Tag Archives: Maya

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5/23: Sacrifices and Speckled Owls

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Today was my favorite day so far!! I thought it would be on the more boring side, since it is a lot of traveling, but OMG. First off all the bus ride is so beautiful and peaceful despite all the bums. I could stay on it forever just listening to music and imagining I’m in a music video. When we arrived at our destination, the ATM caves, I didn’t know what to expect, but it turned out to be the most amazing experience ever! we spent over three hours exploring a HUGE Maya cave. There were parts so deep that we had to swim through and parts so tight that we had to climb and squeeze through a small hole one by one. We learned about the natural processes that created the cave formations from limestone and saw several bats and their homes. Most exciting, we saw several human bones, including skulls! These skeletons are thought to be remains from human sacrifices made to the gods for rain and abundance. We also saw the pots and “fireplaces” they had and learned how they use them in ceremonies. Its crazy to think how different their lives were from anything we can possibly imagine.

After the caves, we went to the education center to stay the night. We got a night time tour of the zoo and got to see so many iconic animals of the belize forests, including jaguars, tapirs, and kinkajous.  We saw a wild iguana with its tail bitten off and it jumped and ran after us! My favorite animal that we saw was hoodwink, a speckled owl. we was bred and kept in captivity until a few years ago when a hurricane hit and he escaped. Missing his pampered lifestyle, he returned 4 months later, but with a girlfriend. Now the girlfriend visits him every mating season, even though they can never be together because he is domesticated in a cage and she is wild. So cute. Tomorrow we leave for Glover’s reef! I can’t wait!

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Mayan ATM Cave

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Today we had a special opportunity to take a tour of the Maya ATM cave with Dr. Rodriguez and his team. After about a one mile hike to the cave entrance, we swam for about 50 yards into the cave. Here we trekked through the river, narrow passageways, and back into the chambers of the cave. We learned a lot about how the Mayans used the cave for rituals and their religious beliefs. We learned how the chambers of the cave corresponded with layers of the underworld and how the Mayans would sacrifice especially during hard periods of drought. Something I found very interesting was the levels of sacrifice. How the Mayans would move back further into the cave as they got more desperate and also sacrifice younger and younger as they grew more desperate.

We also took a trip to the Belize zoo where we got to see a lot of local animals such as jaguars, pumas, porcupines, ocelots, a kinkajou, a tapir, an owl, and a paca!

My beetle sighting for today was in the forest lodge bathroom sink and shower. Where several beetles were scurrying around.

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Day 8: Indiana Jones style adventures

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Today was an absolutely insane day. It started by leaving Las Cuevas (still sad about that part). We drove for about 2 hours until we got to Actun Tunichil Muknal Cave (or ATM Cave). I had been previously warned that this would be an adventure like no other, but even with all the hype surrounding today, the cave caught me by surprise.

(ATM entrance)

We swam into the cave’s wide open mouth and walked/swam through the cave for about an hour. In the water section of the cave, we saw incredible stalactites and stalagmites, bats roosting together, cave catfish, cave crickets, and cave spiders.

After about an hour of trekking through the watery cave system, we climbed up into a dry chamber. This cave system was used by the Mayas as a sacred ground for praying to gods of rain, corn, and the underworld. This specific cave was used as a location of often human sacrifice during the draught that wiped out their agriculture between 800 and 1000 AD. We saw calcified skeletons, broken and not broken pots and dishes, and fire pits used to light the cavern.

After we trekked back out of the cave and walked back to the van, I saw yet another basilisk lizard!!!!!! It was much larger but the same species as the one I caught yesterday (striped basilisk). I also saw two 7 ish inch long rose bellied lizards on the side of the trail which were incredibly fast after sitting in the sunlight. I did not get a great look at any of these lizards, but they were still cool.

Tonight, we went on a night tour of the Belize Zoo. We saw their rescued jaguars, ocelots, puma, margays, tapirs, paca, and crocodile. The jaguars were majestic so were super cool to watch.

(Jaguar!)

We did have one incident with an iguana however. It was a wild iguana that was resting too close to one of the electric fences, so our guide poked it to make it move. Instead of making it move a little however, this iguana SPRINTED away from us and then SPRINTED back right at us. My life flashed before my eyes. I do not know what this iguana could have done to me, but this iguana was so intense with its run. The iguana ran right into my leg and over my feet as well as right into two of my peers feet.

(demonic iguana)

Today was incredible and I want to do it again as soon as possible. But… TOMORROW IS TIME FOR REEF BIOLOGY! See you then!

Claire C

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The Worlds of Light and Darkness

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Hey y’all!

Sorry for being a little late posting for yesterday, but it’ll be worth it! We started the day early with a cool sighting of a Black Howler Monkey family group (after they had woken us up with their LOUD calls)! We then got special permission to enter the Las Cuevas Cave! The cave is a protected archaeological and cultural site, so we weren’t allowed to take pictures. The cave was enormous inside, with Maya steps, building foundations, and pottery. It is right below a temple that archaeologists think was seen as a special ceremonial place for the Maya.

