Inland to the Cayo: Baby Jaguar is Unbearable Cute

The Belize Zoo: Good, No True?

After a few days, I’d had enough of the beach, if you can believe it. On July 3, we hopped a boat to Belize City and headed inland. Despite the warnings of pushy cab drivers, we had no problems navigating the local bus system. Sure, they look like crowded school buses, but they’re just as comfortable as the buses I ride every day in Minneapolis and their patrons are more respectable. The bus let us off at the Belize Zoo, where we stowed our bags at the gift shop and walked around for two or three hours. The Belize Zoo is one of the best I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen a lot of zoos. Instead of the artfully contrived shotcrete and plastic trees you’ll see at American zoos, this is the real deal. They’ve enclosed little patches of rainforest and stocked it with animals native to Belize. Not only are there agoutis and foxes in the enclosures, there are some wild ones wandering the trails. The weather was cool when we visited and the animals were surprisingly active. The baby jaguar was climbing trees and pouncing, the puma sat in by the fence and purred, the tapirs squeezed their flexible noses through the fence to be petted, and the otters raced around like crazy people. Birds were featured as well: a harpy eagle with a leg as thick as my bicep, a colorful toucan, and a spectacled owl with an unnerving stare. The hand-painted signs are corny (i.e. “We toucans love Belize. No true?”) but in keeping with the mission of the zoo—to engage Belizean children in learning about and preserving their natural heritage.

The Belize Zoo is one of the best I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen a lot of zoos.

A Brief Discussion of Poverty in Belize

We knew the good stuff about Belize: friendly people, beautiful scenery, and good conservation programs, but we were curious about the bad. On the bus, a few locals and an American carpenter (working for a Catholic charity) filled us in. Because of tourism and overseas banking, Belize is wealthy by Central American standards, but wages are low, unemployment is high (30%) and few people can afford the high cost of living. Gas costs $5 a gallon, hence the expensive tours.  You see a lot of litter, a lot of shabby cinderblock housing, a lot of child abuse, and a lot of people with nothing to do. Belize has avoided the political turmoil of its neighbors, but most of the people we talked to expressed cynicism about their government.

Dan is Fascinated by Composting Toilets

We watched the baby jaguar for at least a half an hour
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San Ignacio, in the western part of the country, is a hub for guides offering tours to Mayan ruins, caves, kayaking, hiking, and other adventurous pursuits. We booked a tour, ate at a Sri Lankan restaurant, and then settled in at the Trek Stop, a few miles out of town. Composting toilets, showers fed by rain water, a butterfly house, and an ethnobotany trail are just some of the features of this amazingly cheap eco-lodge. We stayed in little cabins that kept out the mosquitoes (not too bad the whole trip) but let in a cacophony of noise from various birds, frogs, and cicadas that inhabited the premises. Very cool.  We ran into an archeology researcher that had worked for the same history prof as Matt, back in college—small world! She showed us how to select ripe mangos, which we found in abundance on the grounds.  Had we stayed longer, we would have played Belize’s only disc golf course, but alas, too much to do, too little time.