Belize, Day 4: Community Baboon Sanctuary and Cave Tubing

Tuesday, December 15, 2015

“I’m not fond of these modern sinks,” I told Kate Tuesday morning. Our sink was one step more peculiar than the large bowl sitting on top of the counter, as the water came out of the pipe into a smaller bowl that then emptied into the large bowl below. Why?

Fancy and somewhat useless sink

“We also have the shower of low self-esteem,” Kate replied.

“Because of the floor to ceiling plate glass looking out on the soaking tub?” I asked. Even though I knew the tub was completely enclosed with high walls of bamboo, I found that disturbing, especially when I could hear men’s voices from where a new casita was being built nearby.

The plate glass wall next to the shower

“That, and because you can see the reflection of your entire body in the giant mirror by the sink.”

I hadn’t noticed that, partly because I can’t see that far without my glasses and partly because I don’t look in mirrors all that much. It is not that I feel myself above vanity. It is more the recognition of a lost cause. I wish I could get in the habit of looking in mirrors more often. I can only wonder how often I go to class with broccoli in my teeth.

My reflection as I take the picture from in the shower of low-self esteem

I had a great view from the deck as I did my morning shoulder exercises. Way better than the basement storeroom where I do them at home.

The view while I did my exercises

Fry jacks for breakfast! They were larger than I remembered and not as hot as they should have been due to the buffet format, but still good to eat. I dipped mine in peach yogurt. Other than that, we had the usual selection of cereals, toast, and hard-boiled eggs. The morning’s fruit selection was slices of watermelon, star fruit, and pineapple.

We loaded the van and headed off to Bermuda Landing to visit the Community Baboon Sanctuary. Long-time readers may recall that the primates in question are not baboons but black howler monkeys.  Slaves from Africa, where baboons live, gave the name to these unfamiliar monkeys in their new home, and the name stuck in the Kriol population.

As we approached Bermuda Landing, we crossed the Belize River. Abel pointed out green iguanas in the trees over the water.  One large male, bright orange for the breeding season, extended his dewlap and bobbed his head.

Kim was our guide at the Sanctuary. As she explained how the Community Baboon Sanctuary formed, I looked around at the Christmas decorations. Large round, purple, shiny Christmas ornaments hung from a dried vines hanging across the room above our heads. The ornaments were interspersed with red and white Chinese paper lanterns. It produced quite a multicultural effect.

Christmas decorations at the Community Baboon Sanctuary

Kim came for a large family of 13. Her last name was McFadzean. She pointed on the map to her family’s land within the Sanctuary. Her father had been one of the first to sign the agreement to manage his land in a way that would be compatible with the howler monkeys. The Sanctuary is managed by a women’s conservation group. (Geraldine would say that it is because men never do anything.) Kim has been a volunteer for 15 years. One thing that impressed some of the students was that not all the landowners signed the agreement to protect the howler monkeys right off the bat. It took many years before the majority of landowners got on board.

Tour guide Kim, right, explains the history of the Sanctuary to the students

We spent more time with the monkeys this year than on the other two tours I’d been on. This area has a high density of monkeys because of the abundance of fig trees. Kim got quite close to the baby monkeys, closer than she would try to get to the adults, who are more dangerous. 

Kim calls down a baby black howler monkey

Baby in a tree

"Why did we give up prehensile tails?" Kate asked. "They would be so handy."

The tour that left after ours had a male guide. He was more effective at getting the alpha male to howl. Kim led us over to his group, where the monkeys were coming very close to the ground and the humans. Kaina got a great selfie with one of the babies.

From left to right, Megan, Kaina, monkey in front of someone from another tour, and Harriet

Megan and Kaina taking selfies with a juvenile and two babies

More baby pictures

And another, eating a leaf offered by the guide

Mama Monkey looking grumpy

Here is a video of the monkeys. Kate said, "Why did we ever give up prehensile tails? They would be so handy."
I could only suggest that they would make it difficult to wear pants.

When our time was up, Kim led us back to the building. She took time to show us one medicinal plant, the ringworm tree. When freshly picked, the leaves produce a yellow sap that can be used to treat ringworm and other itchy skin problems.

