Publicity!

We got some nice coverage for the Belize trip in the Northwest Herald today.

 http://www.nwherald.com/2014/12/29/mcc-students-take-trip-to-belize/a6r4r0q/

You better Belize it, Part 4

Wednesday, Dec. 17. It was another cloudless morning. When I did the site visit last January, I had wet feet every day I was there. It was such a relief to not have gotten my shoes wet once on this trip. We drove west to San Iganacio. We spent the morning touring Mayan ruins at Xunantunich and Cahal Pech. I hadn’t been to Xunantunich last year because the water was high. I hadn’t understood the problem at the time. I learned that there is a ferry across the Mopan River between the main road and the archeological site. Furthermore, the ferry is hand cranked!

Rapids on the Mopan River

Our guide explained Mayan architecture, daily life, rituals, religion, and other cultural practices. We climbed to the top of El Castillo, the royal residence, at Xunantunich, where we could see Guatemala. It was a lot of climbing, and the steps were high. Pablo explained that the large steps were intentional, as it forced the climbers to bow to the royalty seated at the top. Once I heard this, it was easy enough to verify.

Up

Up!

Sorority shot before climbing the rest of the way up El Castillo, the royal residence

Up!

Up!

The top, with Guatamala in the distance

View of Belize from the other side of the top of El Castillo

There is nothing to mark the boundary between Guatemala and Belize in this area. Border guards armed with machine guns were visible at the perimeter of the park.

Down

Down the other side of El Castillo

We had only been at Xunantunich a short time when busloads of tourists from cruise ships arrived. One of the students later referred to them as termites, an apt descriptor as they swarmed over the ruins.

It was a relief to get back in the van and go to Cahal Pech, where we had the place to ourselves. I was surprised, as Cahal Pech had been crowded last year. I inferred that Cahal Pech is the fallback for the cruise ship tourists when Xunantunich is inaccessible. Xunantunich has a larger “wow” factor because the royal residence is higher and has replicas of stone carvings on two sides. Cahal Pech is, however, the more historically significant because it was continuously occupied for 2 millenia from 1200 B.C.E. to the late 800’s C.E.

Temple with alter at Cahal Pech

Sorority shot in front of the Royal Throne at Plaza A

Loyal subjects bow before the queen

Passageway among royal bedrooms

We had a picnic lunch at Cahal Pech. The Lodge packed out burritos. I expected the burritos to be pre-made. Instead, we had individual containers including a stack of enormous, thick, home-made flour tortillas; sautéed chicken, peppers, and onions; salsa; refried beans; sour cream; bananas, other stuff I’m forgetting, and a whole watermelon that we did not cut. There was plenty of food without it.

After lunch, we went to the Green Iguana Conservation Project to learn about how the green iguana came to be endangered by selective hunting of females with eggs. The eggs, harvested from inside the female, have traditionally been used as an aphrodisiac. There is no scientific evidence to support that the eggs have any effect, but the practice continues. Captive breeding and education are working together to restore the population.

Orientation at the Green Iguana Conservation Project

Girls with iguanas

Girls with baby iguanas

We spent an hour shopping in San Ignacio, a tiny and rather seedy town. Several of the students explored a grocery to compare prices. Some food seemed about the same, some was much more expensive. I noticed that the eggs were stacked in open crates, 3 dozen eggs to a layer, on an unrefrigerated shelf. It was an interesting experience to walk down the street, sweating in the considerable late afternoon heat, while the sounds of Christmas carols in Spanish came through the open shop doors.

We had our last dinner at the lodge that night. I told the girls that I felt extremely fortunate to have spent the week in the company of such a remarkable group of women. Everyone was engaged and enthusiastic even when pushed outside their comfort zone. I had brought a notebook to discuss what should be changed in the course for next year. Nearly every suggestion was a change to the pack list. Everyone thought the online portion of the course was seamlessly integrated with the field activities, except that they wished they’d read more about the ethnic groups of Belize. There wasn’t anything they would change, even the order of the days. Score!

Dinner with the Christmas tree

Thursday, December 18. We left for the airport at 8:30. Everything went according to schedule all day. We managed to stay more or less together through Immigration and Customs in Miami, and get through it all in 1 hour and 40 minutes, leaving 80 minutes to get something to eat, which was important as we’d pretty much missed lunch. As soon as we got to the gate, the students were on their phones setting up a Facebook page where we could share our photos. I took this as one more piece of evidence that the trip had been an overwhelming success.

