Belize is different than its Central American neighbors, most notably in being anglophone, as it was until 1981 the British Honduras. It is also rather small and sparsely populated (300k people in a country the size of Massachusetts). Several Mayan dialects are still commonly spoken, especially in the southern coast and inland areas, but it also has large Mennonite and Amish communities. Belize also has the second largest reef in the world, much of which is easily accessible (all we needed was a kayak and snorkels).
Although we started our trip in the jungle highlands near the Guatemala border (more on that in a bit), perhaps the most striking and memorable hour of our trip was, immediately upon arrival to our beach-front casita, being whisked by helicopter 50 miles off the coast to see the Blue Hole (below) and Lighthouse Atoll (see the movie above this post). The picture above is an eerily beautiful shipwreck that occurred on the atoll in 2004 (there's an Osprey perched just aft of the bridge).
We started our trip in the Chaa Creek reserve, a beautiful location where each morning, chachalacas and aracaris (one is pictured below) visited the fruiting palms outside our window to forage. Our first excursion was across the Guatemalan border to the Mayan ruins at Tikal, where the impressive ruins were matched by the incredibly intact surrounding jungle that was filled with wildlife: the raccoon-like coatimundi, howler and spider monkeys and exotic birds such as emerald toucanet, crested guan, montezuma oropendula and (Kristen's favorite) oscillated turkey. You can check out our
bird blog for pics of all these (and more).
We were fortunate on our next outing to have an excellent guide, Miguel, who paddled us through the Barton Creek cave, where pottery and skulls from the rituals of his Maya ancestors still lie.
As it turned out, Miguel is also an expert on local birds (able to identify many simply by call) and was our guide on a birding excursion the following day.
It's hard to pick a highlight, as we saw so much, but if pressed I'd say the spot of the day was a breeding pair of
jabiru at a marsh near Aguacate. We watched in awe as the male platooned back and forth between the shoreline and treetop roost with carefully selected nesting material.