We then hiked around the trails collecting our pitfall traps–and finding really cool animals like this Wolf Spider hiding in the leaf litter and the Basilisk that Dr. Solomon caught!

We worked as a group to write and draw our findings on our poster and present to the professors, and it was pretty cool to see it all come together with our team work!

After all of our presentations were done, we started probably the most tiresome but breathtaking hike of my life. We climbed about half an hour through and up a steep path riddled with Maya structures. My watch even said I got 2x, 3x, and 4x my stairstep goal in ten minutes! At the hilltop, we climbed up the Bird Tower and watched the most beautiful sunset I have ever seen in my entire life! Minus the station, there was no sign of any human life in the rolling mountains of the rainforest!

From there, the world changed as we climbed down from the heavenly sunset to the eerie world of the nighttime rainforest. The lights from our helmets were all that cut through the heavy curtain of darkness, and I had to remind myself that I needed to look out for all of the predators on the prowl.

Somehow, this hike was the most exhausting, spooky, and indescribably beautiful experience I have ever had, and I would do it all over again if I could!

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Day 6: Boiling in Belize

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Hi! Today is day 4/5 in the rainforest! And it was definitely a hot one! Today we got a special tour of the Las Cuevas Cave. We were shown the main chamber and you could see stairs winding down to a cenote built by the Maya. We were told the cave represented the border between the living and dead and was an entrance into the underworld. The cave was probably used for religious rituals the maya did. We were able to see remnants of charcoal and pottery from those rituals.

In the afternoon we collected our pitfall traps and analyzed the amount of species and what species fell into which vials. We found that the difference in the tree in the pee vs water vial was greater than the difference in the ground vials. This signified  greater nitrogen limitation further from the ground.

We then hiked to the bird tower for sunset where we got a great view of the rainforest as the sun was setting. Along our treks we saw a few beetle species including a long horned beetle!

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Crawling Back in Time!

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Hey y’all!

Today was practically three adventures in one! We woke up bright and early at the Crystal Paradise Ecolodge to watch for the beautiful birds that call the area home. Some of the birds I saw were a hummingbird, a Social Flycatcher, and this fellow I still can’t identify!

We then travelled to the Chiquibul National Park and visited the amazing Maya ruins of Caracol! After walking amongst the ruins of former homes, we climbed to the very top of Caana, the Sky Palace,  which is the tallest building in Belize! The name was very fitting because I felt like I was ono top of the world!

The entire time, I was finding so many spiders, but the coolest had to be the one we saw on Caana: The Yuca Red Rump Tarantula! One of our tour guides had spotted the den (located above the tomb of a Maya Queen) and was lured it entirely out of its den for all of us to see! She was beautiful and I am so stoked we got to find her, much less that I got an idea for how to bring a tarantula out of its den for my special project!

We got to Las Cuevas this evening and made our first foray into the rainforest down Maya Path as there are multiple Maya buildings amidst the plants–not to mention a tiny Tiger Bromeliad Spider that was darting beneath leaves on the path! It was really cool to get an idea of just how much of a mark the ancient Maya left on the Peninsula and learn about their history!

 

Looking forward to the adventures in store for the nest few days!

Serenity

2022

Day 10: Bird Observation Tower + Cave + Lots of Taxa!!

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For our first project was designed to monitor mammals using Morrison sensor cameras to collect data about the relative abundance of species on roads, trails, and the rainforest around Las Cuevas Research Station. So into the forest we went!

Inside of Cave! See the stalagmites and stalactites? The Maya used to perform ritualistic sacrifices here.
The red paint is still on a piece of Mayan pottery which is thousands of years old!

In a small cave, we saw giant spiders, went through a cave and got to pick up remnants about Maya  pottery!

Top of the Bird Watch tower after an long hike

 We got to witness the beautiful view of the heart of the Chiquibul forest from the bird watching station.

We also saw some tree frog eggs.

I was incredibly excited to see a beetle species called the darkling beetle tenebrionidae hegemona. Adrienne pointed it out on wood. It was incredibly good at climbing and I held it for 15 minutes! I loved the iridescent elytra and exoskeleton.

Darkling Beetle

I also saw some earthworms (oligochaetes).

Michael is showing me an earthworm on the rainforest floor helping to recycle nutrients back into the soil!

 Caio also managed to find a leech in the middle of the rainforest He was brave enough to hold it and told everyone when it bit him three times!

Rainforest leech? Definitely didn’t expect to find here!

Overall incredible day! Loving Las Cuevas!

~Maegan

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Journey to the Chiquibul

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May 15, 2019

Today, we began our trek to the Chiquibul Forest with interesting narration and several stops along the way. During the drive, our guide Leo pointed out what he referred to as a Mayan village because 85% of the residents speak one of the Mayan languages.  We also passed a new Mayan structure that’s currently in the process of being constructed by a Mayan descendant.

Our first stop was “Rio on Pools,” a collection of small pools along a river. We got to swim, and the leaches were successfully avoided! When we got back on the road, we passed a ghost village. Leo said that this village thrived during the 1930s and 40s because of the forestry industry but was completely abandoned by the mid 90s.