You better Belize it, Part 3

Tuesday, Dec. 16. We drove an hour and a half north of the lodge to Bermuda Landing to visit the Community Baboon Sanctuary to learn about conservation of black howler monkeys and Kriol use of rainforest plants for housing, food, and medicines. There are no true baboons in Belize. The black howler monkeys were called baboons by slaves from Africa, where baboons are native. I can’t believe that they failed to notice the considerable physical differences between the new monkeys and the ones back home, but they were not taxonomists. Being dumped in a foreign land and forced to harvest mahogany trees was enough to deal with, I’m sure.

After using the restroom marked “Female,” we assembled in the corrugated iron shed that housed the Community Baboon Sanctuary interpretive center and museum. I noticed a camouflage net strung underneath the ceiling. I wondered at its purpose until I saw small insect-eating bats flying around between the net and the roof. Our noise must have disturbed them from their daytime sleep.

Bats hanging from the ceiling of the Community Baboon Sanctuary museum and interpretive center

A friendly cat circulated among the students and selected Kyra as his new BFF (best friend forever, for those not up on the lingo of the day).

Kyra with her new cat friend

Our guide introduced herself as Geraldine. She explained the history of the sanctuary, one of the first places on earth where private landowners signed agreements to use farming practices that were compatible with maintaining the population of howler monkeys. The provisions included leaving trees that were sources of food and shelter for the monkeys, not cutting the forest along the river’s edge,  and providing safe corridors for the monkeys to move from one forest fragment to another.

We had barely left the parking lot when Geraldine stopped us, walked to a fence line and pulled the leaf from a plant that resembled a yucca. She held the thorny tip with one hand while she pulled all the flesh from the rest of the leaf, leaving just the fibers. “This makes a needle and t’read,” she explained. “If you rip your pants in the jungle, you can use this to sew them up.”

Geraldine demonstrations jungle needle and thread

Across the road, she pointed out a vermillion flycatcher. Unfortunately, the photo of the bird in the shade failed to capture its remarkably red color.

Vermillion flycatcher

We hadn’t gone far into the jungle when Geraldine stopped in mid-sentence and looked up, noticing some movement or sound that the rest of us missed. “Here they are!” she said, leading us back up the trail. She imitated the howler’s roar, and sure enough, a troop of monkeys came right down the tree almost to arm’s length, and we heard the dominant male’s ear-splitting howl in the tree just above us. A recording of the call of the black howler monkey was used as the sound track for T. rex in Jurassic Park. I saw the same female baby I’d seen last year, judging by the birth date Geraldine shared with us. Her mother had a new infant, born this November.

Four monkeys (including an infant hanging on his mother)

Close up of mom and baby

We watched the howlers for quite a while. When they lost interest in us, Geraldine walked us farther down the trail to show us the national tree of Belize. She asked us to guess what it was, but the only one we could think of was the Ceiba, sacred to the Maya. But no, it is the mahogany, sacred to the Europeans, who began using slave crews to harvest the tree for profit in the mid-1600’s.

A mahogany tree

On our way back to the van, Geraldine showed us, among other plants, the red-flowered herb known as hot lips or womb plant. It is used to ease childbirth and help expel the placenta. Geraldine mentioned in passing that plants that look like a body part are often good for treating that part. The resemblance of the hot lips flower and the labia minora was obvious. And I had only associated the Doctrine of Signatures with Europeans.

Hot lips or womb plant

In the afternoon, our group split up for zip lining and cave tubing.

The zipliners

Liz on zipline

Even though these  where the only activities scheduled for fun rather than education, the students at the zip lines got to see and, if sufficiently brave, hold a red rump tarantula.

The cave tubers (makes them sound like potatoes…) saw fruit bats and learned that the acidic poop of the fruit bat dissolves the alkaline limestone of the caves so that large holes develop in the top of the cave where the bats roost.

The cave tubers

We had the fanciest towel art yet when we got back to the room. It was a bird nested in the pool towel.

Bird in next

On our way to dinner, Kate and I saw a tiny gecko on the outside wall above our door. Here is a photo with Kate’s hand as a size reference.

Tiny gecko with Kate's fingers

I had been thinking of having beef for supper, but when Gareth announced that the special was shrimp and lobster Creole, well…

Shrimp and lobster Creole with fried plantains, white rice, and steamed veg

You better Belize it, Part 2

Monday, Dec.15:  It was a beautiful day in Belize. There was a cloud in the valley under the Sleeping Giant, which Kate said looked like a pillow under his head.

Sleeping Giant, upper left, with a cloud pillow

Because Kate had eaten banana pancakes the previous day and declared them good, I ordered pancakes. Not being a fan of cooked bananas, I ordered my pancakes with chocolate chips. Kate and I clearly had different standards for pancakes. I rarely have pancakes out that are as good as the ones I make at home. These pancakes were heavy and dry. The bacon was good, though. There was a new kind of fruit on the plate that I didn’t recognize. It was crunchy and did not have much flavor.

