Road Trip

Such an exciting life we have here in the Toledo District of Belize.  The Monkey River Road dried out enough for us to attempt a road trip to … wait for it …  THE DUMP!  Why are we so anxious to get to the dump?  Keep reading.

Dennis and I noticed that we see the same damn blown-out flip-flops and other lonely single shoes; the same empty plastic bottles that formerly contained sodas, booze, shampoo, motor oil, or bleach; the same plastic remnants of personal hygiene products like deodorant, toothbrushes, combs, brushes, nail polish, toothbrushes, toothbrushes, and more toothbrushes; plastic cutlery and to-go boxes when we walk on our beach or up the each to visit our neighbors.  The common denominator of 90% (99%?) of the trash is plastic.  We (humankind, that is) are finally witnessing the consequences of the truth in Mr. McGuire’s advice to Ben (Dustin Hoffman) in the movie The Graduate:

McGuire: I just want to say one word to you. Just one word.

Ben: Yes, sir.

McGuire: Are you listening?

Ben: Yes, I am.

McGuire: Plastics.

Plastics, alright, on the beach just a few feet north of our property.

Plastics in a plastic bag; a work in progress. 

One person's trash is another critter's trailer home.  I have seen several hermit crabs making do with plastic caps instead of shells.  We have very few shells large than 1.5 inches, except for large conch shells, around here for hermit crabs to inhabit.

Just enough room to retract into.  And in the always fashionable color black.

I do believe this crab may have outgrown his home.  But it is hard to give up this bright orange cap that matches the carapace!

Plastics.  They have been a boon to improving the quality of life of people (and hermit crabs) worldwide – plastic syringes and other medical devices that make modern healthcare possible, plastic components that create affordable consumer goods thus making life easier and better for a greater portion of the population, and so on.  Plastics have also been the bane of the environment – increased oil production to supply the raw material from which plastics are made, increased pollution from plastics that never disintegrate, increased exposure to molecular components of plastics that adversely affect our health, and so on.  I could go into a rant about the evils of plastic, but that is not what this blog is about.

No, this blog is about our life in Englishtown, Toledo, Belize.  And we are seeing all kinds of plastic trash wash up on our beach.  So, Dennis and I recently have been on a 2-person campaign to clean the drift trash off not only our 400+ feet of beach front (which we have been doing for years), but also another 400 feet or so to the north of us.  This is the path we take to visit our neighbors at SteppingStones and Craig at the north end of Englishtown and we would like to enjoy the walk rather than be irritated by the trash.  For a couple of weeks now, we get up and first thing (even before breakfast or coffee, but after toothbrushing!) we walk up the beach and work on collecting the old beach trash and the fresh new arrivals in huge plastic (!) garbage bags.  We have filled 8 bags so far.  I was actually amazed that removing just 8 bags worth of trash would make such a noticeable difference in how the beach looks.  That amounts to 39 gallons of trash per 50 ft of beach front for the first pass of our clean-up efforts.

Because the Monkey River Road had been flooded and impassable for our Subaru Outback stationwagon since mid-October (see my previous posts about the flooding here and here), we had 2 months of our normal trash plus the 8 big bags of beach trash to get to the dump.

We loaded the first bit into the boat and Richard took us to the Monkey River dock on the north side of the river near where we keep our car.  

The boat-load #1 at our Black Creek dock.

The car parked at at Mr. Horace Coleman's place.  Not bad-looking for 2001 model.   

We brought our car around to the dock and transferred the bags to the car (and some to Chris’ truck – thanks Chris!) and off we went up the Monkey River Road.  The rest of the photos are a mashup of 2 separate trips to the dump.  I got some photos related to the post about boating through the farm and down the Monkey River Road to get to the Pumping Station for the village water supply.

This the driveway to the farm, the same driveway that was flooded enough to accommodate an outboard motor boat a few weeks ago.

The Pumping Station with the generator and the well head.

The water tower at jungle's edge.

The only reason the road was passable at all for a car, as opposed to a truck or SUV, was because the Toledo District Road Department had been hard at work.  By the time we drove up the road, 3 or more loads of rock and gravel had been dumped at strategic spots and now the back hoe was digging deeper ditches at each side of the road.  The deeper ditches are great when there is a heavy down pour, but not very effective if the river itself floods.  All of Belize has been inundated this year.  Dave Rider at Belize -Adventures in Paradise has a nice series of blogs about the road issues up in the Corazol District.

This had been a car-swallowing mud pit.  Seriously - the pit was about 3 feet deep and 6 feet long across the width of the road. 