The yellow sap of a freshly picked leaf from ringworm wood

Cave tubing was incredible. We had to walk a long way over gravel to get to the put in spot, including fording a river that was not quite waist deep and had a swift current. I assumed the rope that hung across the water was for us to hang onto as we walked, although no one used it.

Tiffany give the thumbs up in the parking lot

Crossing the river

Several groups of tubers floated by all linked together with ropes in fancy tubes that had back rests and seats. We had regular old black inner tubes like I’d had growing up. I was fine with that because you could put the tube over one shoulder with your head in the middle to carry it. It was somewhat less cumbersome that way.

Group shot at the cave entrance

  

Entering the cave

We floated a long way through the cave. “This is so cool,” Kate observed. “This is how caves are made!”

In the cave--that's me in the striped shirt

Left to right, Amanda G, Becca, Kaina, and Mel

Kate's selfie of the two of us

There were some stalactites off to the side. The roof directly over us was mostly smooth, indicating few cracks where water could seep through. We saw holes where fruit bats had made shelters by pooping on the rocks. Because they eat fruit, their poop is acidic. Acidic substances dissolve limestone. I was impressed by the perfect symmetry of the holes as well as their depth. Abel pointed out one hole that had bats roosting in it. The hole was so deep—2 or 3 feet at least—that I had to paddle furiously against the current to get directly underneath it to see to the top were the bats were crowded together. I apologized for shining my headlamp on them and disturbing their sleep.

Kate's feet at the cave exit

Scenery along the river

Here are some videos I took while we were in the cave and afterwards. Kate has a cameo.

It was getting near sunset, which is when the iguanas come out of the trees and go to wherever they go for the night. This big male was walking along the bank.

Male heading home at the end of his shift

There was a large rock above a deep spot in the river near the pull-out point. Many of the students jumped off the rock. Some of them had to overcome considerable trepidation. 

Kate standing on the jumping-off rock

This video shows some of the students jumping off the rock. It didn't go nearly as fast as the video suggests. There was a lot of time spent summoning courage.

We got stuck in rush hour traffic in Belmopan at 5:15. I asked Abel what the normal workday was for a person in Belmopan.

“Seven to five. Because most of them work for the government.”

Ten hours. Wow. And everyone did just get off work.

We got back at lodge at 6:00. There was no time to shower before dinner at 6:30, but for once we were relatively clean, having been in water for a large part of the afternoon. Our choices were Kriol shrimp with coconut rice and grilled vegetables or pineapple glazed lamb chops. The soup was tomato and lime, which was piquant and excellent. The veg did have grill marks, but were otherwise indistinguishable from the ubiquitous steamed veg. Tonight’s aliquot had zucchini, cauliflower, broccoli, and a mysterious light green, watery, tasteless something. At least there were no carrots. The shrimp had a red cream sauce with pineapple chunks and scallions. After I ate all the shrimp, which came in a bowl, I poured the sauce over the rice and veg, which made everything taste better. The rice was perfectly cooked.

We had to be at breakfast at 6:30 the following morning to get an early start to the Maya ruins. Kate and I went to our casita to take showers and go to bed. We hoped the students would do the same, but doubted they would. Ah, youth.

Belize, Day 3: Medicinal plants and Cacao Plantation

Monday, December 13

A banana tree grew right outside our casita. I had seen banana trees every time I’d been to the tropics, but this was my first opportunity to see one early in the morning. The fruits develop at the top of a long stalk. A huge flower bud hangs at the opposite end. In the early morning, one sepal curls up from the bud revealing a layer of flowers. Little black bees or wasps busily visit the flowers, all in vain from the banana’s point of view. By afternoon, the sepal and all the flowers are on the ground. On our cave hike, Edgar mentioned that the banana tree sets fruit only once and then dies. It also apparently sets fruit only at the top of the floral stalk. All flowers after that initial fruit development are aborted. It seems like a crazy amount of wasted effort to produce 2 meters or more of flower stalk with no additional reproduction. This leads to several questions. If the first fruits are lost, will subsequent flowers develop into more fruits? Has selective breeding contributed to this odd flowering strategy? After all, bananas no longer have viable seeds, so even the process of setting fruit does not result in reproduction. All our bananas come from cuttings. Are there any wild bananas anywhere? So many things to ponder.

