The Belize Zoo!

Today we got on the bus at 6am. I'm not sure how they decide which routes get school buses and which get coach buses, but I was happy to see that it was a coach bus!  We had air conditioning and even reclining seats! Life was good!  We took the bus from Punta Gorda to Belmopan. In Belmopan we had just under two hours to kill so we went to a market across the street from the bus station and got a little lunch. We then went back to the bus station and started waiting at the gate for the next part of our journey. Unfortunately, this bus was a school bus and it was packed. We had to push our way on and it was somewhat of a miracle that all 14 of us made it on. We took the bus to the Belize Zoo where we spent about two and a half hours.

All of the animals at the zoo were brought in by people or rescued so they were all native to Belize. There were jaguars, all sorts of colorful birds, spider and howler monkeys, tepirs (the national animal of Belize), crocodiles, and lots of other animals. The zoo was a typical city zoo. The animals were in cages and it wasn't huge. I can't imagine this zoo ever being busy, which is sad because I'm sure they need the finding from tickets, but all in all it was a successful trip to the zoo! 

After we left the zoo, a van brought us to our hotel in San Ignacio. It is by far the weirdest hotel I have ever been in. A lot of the hotels here are considered guest houses and I guess this would be a prime example. Mr. and Mrs. Guerra own it and also live here. To get to our rooms we have to walk through their living room (Mrs. Guerra was passed out on the couch when we came back from dinner) and kitchen and then go up stairs and then down stairs to get to our hall of rooms.  Just another interesting experience in Belize!

Tomorrow we're going to tour ATM (Actun Tunichil Muknal). The ATM is a cave (and also a Mayan archeological site) so from what I understand there's some hiking/swimming/spelunking involved and I'm sure a little bit of struggling since once we're in the cave we have to walk around in socks and that just sounds slippery.