Excursions in Belize and Guatemala

The Belize Zoo

January 2011

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It was late afternoon by the time we got out of Belize City with Sid. We headed for San Ignacio, where we had reservations at a small guesthouse for the night. The Belize Zoo is on the highway a short ways out of Belize City, and has many of the indigenous animals. It's a great chance to see a Jaguar and some of the other mammals, which we were highly unlikely to see in the wild.

It was 20 minutes before closing when we got there, but the keeper was happy to let us in. He said he would have to close right on time to catch the bus to get home, so I asked him where home was and he said Belmopan. Belmopan is on the way to San Ignacio, so I asked him if we could give him a ride and he said yes, so we were able to stay quite a bit longer.


Agouti	Crocodile	Turtle


XXXBird	XXXBird


Jaguar	Ocelot


Black Howler Monkeys	Black Howler Monkeys


Peccary	Tapir


Harpy Eagle	Aracari	Xxx Bird


Xxx Bird	Xxx Bird

My favorite part of this visit to the zoo was the snakes. As we were getting ready to leave, one of the guys had brought out a largish (to me) Boa Constrictor for some reason, and I got to play with it a bit. It was cool!

Gary Boa
Photo by Dona

We left the zoo with evening coming on, dropped off the zoo keepers in Belmopan, and continued on to our lodgings in San Ignacio.

The Mana Kai Camping and Cabins where we were staying had cooking facilities, but we decided to splurge and eat out. We had dinner at Flayva's Bar and Grill; we all enjoyed it. After a good night's sleep, we headed for Tikal the next day.