Chocolate chip pancakes and bacon

We hiked through the jungle to a lookout tower to learn about medicinal plants, agricultural practices, and water sheds. Our guide, Pablo, pointed out over a dozen plants that native peoples have traditionally used to treat various ailments. Sap from the give-and-take tree is used to stop pain and bleeding. Jackass bitters are used to treat malaria. Barba de jolote will cure stomach cramps. The one that most surprised the students was Chinese root, which is a contraceptive. The current controversy surrounding contraceptive use made the students think it was something new. 

Chinese root

Pablo showed us a custard apple tree. One of the girls mentioned that it was the mystery fruit at breakfast.

“You mean the piece of Styrofoam?” Liz asked.

We saw the black orchid, the national flower of Belize. The students were surprised that it was small and not very showy. I reminded them that the orchids they saw in the flower shops had been selected for large, pretty flowers. The black orchid, according to Pablo, is the only orchid in the world that blooms year round.

The black orchid, the national flower of Belize

From the lookout tower at the top of the hill, we could see the Sibun River valley, cattle pastures, and orange groves. Kate and I explained that a water shed is the area that drains into a particular body of water. The tops of the hills are the divide, and everything on our side of the divide drains into the Sibun River. We could see orange groves in various stages of maturity. The cattle in the pasture were Brahma, imported from India because the climate is similar.

Orange groves in the Sibun River valley

We were all glad to have a shorter path back down to the lodge. We passed a stone outcrop that had trees growing from the sheer face and aerial roots hanging down from the top.

Tree growing on bare, vertical rock

Kate poses as a size reference to a tree's buttress roots

The path down the mountain

I had shrimp quesadillas for lunch.

Shrimp quesadillas

In the afternoon we traveled a short distance from the lodge for a tour of an organic cacao plantation. The plantation was abandoned 20 years ago when cacao prices dropped and has just come back into production this year. We were the first group to tour the plantation since its reopening. Our guide, Rupert, explained the last part of the process first, since that was where we were when we arrived. He went to a a large wooden box and pulled back covers of burlap and banana leaves to reveal the fermenting cacao beans as well as a cloud of fruit flies and an overwhelming and unpleasant odor that was somewhere between wine and very old silage.  

Cacao beans fermenting underneath banana leaves and burlap

Rupert plunged his hand into the box and pulled it out to show us the “worms” (fruit fly larva) that ate the pulp off the outside of the seed while anaerobic microorganisms fermented the beans. 

White fruit fly larva on Rupert's hand

When fermentation was completed, the beans were spread in the sun for a day and then moved to screens under a roof to complete the drying process. 

Rupert explains that the fermented beans stay in the sun for one day

The beans are then moved to a covered drying area for several days

We walked through the cacao groves as Rupert explained organic practices, pruning, grafting, and harvesting cacao. Everything was done by hand. The only disease they have to worry about is black pod, a fungus. They deal with it by picking the infected pods and burying them.

A spore-covered pod

Rupert has a chain saw crew working to clear the underbrush from 20 years of abandonment.

An area that has been cleared of brush in front of an area that hasn't.

Another crew harvests the ripe pods year-round. There is a high season and a low season, and this was low season. I had the girls taste the sweet slimy covering of the seeds. The texture is a little off-putting, but I find it delicious. Reviews were mixed among my companions. I explained the seed dispersal strategy—sweet outer covering to get an animal to carry the seed away, bitter chocolate compounds in the seed to keep the animal from damaging the embryo.

Baby pods just starting to develop

A pile of ripe pods

Seeds covered in sweet goo

At the end of our tour, Rupert demonstrated how to make a bud graft and asked one of his nurserymen to bring up some grafted scions to show us what they looked like in various stages of development. 

Grafted bud beginning to grow

Partially filled bag of dried cacao beans. When full, the bag will weigh 120 pounds

We left with new appreciation for the chocolate we love so much. At the end of the tour, Rupert gave us a burlap sack as a souvenir. Kate had the idea of having all the girls sign it so I could hang it in my office.

The group with our signed burlap bag

I passed on the snapper special of the night in favor of blackened pork chops with fruit salsa. The fruit salsa contained the largest raisins I have ever seen. They were the size of kalamata olives. I also positively identified pineapple and tentatively identified apple. And I had garlic mashed potatoes again and the now-familiar steamed vegetables.

Swans greeted us when we got back to our room

Blackened pork chops with fruit salsa