The entire banana inflorescence with bananas at the top and the flower bud at the bottom

One sepal peels back to reveal the flowers

Close up of the flowers and their pollinators

Another plant in the landscaping was attractive to butterflies. This photo shows a banded peacock butterfly (black, red, and white) on the left and a Julia butterfly (almost entirely orange) on the right.

Banded peacock butterfly, left; Julia butterfly, right

After breakfast, we met Pablo and Barnaby for a hike through the rain forest to look at plants that the Maya had used for medicine. We saw all of the usual, such as tea vine, black poisonwood, gumbo limbo, give-and-take tree, and Chinese root. Chinese root was used for centuries as a contraceptive. A U.S. anthropologist called it the most valuable plant of the last century, according to Pablo. He also said that Chinese root was the origin of the idea of oral contraception, but I have my doubts.

As we passed a palm, Pablo spooked two bats. I didn’t see them. He pointed to one of the leaves and explained how the bats bite only through the veins all the way around so the leaf ends tip down to create a shelter for the bats. How did that behavior evolve?

Bats chew part-way through the palm leaf in a circle to create a shelter. The chew marks are the brown spots between the central green and the dusky grey.

We passed a spectacular example of a sapodilla tree. Back in the day, the bark of these trees were cut in V’s to release the chicle, which was the original chewing gum, first used by the ancient Maya. It became commercially important at the beginning of the 20^th century. The sap was collected, boiled, and exported in blocks. By the 1960’s synthetic chewing gum replaced the natural chicle for most gum manufacturing.

After completing a fairly level loop along a creek looking at medicinal plants, we headed upward to the tower. I had already achieved underwear-to-skin fusion. The sweat poured out of me.

Heading up the trail

The view of Sleeping Giant and the Sibun River valley from the tower

We had chicken fajitas for lunch. The fajitas were exactly like stew chicken only without bones. The plate a little dish of chicken, peppers, and onions in red sauce on a plate with three fresh, soft flour tortillas, and a dollop of refried beans with two corn chips stuck in it. The table had big bowls of sour cream and pico de gallo. 

Chicken fajitas

The alternate selection was fish and chips. Someone asked for lemon for the fish.The waiter brought a dish of wedges (lemons are green in Belize) carved as snails. We drank gallons of fruit punch. So delicious!

Lemon wedge "snails"

After lunch, we went to the cacao plantation. We were pleased to see that Rupert was still working there and would do our tour. The first thing Rupert showed us this year was a hay wagon full of seedlings. Rupert explained that the root stocks had overgrown the greenhouse. He gave us his gentle, beautiful smile and admitted that they had been too ambitious. They now had to plant the root stocks in the field and do the grafting out there. I felt sorry for the women that do the grafting. It wouldn’t be so bad on a table in the greenhouse, but with the seedlings in the ground, that would be a lot of bending.
Rupert saw the blank looks on the students’ faces, and started explaining about grafting. The root stocks can come from any seed source. They look for vigorous growth, strong anchors, and disease resistance. Then they graft on buds from trees that they know produce good seeds.

I interjected that we raise apples in our area the same way. The root stock is matched to the soil, and the branches that will bear the fruit you want are grafted to them. That seemed to make sense to them.

We moved next to the seed fermentation area. Rupert told us that banana leaves have a white starchy underside that begins the fermentation process. I didn’t remember that from last year. He removes the banana leaves after the second day. He didn’t have as many beans fermenting this year. He invited the students to put their hand in the beans to feel how ware they were. I pointed out the fruit flies and the larva on the beans when Rupert didn’t say anything about them.

We moved to the newly-constructed drying tables under corrugated fiberglass roofs. Rupert showed us how the beans had to be stirred. He had two tools. One was just a piece of wood about a foot long. The other was a pole with a board perpendicular to the handle. He used the short piece to pull the beans away from the edge. He then used the pole to stir the beans and spread them back into a single layer. Each table can hold one box of beans, which is 2000 pounds. During the peak of the season, they had more than 50,000 pounds of beans in the facility. To avoid heat stroke during the summer, the workers could only be at the tables for 20 minutes at a time. 

