Indiana Jones... pshaw, whatever. Been there, done that

Belize Zoo and the Cockscomb Nature Preserve

Photos

Branching off the dirt road on the way to the visitors center at the Cockscomb Nature Reserve in south central Belize is a short path leading through the jungle to the wreckage of an old Cessna that had crashed thirty years ago.  Oh hell yeah!  I was walking around it enjoying the exoticness of exploring a wrecked plane in the middle of the rainforest when I almost walked right into a ten foot long Boa Constictor.  It had coiled itself up around one of the struts that hold the wing to the fuselage.  It was right at eye level and I didn't see it until I was well within striking distance, think two feet...  Lucky for me, it was pretty chill boa constrictor.  Content just to sit there, wrapped around the wrecked plane and watch me watch it.  This is the sort of thing that only happens in movies!  Cool, cool, cool!  Again displaying unusual self-restraint I didn't try to catch him.  Five foot bull snakes and pissed of coachwhips are one thing.  Ten foot long boa constrictors in the middle of the freaking jungle are a bit different.  Only photographs this time.

Spending one's first night alone in the jungle is a unique experience.  So sad that it can only be done once!  It was a two hour hike into the reserve, with full back pack this was a good workout.  When I got there and asked for a room, the guy seemed a bit surprised.  Guess they don't have many overnight visitors.  That day they had exactly one, me.  The place was strange, they have a twenty four bed dorm and several other stand alone cabins.  None of the doors were locked.  Even the conference center (seemingly used once and then abandoned) and the storage rooms with all the park documents, files and everything else was unlocked.  Of course I went about trying all the doors of all the buildings...  About 4:30 the one guy in the office went home, and though there was a caretaker who stayed overnight, he was in a separate building, in a separate clearing, with a hundred yards of jungle between us.  So there I was alone, well except for the rats.  There were rats, and they gave me more company than I would have liked.  The cabins were infested with them.  Scurrying around all night.  On the rafters, on the floor, on the bed, probably on me as I slept...

 

So now that that is out of the way... The park was actually quite nice  That night, in addition to the rats, I listened to howler monkeys, and, to my mind at least, jaguars.  Later that night, and lasting nearly 'til morning it lightninged.  It was very weird.  Stars in the sky, no thunder at all, and no rain until much later.  The lightning was all our of sight beyond the trees lining my little clearing, all I could see in the dark were brief flashes lighting up the sky and the trees.  It was bizarre, and that night, alone in the jungle, it got my imagination racing again.  I couldn't believe it was lightning.  No thunder, no rain, stars out as far as I could see.  Before long I was convinced Guatemala had invaded Belize.  They've been making territorial claims on it since the country was founded and I was convinced these flashes were bombs going off down in Punta Gorda and up in Belmopan and Belize city.  Oh how the mind works late at night, alone in the jungle!  With the rats...

The next morning, the world was still in order afterall and I took an early morning hike hoping to catch the wildlife still active.  Again, no jaguars, but plenty of giant currasows.  These are big birds, the size of turkeys that live up in the trees and make a lot of noise.  I did see plenty of fresh jaguar tracks in the mud.  They clearly use the hiking trails to get around the forest.  And there are a lot of them in the area, one of the densest populations anywhere, hence the dedicated nature reserve just for them.  Imagine, just a few hours before I was there a jaguar had been walking along the same path, also looking for local wildlife...