Hi!

The adventure has begun! Today was at the same time very eventful and not very eventful? I’m definitely tired, so it was a good day. It started around 4:30am so I could get to campus by 6am (or actually 5:20 because I was nervous about being late). We got all of our gear together and made it to the airport and suddenly it was around 8am, then we boarded around 9:30…then sat on the runway for about an hour because of tray table paperwork issues (??? That’s really what they said). We landed around 12:30pm Belize Time (which is about an hour behind Houston time right now because Belize doesn’t do daylight savings, weird) and then drove for a while, got lunch, drove for another hour, went to the grocery store, drove for another bit and ended up at the Crystal Paradise Ecolodge around 4:45pm. See it doesn’t seem like a lot, mostly travel.

At Crystal Paradise there’s a trail (a really rocky, kind of steep trail I might add) that leads to a nice wide river…which we got to go swimming in! Across the river there was a rope swing and we took turns swinging off of it into the water. I think it’s a toss up for which part was the hardest: climbing up the bank of the river, getting the rope to the person, or actually being able to hold on long enough to get a good swing in. The swimming was the best part of the day, and we saw lots of animals while we were there/on the way there. We saw an agouti in the clearing by the Ecolodge at the head of the trail, some leaf-cutter ants carrying blue-purple flowers on the trail, and two tinamous (chicken-looking ground birds that are certainly not chickens) walking around while we were in the water.

Unfortunately we didn’t see any reptiles today, which is really surprising….except as I was typing that WE SAW 7 COMMON HOUSE GECKOS IN LIKE TWO MINUTES so just kidding we did see some reptiles today!!!!! They were climbing on poles and walls around the outdoor dining area at the Ecolodge (and it’s about 9:15pm). Kaela suggested that maybe since we got to the Ecolodge in the late afternoon it just wasn’t a good time to see them, but now they’re coming out at night.

Hope tomorrow brings more reptiles and me not making the same face in every single photo.

-Kelsey