After a year and a half of wanting to travel to Belize on this trip, it’s finally almost here. With the past week of frantic packing and last-minute assignment completions, I’ve barely had time to contemplate what it has all been for. Belize will be my first real field experience, and will hopefully start me on the path to becoming a competent field biologist and conservationist.
I’ve visited the true tropics only once, on a family trip to Guatemala in middle school. Perhaps my most unique animal experience comes from that trip: a group of Mexican black howler monkeys hanging feet from our faces, hooting with incredible volume. On this trip, I’m hoping that I’ll get to see this species again, along with as many other species as possible. While I know seeing wild cats is extremely rare, I sincerely hope we can at least catch some with the camera traps that we will be using. A jaguar would be incredible, but any of the other felid species would be amazing to see as well!
I am really looking forward to learning more about how coral reefs function, and I expect that my very limited knowledge will increase greatly in the second week of this trip. I am a little nervous about swimming in fins for such long periods of time (especially since my feet tend to cramp), but I am looking forward to learning how to deal with any sort of mishap in the field!
After getting all my gear, packing tons of bug spray, and doing hours of research, I expect to be tired, dirty, and unbelievably happy on this trip!