Rupert demonstrates stirring the cacao beans on the drying table

We went inside the building so Rupert could show us the rest of the processing. The beans have to be sorted by hand. Another improvement that Rupert suggested when he was at the other facility was in the sorting process. The table that they were using was rectangular and had 2x4s all around the edge to keep the beans contained. As the workers sorted the beans, they would have to lift them over the edge. Rupert redesigned the table as a cross so four people could work at once. He made a similar table with three arms for the Belmopan site. The outer end of each arm was open so the beans could slide into the bag. “It’s nice,” Rupert said, “the ladies can talk or listen to music while they work.”

Rupert's sorting table

Rupert was so humble and unassuming, yet it was apparent that he was a very valuable employee of Maya Mountain Cacao.

His record keeping has revealed that mature cacao trees in full sun produced the most beans. It stands to reason because all that energy has to come from photosynthesis, but because cacao naturally grow in the understory, the general practice was to keep them in the shade.  They are now planting the seedlings with coconut palm. The palms grow quickly to provide shade to the seedlings while they need it. Their roots grow straight down and don’t compete with the cacao. The coconuts are economically valuable, but the trees don’t get so large that they shade the mature cacao.

We went a short way down the road to where new cacao and coconuts palms were growing. A crew of workers with machetes and weed whackers was busy clearing brush nearby. 

Coconut palm (left) and cacao seedling (right) with crew clearing vegetation in the back

I saw a cacao seeding with its top bent over and tied down and asked Rupert about it. He pointed to a branch at the side, which I had not noticed. The graft was doing well so the top of the root stock had been bent over to allow the graft to take over as the leader. After it grew a little more, the top of the root stock would be pruned off.

Root stock bent over and tied with a blue string to allow the graft (right) to develop

We had a great time at the cacao plantation. Barnaby was suitably impressed. It’s possible that other groups will soon be able to have the Maya Mountain experience.

Group shot in the cacao grove

I had a towel turtle on my bed when we got back to the casita. 

Towel turtle

Belize, Day 2: Cave Hike and Interviews

In the light of day, we were able to fully appreciate our lodgings. Kate and I had been upgraded from the “garden view” room in the lodge where we stayed last year to a “casita.” Frankly, it looked like we had the honeymoon suite with a twin bed thrown in. 

The king-sized bed

We had a couch, a mini-refrigerator (which we never used), a coffee maker (also not used), and an outdoor patio with table and four chairs.

The twin bed (left), couch (right), and patio

After breakfast, we piled in the van for the short drive to St. Herman’s cave in the Blue Hole National Park. We each got a hard hat with a head lamp. 

Ready to hike the cave

Edgar was the lead guide for the morning. Oscar brought up the rear. Edgar showed us many of the plants we’d seen last year, including the fishtail palm that is used to make a green dye for U. S. currency. When we got to one tree, he asked us to look at the fruit and tell him what it reminded us of. I’m sure we were all thinking the same thing, but I was the only one who would say it out loud: “Testicles.”

"Horse balls"

“Yes,” Edgar said, “this tree is sometimes called horse balls.” Other names include rubber tree or elastic tree. The guide last year called it “grandpa balls.” While different from the true rubber tree, this species has sap that can be made into a bouncy substance. The Maya made their game balls from it. The sap is also sticky. Edgar’s family was too poor to afford store-bought glue when he was a child. He used sap from this tree for his school paste.

Edgar bent down to a rock and poked at something with a stick. The students next to him screamed and recoiled. I leaned over to see a Mexican red-rumped tarantula holding the end of the stick. Nice of it to take up residence right on the trail where we could see it.

Mexican red-rumped tarantula attacking the stick that Edgar used to lure it out

We came to a termite nest. Edgar casually flicked off part of the outer covering. Termites streamed out. “These are good to eat,” he said, holding his finger to the hole so the termites crawled onto his hand. “They taste like mint or carrots. Who wants to try one?”

I ate the termite! We didn’t have the chance last year, which was a true disappointment to one of our students. I thought I’d better take advantage of the moment. I thought it tasted like carrot. Everyone else seemed to think they tasted like mint. I concluded that it was more a difference in taste perception than in the termites, since they were all from the same colony. 

“You can even put your tongue right up to the hole if you want to get more of them,” Edgar invited.

Feeling bold, I did that too while the students snapped photos on their cell phones. I, of course, did not get a picture for myself.

