Moving day and the zoo

Wednesday, December 13, 2023
Turneffe Island Resort, Belize
Today began the second leg of our Belize adventure as we moved from San Ignacio by car down to Belize City and thence by boat out to the Turneffe Resort on the Turneffe Atoll.  We had booked four days at the Turneffe Island Resort, an all-inclusive resort with an emphasis on diving, snorkeling and fishing.  A particular emphasis seems to be diving as most of the people at the resort with us were ardent diving enthusiasts and the area is world famous for its diving opportunities, including the "Blue Hole" which we will visit tomorrow.
But . . . before Turneffe there is the Belize Zoo.  The zoo is far from a modern zoo in that the individual animals live in caged areas.  While the habitats for each species are smaller than one might find in some animal parks, they are moderately large and are lushly planted with native vegetation, giving the animals plenty of room to avoid humans if they desire.  The zoo is apparently sensitive to criticism that captivity in such quarters may be cruel to the animals and  is quick to note that almost all of the animals are there because they have some disability that prevents them from living in the wild.  Oddly, the most interesting creature in the zoo, at least to us, was not in a cage and unquestionably volunteered its presence.  That creature is the leaf cutter ant.
We have seen leaf cutters in our other stops on this trip but never in this quantity or at such industrious work.  We stopped at a ceiba tree and noticed a steady stream of ants carrying leaves down the trunk while passing by an equally steady stream with no loads heading up the tree.  [N.B. The first picture on this page is a video.  If you click on it you should be able to see a brief video of the ants at work]  It would probably require over 100' of climbing for those ants to reach a leaf.  Moreover, we traced the line of leaf-carrying ants back down on the ground quite a distance and never got to the end of their trek.  It was simply incredible watching them work.
Beyond the ants the exhibits were interesting though the caged aspect definitely detracted from the experience.  Probably most notable was the supple majesty of the (mostly blind) jaguar as it moved around its area.  Strangely, while walking down one path we ran into Raul just back from his trip to Tikal, the famous Mayan ruin just over the Guatemalan border.  He gave it a very good review, in spite of a full day of rain, and we will add it to our list if we come back this way again.  With little time to spare we headed down the road back to the airport to turn in our car and meet our ride down to the docks at Belize City where we would catch our boat out to Turneffe.
The exchange at the airport went smoothly and we were on our way for the hour-and-a-half ride out to the Turneffe Atoll.  The resort staff had the system down and we were shown to our rooms followed shortly by our bags and the introductory talk about all the options.  In no time we were at the bar knocking down a Lava Flow which was excellent, whatever it was.  Drinks were not included in the all-inclusive price but we decided to purchase the supplemental "drinks" package.  We were not sure that would be cheaper than buying by the glass but it eliminated our proclivity to nickel and dime ourselves on drinks which we felt was worth something.  Oh, and buying the package gave us an incentive to try different cocktails, lots of different cocktails.  It was another long day but, as before on this trip, a good day.

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2025-02-12

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