BLOG 2:

Today I am going to blog events from the chiquibul forest and into Caye Caulker, Belize.

The last blog I posted I believe I mentioned the river swimming near the chiquibul. I don’t have a particularly good memory these days so I will lump the days into a random order and mention a few key points of interest. In the Chiquibul (Chiq) we celebrated Kara’s birthday via bonfire and some friendly conversation with the staff at the chiq. They are extremely nice people there names are Boris, Rafael, pedro, Albert, and Angela. They took good care of us all and taught us a lot about the jungle environment as well as team work and ecological identification of multiple species of flowers, bugs, vines, trees, etc. Albert was very knowledgable on jaguars, Rafael knew a lot about navigation and plant species. Pedro took us on trails and taught us about local botany and traditional uses of different plant species. He was born and raised in the chiq so the knowledge he shared was unfiltered through the westernized mindset. Our conversations with him and other staff members were most definitely ethnographic studies. Angela was our cook the whole time we were at the chiq. She cooked us traditional yukatan and mayan meals, as she was mayan herself. Lastly there is Boris, the chief biologist on site. He was extremely knwledgable on every subject of the chiq. That includes scientific, political, financial, and social aspects of forest management. He also watches the show “Big Bang Theory”, needless to say he was an interesting leader worthy of mention.

Leaving the chiq was a relief for just about everyone in the group. I think everyone was feeling the enclosure of the chiq as well as a developing interest in what new adventure was coming up---Caye Caulker and the carribean. However, there was obviously some issue with leaving the chiq staff behind. They were an astounding people that walked at a different pace. We called them the Guardians of the Chiquibul.