Today would be a fun day. What's not to like about going to a zoo? It was also moving day and we had to have our bags packed and out front of our rooms by 8am. Meanwhile, in their restaurant, Black Orchid Hotel served a mighty fine breakfast!
We boarded our bus and headed southwest for the zoo. There, our group leader led us on a walking exploration of the zoo and its education center. Located on 29 acres of tropical savannah, the Belize Zoo was founded by Sharon Matola in 1983 as a safe haven for rescued animals representing more than 40 different species native to Belize. That's what I meant when I said what's not to like about going to a zoo.
Made from water bottles or coke bottles. Kinda cute.
A safe haven for the rehabilitated, orphaned and rescued wildlife of Belize. Plus, it’s all accessible by wheel chair!
There's these guys, sort of goofy looking, but, hey! they're Tapirs -- Belize's magnificent National Animal. Three or four are present in the zoo.
Here's a good shot of its face. Is he grinning?
How could anyone resist capturing this stunning Spider Monkey pose? I swear, he did this on purpose when he saw cameras pointing at him. Pretty cool, huh?
Two handsome additions to the zoo ... well, actually only one. The wooden fella was already there. Great carving!
Flowers grow in Belize! Top left: A bunch of bananas (not a flower!), top right is Bird of Paradise (Crane Flower), Bottom right is a delicate white flower from an ornamental ginger, bottom left is red ginger, which grows prolifically here. The crème de la crème in the center is a Bromeliad blossom, a gorgeous, eye-catching color! Greenery -- ivies and vines of all types, philodendrons -- all can grow to towering heights, just amazing to see.
This is a Morelet's crocodile named Rose. Never saw (none of us had) a reptile like this one. Isn't it incredible-looking? A fierce, wide-open mouth, lots of teeth, but its the coloring that catches your attention. Sharon basically "took care" of baby Rose and when Rose got big and put into the corral, she and Sharon maintained a "relationship" of sorts.
Naturally, vultures are everywhere, including this zoo.
Black Vulture
Jimmy with a crocodile replica.
As you see, one of them is sitting on the rail!
Ohmygoodnessgosh, look! I gasped when I saw the Harpy Eagle, world's largest eagle, with a wingspan of over six-and-a-half feet. This is the male, and he can weigh 11-17 pounds. Talk about a menacing face! So thrilling for me to see him. When hunting in the rainforest, a harpy eagle will perch on a branch high in the canopy, and using fine-tuned hearing to identify its prey, it'll swoop down to grab a sloth or monkey or iguana or etc. I took a number of pics; this is the one Jimmy picked.
This is a female Harpy Eagle. She's in the next enclosure, visible to the male, and his potential mate. She was busy on the ground picking up and carrying a small branch, don't know why. She is much bigger than him, weighing up to 20 pounds. They are monogamous, mating for life and they are endemic to Belize, but, sorry to say, on the threatened list. She, however, looked fantastic!
Another creature endemic to Belize is the Jabiru stork, one of the largest birds in the western hemisphere at roughly five feet high. Soaring through the air, with its eight-foot wingspan it almost looks like a prehistoric pterodactyl. This guy possesses a huge black beak, approximately one foot long. Handsome, eh?
Had to be careful not to step on any leaf-cutter ant trails.
We saw lots of other animals, including Big Cats, one of them a Jaguar, but these were the best pics to turn out. "The End" of the Zoo pics.
We had a quick lunch at the zoo, and then our little bus hit the road to take us to our new hotel -- the San Ignacio Resort in San Ignacio, Belize.
I finally got my laundry-on-the-line fix on this drive!
This is a beautiful five-star hotel, Aka "Luxury meets the jungle," with an artistic flair for the small things, as you see above. Those are real flowers decorating our towel arrangement. We didn't jump into their inviting swimming pool when we got here, just a fast shower, and then on to the next thing.
Which was an iguana tour on the hotel grounds. Above you see Gomez (big male) crawling over Siva (female) to escape! Haha, didn't work. Since 1996, the hotel folks have been at the forefront of conservation efforts for the threatened Green Iguana. Roberto was our host for the 45-min learning program about iguana incubation, hatching, rearing on the grounds, and the releasing process of them into the wild.
Each of us could hold Siva, feel her skin, and hope she didn't accidentally rip your shirt with her sharp claws. They have a middle toe called a "long toe," which they can use to balance and hold on for dear life, say to a branch or something else.
Cool, reptilian skin on that iguana.
Here's a group of yearlings, who were scarfing down veggies; i.e., cut-up carrots. They were in a large glass acquarium/terrarium without a top.
And Roberto caught one of the little guys to place on Jimmy's neck. Lucky man!
At 5:30, the group trooped down to San Ignacio on foot to see the town and get to Erva's restaurant for dinner. it wasn't far and it was downhill. We'd preordered and Jimmy and I both chose a Creole fish dish, which was mostly too spicy for me to eat, tho I did eat the fish. At 7:30 our excellent driver, Damion, picked us up in the bus so we wouldn't have to walk uphill, and anyway, all of us were done walking by this time!
