banding and la ruta de maya

I thought this week would never end. I planned on updating yesterday, but I broke the internet yesterday morning. Oops. I'm currently sitting in a bar downtown that has free internet and listening to somebody's pet parrot... not cool.

Saturday a Pionus (white-crowned) parrot arrived with a broken tibiotarsus (bone below the knee joint) and an ulna/radius fracture on the right wing. He was also missing his tail feathers and feathers off of his lower back. The injuries were fairly consistent with an animal attack of some sort (opossum attacks are fairly common). Surgery didn't go so well on Sunday and he ended up not recovering. Bah.

All of the parrots were banded on Monday and Tuesday. In the near future, the Forest Department plans on licensing and banding all current pet parrots so that no more are brought into captivity. Jack was banded since he is a captive bird. The current patients were banded... hopefully this will deter the poachers from taking them into the pet trade.

Last Friday I went to a concert downtown. There was supposed to be about 1000 people there; it seemed more like a few hundred. It was.. interesting and very loud, but I had fun. I don't like this new thing where it takes me days to recover from staying out really late.

Sunday night there was a "tiger" attack next door (the next lot over which is right next to my room). I'm not sure exactly what species of felid that the locals refer to as a tiger, but I think it may be either the jaguarundi or margay. Either way, he ate some chickens AND a nice sized pig. It must have been pretty hungry whatever it was.

Last night was the cultural festival in downtown San Ignacio to kick off La Ruta de Maya. There was the Succotz Festival marching band and some local Belizean artists. It was interesting to see the difference between the marching bands in the states (thanks to brother and sister for all the band competitions) and the ones here. Early this morning was the start of La Ruta de Maya canoe race which goes from San Ignacio to Belize City. There were about 90 canoes entered in the race from all over the world with three levels of competitors: the super serious with trainers, the not so serious, and the "we'll just take our time" competitors. The most sought after part of the race is from the starting bridge to the low-lying bridge about half a mile away... it was pretty funny to see all the canoes tearing through the water, with the exception of the non-competitors and the one canoe that tipped of course.

My sister is coming to visit in less than six weeks! I'm pretty excited about it. She'll be volunteering, but hopefully we'll get to do touristy things. I found some Engrish in the Chinese stores so she should feel "at home".

That's all for this week, I suppose. I have no idea what next week will bring but hopefully it'll be good whatever it is. This week has been rough and I'm missing the little things...