My dad and I left Dallas this morning, landed in Houston to meet up with the rest of the class, and then we flew to Belize. Well, I suppose only my dad really flew to Belize, the rest of us just sat in the back of the plane. (Having an airline pilot dad is cool.)

When we landed in Belize it was already pretty hot and humid. As we drove out here to Crystal Paradise Ecolodge, we saw lots of mostly savannah and grasslands. The coolest part was definitely the wildfires. It’s the end of the dry season here in Belize and natural forest fires are common. Some of the plants were obviously blackened and there were giant streaks of reddish-black smoke in the sky.

As far as animals go we saw lots of dogs and horses on the drive. We also saw some cats, sheep, and goats. I saw a few chickens and some cattle egrets and lots of small black birds flying through the sky. The cattle egrets were chilling around some cattle waiting for them to disturb some bugs. As far as the blackbirds go, it turns out that riding in a van with heavily tinted windows looking up at birds against a bright sky is not the best way to identify them. I think they were probably melodious blackbirds,  but they also could have been grackles.

We’re not expecting to have wifi regularly for the next few days. I’ll be writing blog posts, but whether they go up is another matter entirely.