The Amazon Trail

This is the game that took up most of my indoor time as a child. My sisters and I frequently fought over who was going to play, and infrequently watched and helped each other as we canoed down the river trying to spot animals. This is a game about animals: you take pictures of them, and then you win when you get a lot of pictures. You spearfish and you trade with the locals. You learn all about the animals of the rainforest, and you have FUN! If you haven't already gone to amazon.com to buy this for your child, do so now. I'll wait.
As you hopefully have figured out, I am not in the amazon. However, I did visit the rainforests of southern Belize this week. I stayed in the jungle for two nights. I have warrior wounds from fighting off the deadly mosquitoes and no see ums. they are itchy wounds.

The cockscomb wildlife basin, so named for it's resemblance to the comb of a male chicken, on his head, wait...I'll get a picture.



This is the cockscomb basin. Correction: this is the cockscomb basin in the 80s. The camera was out of batteries, despite the two packs of batteries that I have bought in the past week. Apparently they had been sitting on the shelf for far too long waiting for me to buy them. So I noted all of the animals that I saw and will procure internet images of them for you in the later parts of this blog. I hope you're excited.

I arrived wet with the heat of the noonday sun. I bought jungle provisions before I went in: cookies, banana bread, ramen noodles, and powdered coconut milk. I also bought water. After I bought the water, I decided not to hike the 10 miles into the preserve. It surely would have been the death of me. Instead, I hired a taxi and popped right into the thick of the jungle in about a half hour. The road, while gravel, is covered with potholes and huge rocks, and also we were looking for animals on the side of the road. He told me that most people who see animals see them on the main road - especially jaguars. There were two jaguar crossing signs that seemed not to be jokes on the way into the preserve. Once in, I quickly signed up for the rustic cabin. this is the cabin with no electricity and no bathroom, but it does boast a beautiful screened in porch to hide you from the bugs in the evening when you want to sit out and listen to night come in. I went for an unproductive walk. This was only days after Patrick had left the country, and I was missing him, and a little miffed that I wouldn't be able to talk to him for the next couple of days. That was the reason that I moved back to Minnesota - so I would be able to talk to people whenever I wanted to! Now I was out in the bush again, and really wanting someone to talk to.

I found someone! It was a canadian couple, just in Belize for 11 days. They walked the 10 miles to get in, and were covered in bug bites. They were incredibly lovey dovey, and ended every sentence with 'sweety' or 'honey.' I was fine with it, because they took me on a night hike. Mind you, if it wasn't for them, I would not have walked in the jungle at night alone, because that is scary. Instead, I would have holed up in the cabin and waited for daybreak, and probably also sanity.

The thing about the central american jungle is, that all of the animals that you come to see - the jaguars, the fer de lance, the tapir - all of these are nocturnal. It is far too hot during the day to walk around, people included, and so we wait for dusk to explore. The obvious problems of exploring in the dark - it's dark, it's scary, there are huge spiders - are impossible to overcome by yourself on your first night in the jungle. So you wait for someone, anyone to come along and ask you to accompany them.

We leave at 8:30 for a 3.5k hike. This is a little hike. In miles, this is 2. This is nothing, an hour walk through the forest. We walk along the big path toward the Wari trailhead. There is a bird that sits on the trail, looking like the trail. When we get close, it moves uptrail about 15 meters. When we get close again, it does the same thing. This bird should probably just wait for us to go around it. It is a chuck will's widow, I think, after not-so-careful internet searching. Here it is:All around us fly Click beetles, which light up in the eyes like fireflies and click like the toy out of a rice crispies box when you push on their abdomens. this makes the firefly light glow brighter, and it makes a cute little noise. this is a click beetle:

There are leaf-cutter ants blazing trails all over the jungle. There are millions of leaf cutter ants, climbing trees to fetch leaves, clearing paths...wherever there are leafcutters, there are paths cleaned of leaves. they use them for food. They can't eat the leaves, but bring them to their nests and cultivate a fungus using the leaves, which they then eat. Here is one:


We walk on. There are lots of spiders - did I already mention that? And lots of howler monkeys howling, but it is too dark and they are too far up in the trees for us to see them. They make a howl like a big hungry carnivore. they make a sound like they are going to eat us. I took a picture of a howler monkey at the zoo yesterday. this is the picture that I took:


We don't see anything else for the rest of the trip. when we arrive back at camp, at 11:30 - how did it take 3 hours to walk 2 miles? - we are exhausted, and practically fall into bed. I can't sleep, because I'm still a little scared of the jungle. At about 12:37 (I looked at my watch), Sean, the man in the room next door, screams. Then I hear rustling and a lot of low voices, and it seems that Sean has been stung by a scorpion. He is looking for it for 20 minutes. Now, we saw some King Scorpions earlier in the evening in the kitchen. they are 2 1/2 inches long, these little suckers. they have big stingers on their tails, and they are super creepy. He had one in his bed. Needless to say, I did not sleep for the rest of the night. Did I mention that these things are arachnids? Gross.

So the next day, I left the too happy couple and went river tubing all by myself in the jungle where the 9 poisonous snakes of Belize are probably hanging out. I mean, I went in a river in the depths of the jungle by myself! I was scared shitless. I was so scared that for the first 10 minutes, I didn't let my butt touch the water. Then I did, and it was nice, because it was probably 90 degrees that day. I didn't see any snakes. I didn't see any crocs. I did see a lot of birds! A lot of beautiful birds...like:
The Great Currasow!

This One! It is yellow.

After awhile, I decided to camp out at Tiger Fern waterfall for the night. I think that I decided this after I had had a sleepless night in a cabin and I found out that it would cost $30 Belize less (that's $15 US) to stay in a tent - also I probably would get some sleep because scorpions do not come into tents that have closed zippers. This is a well known fact. Actually, i suppose they could rip through the tent fabric with their scorpionclaws or scorpitail, but the odds were in my favor here.

The picture at the top is my view from campsite. I arrived sweaty, seriously sweaty (it was a 90+ degree hike to the top of a hill) at the campsite at around 5 pm and just waited for nightfall. I couldn't read, write, or think because I was so tired from the not sleep, so I just sat and watched and waited. Night came. I saw some animals, heard the howler monkeys start to screech, and went to bed. Morning came. I had slept. I got up at 5:30 when the sky was just turning light. I looked out the lookout, and the entire Cockscomb basin was covered in fog, covered so thick that it looked like a lake covered in snow. there was not a tree to be seen. It must be what the clouds look like from above. It slowly dissipated throughout the morning, and I slowly went about my business, writing and watching and being in awe. I camped in the jungle. By myself. And I liked it. Alot. I am a badass.