You better Belize it!

01/11/17 Now that I’ve hit all fifty states, my new travel goal is to visit as many countries as possible. So far, I’ve been to Canada, Mexico, England, Ireland, Scotland, Bermuda, the Bahamas, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Saint Lucia, Antigua & Barbuda, France, Japan, Kiribati, the Marquesas, and French Polynesia.

Today I added Belize.

In contrast to its Central American neighbors, English is the official language of Belize because it used to be British Honduras. There is still evidence of British influence in the sturdy bridges and highways. The people are friendly and unfailingly eager to share their lovely homeland with us.

We tendered into port and took a riverboat wildlife excursion. I’ve been on enough whale-watching tours to know these types of experiences are a crap shoot. You may see something interesting. You may not.

Fortunately, we got lucky!

<
In Belize, they have fresh water crocodiles, not alligators.  They thrive in the brackish water near the mouth of rivers. We caught this fellow sunning himself on a rock. Further up river, we spied a smaller one swimming. As soon as he saw that our boat had stopped to look at him, he turned tail and headed back into the shade of the mangroves.

Sea birds enjoyed hanging out on the dead limbs of trees that had been washed down river during recent floods. These are all cormorants, but we also saw kingfishers, pelicans, and many types of cranes.

Nearby, we saw several manatees, large docile creatures, but they surfaced for only a few seconds, looking like overgrown, furless sea otters that had been hit too many times with the ugly stick. Unfortunately, we weren't quick enough to snap a picture before they sank back into the depths.




This blue-grey fellow was dogging another bird that seemed to be having good luck fishing. Why do the work yourself when you can live off the industry of others? 

Further upriver, we started to see green iguanas. Some them can grow to six feet in length (Don't worry. Most of it is tail!) Even though they are called green, it's mating season, so the males have changed to a flashy orange and black to attract a mate.

Got a great mohawk going, doesn't he? In Belize, they have iguana farms and use the meat to make tacos!

We didn't see any howler monkeys, but since they are usually more active at night, that wasn't surprising. We went upriver as far as we could before we had to return to the ship. When the captain kicked the engines into high gear, we attracted the attention of a fresh water dolphin. This delightful creature seemed to love playing in our wake, breaching and slapping back into the river, then racing to catch up to us again. Again, we couldn't get a picture because it all happened so quickly when he leaped up. 

But what a wonderful experience!