Later in the evening after finally arriving at Las Cuevas Research Station in the Chiquibul, we gathered in the classroom to have student presentations. Scott showed me a Scarab beetle that he found! This is one of my first beetle finds (second to a firefly I saw at Crystal Paradise Ecolodge). It’s possible that this beetle was of the species Enema endymion or a close relative.

2019

Day 2: Tour of the Caracol ruins

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On the way from the Crystal Paradise Ecolodge to the Chiquibul forest and Las Cuevas Research Station, we stopped in two different places: Rio on Pools (in the Mountain Pine Ridge) and the ruins of Caracol, and ancient Mayan city.

 

At Rio on Pools I took several pictures of trees that I want to identify when I get a chance (during daylight hours, when I can read the field guide). Of course, we saw the Caribbean Pine, which characterizes the Mountain Pine Ridge. For anyone reading this who does not know the regions of Belize, a ‘ridge’ is a description of a general area/ecosystem and not an actual landform of high elevation. I spent most of the time taking pictures, alternating between the trees and my classmates.

Rio On Pools
Rio On Pools

The Caracol experience was more notable in terms of learning about the region. The first time Scott came on this trip, he did not go to the ruins, but local people told him that it was entirely unreasonable to be this close to the ruins and not see them. The palace at the ruins of the ancient Maya city is the tallest building in Belize, and from the top (of course we climbed it!) you can see Guatemala. We learned quite extensively about the Maya for a few hours (religion, culture, social structures).

 

Caracol, from the top of the tallest palace/pyramid

We also saw tons of trees. Our guide pointed out the Kapok or Ceiba tree (Ceiba pentandra) and the fluff that comes from the seed pods that I think he said was used as padding, for example in a mattress. The tree also has huge buttress roots extending from the sides that serve several purposes, including structural support and nutrient absorption. [insert picture here]

Kapok tree (Ceiba pentandra)

We also saw today:

A few more trees at the Maya site: Cohune palm (Attalea cohune), Fishtail palm (Chamaedorea sp.), more Trumpet tree (Cecropia peltata), relationship with guarding ant species, a Strangler fig (Ficus sp.), and some Montezuma Oropendolas (Psarocolius montezuma).

Fishtail Palm, Chamaedora sp.

At Las Cuevas: a Cedar (Cedrela odorata), A Scarlet Macaw (Ara macao) and a Social Flycatcher (Myiozetetes similis).

We don’t have internet today because of the weather. It appears that the rainy season has started early this year. We will get to see how that effects the visibility of our focus species.

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Day 4: Into the Belly of the Earth

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So I know the title is pretty dramatic, but then again, it was a pretty dramatic sort of day. It started off uneventfully. I woke up a little later than usual but made it to breakfast on time, just before we had another meeting about today’s project: pee traps! As in, we peed in test tubes and used the urine samples to set pitfall traps for insects. Our urine has a lot of nitrogen in it, so the basic idea is that the nitrogen will attract insects that we will then fish out of our pee pee in a couple of days, all in the name of science.

DeLiciOUs!!

The hike this morning was mostly uneventful. There were the standard blue morphos that flew by, close enough for me to see but not to touch. It’s fine, I’m very much used to those butterflies flying circles around me by now. BUT I AM DETERMINED. I WILL CATCH ONE BY THE TIME WE LEAVE THIS FOREST!! I did, however, manage to catch 3 more butterflies and two moths today, so I’m  sharpening my skills. One of the moths was beautiful yellow and black, and it was a rare diurnal moth! Again, I found all the Lepidopterans flitting near the road on low foliage.


Unidentified diurnal moth.

By far the coolest spot of the morning was a coral snake that Sam found under a rotten log – one of the most venomous snakes of Central America. It was smaller than I expected, and very shy. It slithered away almost as soon as we could spot it.

After lunch, we went to hell.

Not really, but it sure did look like it. We entered a cave near Las Cuevas that is not only home to all sorts of creepy cave fauna, but also remnants of the ancient Maya civilization. The black maw of the cave loomed up suddenly over the forest path. Its entrance was filled with hanging stalactites that looked like fangs and cave swallows that nest between them. The Mayans believed this cave to be the entrance to the underworld, and it sure looked the part. We entered via ancient steps carved by the Maya and slowly made our way through the bat poop (guano)-covered cave. I thought the squelchy brown substance spread all over the cave floor was mud, but it was not long before I noticed that it was actually guano. Delicious. Not a single one of us made it out without being covered in the stuff, except maybe our incredible guide, Pedro.

View from the inside of the cave.

There were definitely some scary moments in the cave involving uncomfortably narrow passages and slippery footing. In some of the most claustrophobic recesses of the cave, I became supremely aware of just how deep I was in the Earth: only alien creatures that are adapted to life in utter darkness can exist here, and I am nothing but an intruder who would stand no chance if my headlamp goes out. It was a humbling and freakish experience that I am glad to have had, but that I am not sure I would repeat. Emerging from the cave was like being reborn.

Goodnight for now! I’ll be up again in too few hours.