We learned all the uses of the Cohune palm. A thatched roof of cohune palm leaves can last seven to nine years. The center of the growing tip can be eaten as heart of palm. Palm oil can be extracted with difficulty from the seed. The seed coat is so hard that it can be burned as fuel and to generate electricity.

We entered the cave from the side we exited last year. To give us a rest from our hike to the cave, Edgar gave us a complete, accurate, and lengthy explanation of the geology of cave formation in Belize. Kate was impressed. He told us that Belize was 65% limestone, explained how the limestone had formed as the bottom of ancient seas and how it had be uplifted to make dry land. Water dissolves the limestone, and there you are—a cave.

Looking out of the cave just after we entered

When he was done with geology, he launched into Maya mythology and how it related to caves. It was all excellent information, but if I’d known he was going to talk so long, I would have taken my pack off and found a good rock to sit on. Instead, I stood throughout the geology lesson and teetered on a narrow rock for the mythology.

In spite of my swollen feet, I was glad to have such a concise description of how the Maya viewed earth, heaven, and the underworld. Edgar drew it on the ground with a stick. He started with the Tree of Life. He drew a circle around the tree. This was the path of the Sun God. The Sun God went through thirteen stages above the ground each day. He then descended to the underworld and became the Jaguar God for nine levels in the darkness before reverting to the Sun God at the next dawn. Edgar said that the Maya certainly knew about wheels, but did not use them, perhaps because the circle was so sacred to them. The underworld, Xibalba, was full of spirits. The Maya went to the caves to make sacrifices to please the gods and bring the rain. When a person died, they went to the underworld and had to pass nine challenges to get to the bottom of the 13 steps to heaven, each of which had a task that had to be accomplished. As we learned last year, if you were killed as a sacrifice, you got to skip all these challenges and tasks and go straight to heaven.

Entering backwards meant that we had to clamber up the giant boulders rather than down them. I thought this might be an improvement, but afterwards couldn’t really make a decision. I remember that this part was the most difficult. That was a false memory. The whole hike seemed unfamiliar. Sometimes that happens just because one is going backwards. One of the guides told Kate that there are two trails through the cave. Because of recent heavy rains, we were taking the one less traveled by. I don’t know if it made all the difference, but the hike was more challenging than I recalled, and what I remembered was bad enough.

A narrow passageway

Jeremy takes a photo of a column

Climbing down over fallen rocks

The exit--at last!

We stopped briefly at Blue Hole. Some of the students got their feet wet. Kate explained how the water wells up from deep springs to create the aqua color.

Some of the students at Blue Hole

We had a traditional Belizean lunch of stew chicken, rice and beans, potato salad (not so traditional), and fried plantains. The juice of the day was watermelon. I had never had watermelon juice before. On a hot day, let me tell you, there is nothing better than a cold watermelon juice. Kate called it “a glass of pink heaven.”

I noted that the lodge had started putting rice in the salt to keep it from caking. In fact, there was more rice than salt in the shakers. The tables still had toothpicks available because, as this picture shows, the rice in the shaker does not prevent the salt from clogging up the holes. So humid.

Mostly rice in the salt shaker--toothpicks still necessary to unclog the holes

We interviewed the lodge staff after lunch. This experience could not have been more different than last year. Last year, everyone we talked to worked 10 days and had 4 days off. This year, we learned that the work schedule depended on how close an employee lived to the lodge. Amalia, who lived in Belmopan, worked 5 days and had 2 days off. Eugene went home every few days. Swift and Keith still worked at the Lodge, but we didn’t interview either of them. Maria was the only repeater. Both Maria and Amalia were K’iche’ Maya. Maria still went home to a traditional village. Amalia, a younger woman, had been raised in Belmopan, but still had aunts, uncles, and cousins in a village to the south. Eugene (Kriol) spent his childhood in Los Angeles. He was particularly adept at comparing the culture of the U.S. with the culture of Belize in a way that the students could understand. We also interviewed Orlin, who had a mixed heritage of Kriol and Mestizo. 

Maria talks to us after lunch

That afternoon, the sun caught a ridge on the Sleeping Giant that made it look like he was smiling.

The Sleeping Giant smiling. Forehead and eyebrow to the right, nose in the middle, lip to the left

When we got back to our room, a cheerful towel figure was waiting on the bed for me.