Day 12, Friday, March 6, 2009: Blue Creek, Howler Monkeys and Ethnobotany

Today we got up at 5:30 AM to go on a hike to hopefully see Howler Monkeys. We hiked down the path to the village to meet the students who had gone on home stays the night before. Most of them had a good experience. Then, we hiked about 1.5 miles up the rocky road to where Pablo, our guide, was hoping to find some monkeys. We were hoping to see them from the road without having to explore the jungle. It turns out we were in luck and we saw a pair of them hanging out in the trees, it was cool. After hiking a little further down the road looking at different flora and fauna, we turned around and began our hike back to camp which was now longer due to the fact that it had been raining and the dirt road had become quite muddy.

At about 11:00, we again headed down the path to bring the school supplies we had brought to the Blue Creek Roman Catholic Elementary School that was just across the bridge. The students in the lower grades had a musical presentation planned and sang some songs and danced for us. Then, we each sang our national anthems. Afterwards, we were able to visit some of the classrooms and interact with some of the other students and their teachers.




After lunch, we went on a Ethno-Botany hike where we learned about different plants that had certain cultural significance. We ate some heart of palm and made gum from a gum tree, for instance. It was a relaxing hike and very informative.





That evening, Ignasio came to speak to us and told us some of the history of the people who reside here in Blue Creek, some of their customs, like marriage, and about Shamanism. The students found the talk interesting, especially when he began to speak about Shamanism. After his talk, we turned in for the night.

- Linda H.

Howler Monkey Hike

We awoke at 6:00 in the morning to the sound of shuffling feet and the zippers of ponchos in the cabins. Blurry eyed and worn from the hike the day before, we ventured slowly from our cabins and began trekking down to the village. Our guide, William, took the lead and led us down a rough gravely road. He began explaining how the howlers enjoy sitting near the road and how lucky we were that we didn’t have to venture into the jungle because the hurricanes made travel very hard. Although we were tired, we were excited to see some wildlife. We trekked along the road, the occasional car giving us a quick wave and a whole lot of dust. William pointed out a Mennonite that passed us on a dirtbike. We asked William about the war with Guatemala and after dismissing the possibility because of various peace conferences he pointed out the road we were walking on led straight to Guatemala.

After about 45 minutes, we spotted the monkeys. It had begun to drizzle, but we immediately perked up at the sight of two howler monkeys sitting on a branch. They were scratching each others' heads and snuggling together. Apparently Howlers spend 75% sleeping, 20% socializing, and 5% gathering food. We used binoculars to zoom in on the two monkeys, their faces were black and their fur was fluffy and shiny.


We ventured on to check out hanging bird’s nests that hung from trees. The nests were like hotdogs hanging from branches. The birds flew into them to put down food to feed their young. At this point it was raining pretty hard, so we began the arduous trek back to breakfast. The road turned to mud and stuck to our feet, making our legs extremely heavy. We became quite drenched, but finally we arrived at camp to a scrumptious meal of biscuits, eggs, beans, rice, and papaya juice.

- Alex C.

Visit to Blue Creek R.C. School

During our four day stay at Blue Creek we took about 2 hours to go down to the Blue Creek R.C school. When we got there, everyone in the school gathered together in the middle of the school in a big square around us. Then they sang some songs and did some dances for us. The kids who did most of the dances were five and six years old and they were so cute. The last thing they shared with us was their national anthem while they raised their Belize flag. Once theirs was done, we sang our anthem. Not everyone knew all the words, so some people sang louder than others and made everyone sound better. I’m sure I speak for everyone when I say thank you for the Blue Creek R.C School for welcoming us into their school. After all the sharing we took about an hour to walk around and sit in on their classes and a couple of people played some of the kids in chess. They were very good and I think everyone of us lost. It was really fun being able to see how they learned and how different their classrooms and their whole school were so different than ours. I had a lot of fun and I’m sure everyone else did too. All the little kids were so cute and very fun to talk to. We talked to them about what books they liked and other things like that

- Liam C.

Ethnobotany Walk

After lunch on Friday, our guides from the previous day's cave expeditions came back to take us on guided tours of the jungle, where we identified plants and trees, and learned about their traditional uses in Maya culture. It took our group a walk of only 100 yards into the rainforest to discover about twenty medicinal herbs and plants, a tree bearing fruit that can substitute for coffee, and "vegetarian macaroni," (the stem of a tall green plant with a beautiful pointed red and white kind of flowery head). It was amazing to watch our guide Pedro look around the forest like a chemist browsing his solution cabinet. He even showed us soldier ant colonies, explained their ecology, and advertised their effectiveness as ingrown nail clippers when pinched at the abdomen and directed toe-ward. I had my journal with me, and I was vigorously sketching and taking note of every weird palm tree and every spiky stalk. For the rest of the trip, people were asking to borrow my journal to get the notes. I was happy to lend them, it was cool to see everyone so interested. I loved Pedro's reverence for the harmony of the rainforest. He said the Mayans have been living in ecological harmony with the rainforest for thousands of years, taking only what they need. I thought of slash-and-burn agriculture, which was widely used in Maya culture, as it is not ecologically sustainable. I needed to look at it a different way. The Mayans lived a subsistence level, generally, and were sensitive to the power of the rainforest. They knew it could provide everything they needed if they acted responsibly: snake bite treatment, tonics for jaundice and a cure for malaria...It was pretty cool. I was pretty blown away.

- Sylvia C.