daniel. The three Belizeans made our trip special, because they bonded with our group after just a day or so, and they "hung out" with us on the various excursions or after mealtime. Peter and Stanley (as well as Tom) sang some songs and played the guitar. It was relaxed and fun. I can't imagine that anyone missed television or computers. We had a simple, good, full time.

The last two days of the trip were on Ambergris Caye on the Caribbean. We stayed a short walk to the beach at Steve & Becky's Cute Little Motel, and though we missed the traditional cooking of the TEC, we enjoyed some nice meals out in San Pedro. The motel was quaint and clean, and for the first time that week, I actually used a hairdryer. We had such perfect weather all week long, I don't think I would change one thing about the itinerary. Our digs were delightful.