mayan ruins and a jaguarundi kit

Busy week! This is going to be quite an extensive update so prepare yourself.

There is good news this week for CASA patients! The barn owl was released on Tuesday with the help of our two volunteers who drove her up to Orange Walk. She looked great on her pre-release exam so we built a make-shift carrier and sent her on her way. We're down to eight parrots as our only patients now... I'm sure about ten birds will come in all at the same time now.

On Friday, the two volunteers and I were picked up in a sad little car to drive past Benque and into the jungle. Our mission was to try and reunite a jaguarundi kit with his mom. The hydro-workers who were clearing land had found it; word is that they had scared off the mother. So this sad little car (the driver's side window had just shattered out of nowhere moments earlier) that had already cut off once on the way to CASA, didn't look too promising once it was noticed that it was dangerously close to overheating. We pulled over to a gas station and added some water to the radiator (brave mechanic, seriously) and started on our way again. We made it to Benque and it started overheating again. Another gas station and buckets of water. It actually cut off this time, but the engine temperature had dropped considerably so we opted to continue on. Five minutes later and it was obvious that there was no way this car would make the ten mile, extremely rough drive into the jungle. Enter my first Belizean cab ride! At least an hour and a half after the start of our journey, we finally made it to the supposed site where the kit was found. The volunteers gave some fluids and camouflaged the carrier about a third the way up the hill where we were told that the kit was found. We waited for a bit and did some birding (a keel-billed toucan and a family of aracaris) until our ride showed up. It was decided that we would leave him overnight and have the eco-village check on the kit first thing in the morning. Long story short and the kit was out of the carrier by 10 pm Friday night. Nothing was out of place and no vocalizations were heard so we're hoping that it was a success. Ideally, the kit would have been observed all night but that wasn't an option. Where ever he is, he's better than being in captivity. Thanks to Better in Belize for helping out!

Saturday we walked down to San Ignacio to go to the market and look around. We had made a friend when roaming around town the night before; it's overwhelming how many stray dogs are here. Many of them are very sweet, especially the females. This particular one bounded up to us when she saw us at the market. She eventually got distracted by some snacks left around the market. We picked up another friend who followed us around all of San Ignacio while we searched for Sweet Ting (a delicious and dangerous bakery - with air conditioning!). For future reference, never feed a friendly stray dog or you'll never escape. After some evasive techniques, we finally had to just take a cab to make sure she didn't follow us back.

Our awesome volunteers held down the fort on Sunday while Tracy and I made our

way to the Mayan site of Xunantunich. This site was amazing. A lot of it had been excavated but some of the dwellings and other structures were left as the Mayans intended. Xunantunich actually survived the collapse of the Mayan empire and continued on until about 1000 AD. The Castillo was the main temple which overlooked all of the city with a beautiful view of Belize / Guatemala once you climbed up to the top. We ended up seeing two Black Howler monkeys in the parking lot right before we were about to leave. My first wild primates! On Tuesday, we headed to El Pilar to do some birding at sunset. El Pilar is a predominately unexcavated Mayan site so all of the structures appear as vaguely shaped mounds and hills. It's more forested than Xunantunich with quite a few lookouts over Belize and Guatemala; half of the site is in Belize with the other half in Guatemala. We hiked up to the main lookout for the sunset and some birding. It was eerily quite with few birds around, but I can't complain. We walked back through the woods / jungle in the dark. Creepy? Yes.

I bought a bike today! I bought it from a kid for $75 BZE. The tires are bent and the brakes probably need to be redone but I'm hoping it'll take me further than San Ignacio.

Tomorrow is my day off. The plan is to take a couple of busses to the Blue Hole (not the infamous dive spot). This one is Blue Hole National Park which is located off of the Hummingbird Highway near Belmopan. There are some caves, hiking, and the sink hole from which the park gets its name. It'll be my first adventure by myself and my first attempt at the bus system. No worries, I'll have my cell phone just in case.

Tracy flew back to Canada yesterday. I am now the official Avian Clinic Manager. I'm a bit terrified, but I've got support all around so I think it'll be fine. I hope.