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Day 2: Getting to Las Cuevas

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Today we left San Ignacio and made our way to Las Cuevas Research Station, visiting Caracol on our way. As we were driving to Caracol, we saw a coati and a great black hawk along the road. The roads were pretty bumpy, but the drive was really pretty. As we started our drive we saw Cecropia trees and also saw some gumbo-limbos. The gumbo-limbos are also called ‘tourist trees’ because they are red and flaky, like sunburnt skin. So far none of us have begun to look like the tourist trees, which is good. Hopefully it’ll stay that way.

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A gumbo limbo tree with bark resembling a tourist’s sunburnt skin

On our way to Caracol we drove through Mountain Pine Ridge, an area that was different from other places we’ve seen because of the large number of pine trees. The region was more open and seemed drier, with more grasses and fewer vines.

Once we arrived in Caracol, we walked around the archaeological site to observe the ruins and the flora and fauna of the area. The site is absolutely amazing, with towering pyramids and dense forests. It’s amazing to think that more than a million people used to live in the region, when closer to 250,000 live in all of Belize today. At Caracol the guide pointed out a number of trees, including breadnuts, allspice, and avocado. There also were a lot of Chamedorea plants around Caracol. Chamedorea is sold as an ornamental leaf. The large security presence at Caracol was in part to protect the Chamedorea leaves from poachers.

Chamedorea plant at Caracol
Chamedorea plant at Caracol
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Avocado tree at Caracol

Tomorrow we venture into the forest around Las Cuevas. I’m looking forward to the start of our field work!

2016

Into the Maya Forest

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Today the remoteness of the trip has begun to feel amazingly real. We’ve seen Mayan temples in the jungle and animals abound, despite the fact that we haven’t even really gone looking for them yet. Some fantastic non-mammal sightings included a blue-crowned motmot, a great black hawk, oropendola, and a slender brown scorpion (in a bathroom, unfortunately).

Today’s main activity was a visit to the Mayan ruins at Caracol. Caracol was once assumed to be a smaller city dominated by other Mayan powers such as Tikal. However, it is now known that Caracol was actually a large metropolis supporting somewhere around 150,000 people. Caracol was designed like a wagon wheel, with a main center and road “spokes” leading to the more rural agricultural areas. Most of the pyramids were used for religious rituals, as was the case with Caana, the sky palace that we climbed. After 1100 AD Caracol had collapsed, but the Maya people still live in Mesoamerica. It is amazing to me how many different kinds of people live in this part of the world. Mayans and other natives share the land with people of European or African ancestry, and further divides are made as people are sorted into nationalities (Guatemalan, Belizean, Mexican). It is perhaps no wonder that tensions between peoples at times run high.

Today also marked the first wild mammal sightings of the trip! During breakfast (6am…), we spotted a Yucatan squirrel in a nearby tree. Some other students may also have seen an agouti, though I was not able to see or identify it reliably. Later, on the road to Caracol, a coatimundi was spotted travelling on the side of the road. Although I had to jump over some seats in the van to get a glimpse of the coati, it was well worth the effort. The coati was a brown-red with characteristic white rings on its erect tail. At Caracol, some other tourists reported a Mexican black howler monkey sighting, though we did not see any signs of the primates.

Yucatan Squirrel seen at Crystal Paradise Resort
Yucatan Squirrel seen at Crystal Paradise Resort

Some of the mishaps of the day included lunch drinks breaking in the cooler and a van break down. After Caracol, the plan was to visit some pools and waterfalls for a refreshing swim. However, it was not to be as our van was forced to quit due to lack of transmission fuel and oil. Luckily, we were not too far from Las Cuevas Research Station (where we will be staying until we leave for the coral reef) and we were able to improvise with some pick-up trucks. In true TFB (Tropical Field Biologist) fashion, a bunch of us piled into the bed of a truck and had a fun ride into the beautiful wilderness!

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Caracol City Exploration + (Another Bumpy) Journey to Las Cuevas

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Hi everyone! I’m checking in today from the porch of Las Cuevas research station after another busy and fun day. It began with an early morning open air breakfast at 6 am filled with cool bird sightings (we saw a blue-crowned motmot and a brown jay among other things) followed by travels to Caracol and an exploration of the ruins of the Mayan city.

It was really neat to climb to the top of the different ruins and learn a lot about the history of the area from our awesome tour guide. He told us about balsa bark and how it cleanses blood, about how the Mayans climbed up the ruins on their hands and knees to humble themselves before the Gods, and the structure of the old city and how it resembled the spokes of a wheel with the elite living in the capital at the middle of the spoke and the agricultural peasants living around the edges as well as many other topics.

After our picnic lunch, our plans to swim in the waterfalls at Rio On got deterred due to the lack of transmission fluid in the van, so we took a break in the middle of the dirt road and learned about termites as one of the taxa presentations for the day. Eventually we made it here to Las Cuevas research station, where we will be spending the next week. Sitting here sweaty and satisfied with the day’s activities thus far, I have to say I am equally excited for the shower tonight and for the next week ahead! 🙂

A quick note about any taxa sightings before I end today’s post: Other than a small click beetle (family Elateridae) I spied among the dead leaf litter at the base of a large tree in the ruins, observations of my taxa were not prevalent today, but I am sure there will be more to identify during this upcoming week in the rainforest. Species sightings did abound today in other taxa. We saw are a coati (small mammal), a gumbo limbo tree (nicknamed tourist tree because of its red peeling bark), and an anole (a small brown lizard) on the way to Caracol, many lichens, birds, and a philodendra fruit (which we sampled) while in the ruins, and toucans and butterflies on the road to Las Cuevas.

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Caracol was beautiful.
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We made it to the top!
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(Nakian) May 18 Caracol x Atta x Sustainability

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I could observe Atta cephalotes (Leaf-cutter Ants) in the morning. They had orange-brown body, long limbs, and butt-shaped head with horns. There were less of them working than last night, I am guessing that A. cephalotes might be nocturnal. This is supported by the fact that at Caracol Archaeological site, I could only see recent work trail of A. cephalotes without the laborers themselves. Also I could find them in their mound but not working outside. Unlike other ants I have observed until now, I could distinguish between the minor and major workers.

In the morning I could also find an ant from genus Pachycondyla which the locals call “tiger ants.” They say its well developed sting is 10 times stronger than that of fire ants. They were at least 15mm up to 20mm, shiny dark-gold body with hair, with very strong-looking mandibles. Scott says Pachycondyla ants are not polymorphic.

Other than Atta and Pachycondyla, I found two more kinds of ants which I could not identify at the moment, including the one described in the last blog post. The other species was black overall, short and fat overall body, hairy abdomen.

After breakfast, we headed for Caracol Archaeological Site. Named because of the frequent excavation of shells (which in Spanish is caracol), is a major Mayan city state which once had the power enough to defeat well-known city of Tikal. The city is designed so that suburbs, than peasant district will spread radially from the rulers’ center. The center comprised of humongous temples, apparently still the highest structure in Belize. A population matching half of that of today’s Belize occupied Caracol. It is amazing that such megalopolis was supported in such remote and highly vegetated area. What is more, I am amazed by how such vast ecosystem could recover from long disturbance by the Mayan cities in just 1000 years.

The guide explained that Mayan cities disintegrated gradually as people abandoned them. If human civilization expand, extract, and exploit unsustainably, similar fate of chaos and disintegration seems obvious. Unlike, however, the Mayans, we will have no where to go after abandonment because our planetary influence have extracted everywhere on Earth so dry.