Beach time at Placencia!

Courtesy of the national elections, we got a few days off from school and decided to head south and get to the beach! It was difficult to imagine a Burlington February as we were soaking up tropical sun on the coral sands of Placencia. A peninsula, Placencia is supposed to be the nicest beach spot in all of Belize. It was my first chance to get shoreside since I've arrived, so I don't have anything with which to compare yet, but it will be hard to top it!While it is definitely a tourist spot, they are almost exclusively small hotels and since owning beach front is illegal in Belize you can walk up and down the peninsula along the beach or along the longest unbroken side walk through the middle of town. The sand is all made of coral fragments, so the grains are small enough to be sandy but big enough to wipe away really easily, a great combination. Unfortunately, there is quite a bit of garbage that floats in or is left on the beach, but almost all of the restaurants and hotels have people rake the beach each morning to mitigate that.Emily Abbott managed to get us a sweet deal on a house for three nights. Right on the beach, it was an amazing spot and with 10 students in there it was only BZ$10 a night! It was a great chance to relax and pass the time throwing a disc on the beach and swimming in the warm Caribbean water.
We took full advantage of the kitchen and cooked up some tasty meals. The second day a few students went out fishing and snorkelling and the Belizean who took them out cooked up the catch of kingfish and some Conch fritters for us the second night, a delightful local feast!After a great time spent and only minor sunburn, I headed back to San Ignacio yesterday via water taxi and a long bus ride, unpacked and reluctantly washed the salt and sand out of my hair.

PS. The opposition party, UDP won the election in a landslide victory with nearly 80% of the vote, ending 10 years of reign by the PUP. With no riots or demonstrations, this looks like a successful, democratic turnover...three cheers

La Milpa research station

Hello! Sorry it has been so long, there has been much going on here the past two weeks.
Last weekend the entire UVM group took a trip to La Milpa, a research station in the middle of a rainforest reserve that also oversees a Maya site that has yet to be excavated. The place was absolutely beautiful. When we first arrived we were greeted with a tropical shower while the sun was still shining and once the rain stopped, a group of splendidly colored Oscillated Turkeys and some white tailed deer meandered across the lawn. The whole scene was like something out of a Jehovah Witness pamphlet.

The accommodations were rather 'green'. Solar panels powered the entire station and there were composting toilets in the newest building, the whole eco-tourism shabang.
Silicon meets Thatch...

Walking through the Cohune Palm forests was like a trip to Lost World, the massive palm fronds looked prehistoric and the giant Mahogany trees were nothing short of epic. (So I staged this epic photo)



A chance to go bird watching could not be passed up, even if it was at 6am. I saw a bunch of beautiful and interesting species fluttering around. We had a few toucan sightings, which seemed to bring the most excitement. I am still working on collecting photos from those students with good optical zoom and I will get some on-line as soon as I do.


During the trip we got a chance to visit Las Milpas, a Maya site that has been reclaimed by the jungle and has been so far left in its natural state. The tree covered mounds were fantastic in scale and the mystery of them indescribable. The pictures do no justice to being surrounded by towering mounds of jungle and knowing that each one of those is a great limestone structure in what was a flat expanse of fields.


Howlers and Spider monkeys rule the area now. The black Howlers let out their incredible roar as our group approached while the spider monkeys opted to throw hard fruit at us, making the hike that much more interesting.

Needless to say, the entire trip was a great experience and it was neat to see an example of sustainable tourism at work.