Secondary Rainforest: Bamboo Chicken

This is just another typical roadsign in Belize, almost as interesting as the ones mutilated from "Pedestrian Bump" to "Pedestrian Pimp" (I forgot to get a picture of that one). Speed limits in Belize are enforced by speed bumbs and check points.

Getting away from the road, we entered the foggy mists ofthe secondary rainforests. Where animals rule the floor to the canopy.

All the forests we visisted were formerly primary rainforests, one you might see along the Amazon River, which is a little more of a "hard core" adventure that I am ready for. But due to slash and burn tactics, the wild has been tamed slightly. We didn't see any giant Anacondas or pygmies, which was what I was looking for.

We did go on a canoe ride. This trip we were supposed to see millions of Iguanas and birds, and if we are lucky a monkey or three. We say lots of birds, and even startled some bats. At first we didn't see any such iguanas. Do You?

Aparently there are numerous Iquanas of all shapes, sizes and demeanors in that clump of trees.
It took my eyes a while to adjust but eventually I saw one.

This big guy (probably about 4ft long) was interesting, while my sisters and I went ahead in our canoe, my parents stayed behind to take pictures of this one. All of the sudden I hear a very wild splash and my mother laughing. Uh oh, my dad fell in the water with the very expensive camera. Well as I turned around, I saw my father still standing in the boat, if my dad wasn't in the water, than what was?. Confused, I shouted back my inquiry. The Iguana had jumped in, obviously! He was probably scared we were trying to catch him for Christmas Dinner, "Bamboo Chicken" is supposedly very good eating.


later we saw leaf cutter ants, very interesting little guys. They have no eyes, so they have to smell there way around while carrying loads 30x their own body weight. They were lots of fun to play with. If you wiped away the scent trail, they would get lost and stagger around awkwardly. But we felt bad, they were working so hard on Christmas morning, we decided to lay off them a bit.