Belize Day One: A Night at the Zoo

Everything in life is balanced.  I got the airplane row all to myself from Dallas to Belize City, so of course our guide arrived later than even the group, that arrived over an hour after I did.  This extra hour was supposed to give Roberto and I enough time to go through the itinerary, which of course we didn’t do and it eventually had repercussions and required my nit picking later in front of the group.

It wasn’t a big deal though, as a woman from another university pointed out Chrissie and the gang and they are such chill people, the type that don’t mind if the guide is running late.  Perfect.  Everyone got a hug from me when they arrived.  Six women and Sebastian, the token male, engaged to one of the women on the trip and older brother to another.  He proposed on their last school program in Peru.  As long as they weren’t planning on jumping the gun on getting hitched on my time, it was fine.  We were off to the zoo!

We got checked into our lodgings, a very rustic place tucked back into nature just five minutes down the road from the zoo.  Once darkness fell, we all piled into our van and made our way five minutes down the road to the sanctuary turned educational-zoo-center.  It was a great experience.  We got to hand feed tapirs, large rodents, primates, and even get face to face with jaguars and pumas.  The noises all of the animals made, especially the large cats, while going after their slabs of meat was astounding.  The howler monkeys too scared away every inch of silence with their menacing calls and the boars did their part by stinking up the place.  Hands down one of the best zoo experiences of all time!