Iguanas

Early start to get to the ferry, in a taxi with 20,000 mosquitos! Boring journey, but better than our ferry to get to San Pedro, in terms of safety and comfort. We arrived at Belize City in a downpour - but soon enough we were reunited with luggage and off with the car hire transfer - who I think was The Old Man of ‘And the Sea’ fame.

Once installed in the Jeep (four wheel drive turned out to be more essential than we could have imagined) we drove West down one of Belize’s four highways. It was too wet to stop at the zoo, so we pushed on to San Ignacio, for lunch (electricity was out, but they were able to provide fried food). After lunch off to a fancy hotel, but not to stay, just to look at their iguana project.

They raise green iguanas from eggs, keep them for about four years and then release them. As is often the case, they are endangered because they (and especially the eggs) are tasty. The ones in the photo are 5-7 days old. We were able to hold the bigger ones (with guidance as to which were friendly) and a bunch of few month old ones - which climbed all over us looking for the highest point. Happily they were mostly just interested in the spinach we were feeding them.

After some provisioning in a supermarket, off up the hill to our next place to stay. The track was astonishingly bad - either a sea of mud or a rocky track, and much of it incredibly steep. Lots of swearing later, we made it to the end of our ‘driveway’ and pressed on to a Mayan site a further four miles on. This site (El Pilar) is one that they are treating conservatively - knowing that leaving the rocks protected by soil will preserve it for future archaeologists. A very Indiana Jones place to wander around.

Finally, we arrived at our jungle lodge - miles from another house, looking over a forested gorge. We were greeted by a small family of spider monkeys!