After I took a few photos of the action, one of the crew very kindly walked through the mud ahead of me, moving big rocks to the side. We made it through without mishap. 

The second time we made the trip even more gravel, rocks, and what I will call "boulders", had been dumped on the road and the crew had moved to a new site.

You need to choose your route very carefully through this mess.  Sometimes it has to get worse before it gets better.

 On the first trip up the road, Dennis drove and then I made the return down the road.  On the next trip, 2 days later, I drove up the road and managed to really hit bottom a number of times on the stretch of road in the photo below.  Of course the photo below was taken after they had "scraped" the road, moving the boulders to the side; I drove it before, while the road was still edge-to-edge boulders.

See those big light colored chunks on the left of the road?  The entire road surface was covered with boulders that size earlier in the day.

For perspective, that is my foot on the rocks in the foreground of the photo one above.

 You can see where this story is headed, can't you?  Yes, I busted a hole in the oil pan.  :-(  Things were still OK when we stopped at the dump, but by the time we parked in Indy, there was an obvious oil leak.  

But first -- THE DUMP!!!  We had heard that the dump had been improved and didn't know quite what to expect other than there was a gate and someone to open the gate for you.  

Once past the gate, I took this photo looking back toward the gatehouse, trying to capture the landscaping, OK, the 2 or 3 trees that had been planted along the road.  

The road into the dump is just off the Southern Highway.  Formerly, you just turned onto the dump road, took a deep breath, opened the car door and threw your trash out right there, and then got back into the car, hopefully without breathing.  And the flies were horrendous.  You didn't want to risk driving into the dump area because of all the crap that could destroy your tires.  All of that has ben covered over, new roads have been made, and there are giant pits for you to throw your garbage into.  They periodically bulldoze stuff into the pits and then burn it down.  

Sadly, there are families who survive by sorting through the garbage for things to salvage.  They like to go through your stuff before you toss it into the pit.  Dennis spoke with the mother who was there with her young pre-school kids and learned that she can profit from aluminum cans and maybe glass bottles.  He told her we would start sorting our trash so we could just give her bags with the things she can trade for.  

For a a dump, this place was pretty nice.  The smell wasn't too bad (I guess we have to give it time to build up), and it seemed to be laid out with a thought to the future.  They had planted trees here and there along the roads.  Dennis spotted a fork-tailed flycatcher that I was able to photograph.

Fork-tailed flycatcher at the dump.

I guess a dump is a good place for a flycatcher to catch flies!

After the dump, we went in to Indy to stop at the hardware store and run some other errands.  While at the hardware store, Nelson, the taxi driver we normally use when we go to Indy by boat, came in to let me know that oil was leaking from the car.  I told him about the road and he volunteered to make the repair for us while we did our other errands.  So we bought the patch kit, followed him to his house. left the car there while he drove us back into Indy. Two hours later, after we had done all our errands and eaten an early lunch, Nelson took us back to get the car.  He charged us the exorbitant price of $30 BZ (=$15 US) and while the patch had been setting up, his daughter washed the car inside and out.  We paid the $30 and gave them each a nice tip.  Not a bad deal.

We decided to road test the patch on paved roads before going back down the Monkey River Rd by making a trip to a plant nursery near the town of Dangriga.  Eleven plants later, we were ready to head home.  Below are more scenes from the Monkey River Road.

The parked along the road so I can take some photos.  (This was 2 days before the oil pan incident, so the car was still pretty dirty.)  The road is in good shape here.

The jungle comes nearly to the edge of the road.  In the days before the power line was put in, it did come all the way to the road.

Another section of jungle-edged road, rough, but easily passable.

There is so much wildlife along the Monkey River Rd.  We saw a small fox (no photos), all kinds of birds, butterflies and other insects, and lizards.  I'm sure if we had gotten into the bush we would have seen lots more including snakes, scorpions, and spiders.  There are not infrequent jaguar sitings along the road.  I am anxious to make an excursion on the road and into the bush once its gets cool enough to wear long pants, long sleeves, and shoes.

This Common Black-hawk posed beautifully in the late afternoon sun.

It was not at all intimidated by our presence in its domain.

Soon we were back at the dock to load the 11 plants (more on those in another post) and other purchases into the boat and get back to our sweet spot on the sea.

Looking from the south edge of our property along the mostly trash-free beach.

Since we got back on Friday (2 days ago as I write this) it has poured rain during both nights and also rained some during the days.  Don't know when we will venture onto the road again, but at least the river hasn't flooded.

A Willet is Waylaid

November 23rd was a lovely sunny day here in Englishtown, Belize.  We spent the day just hanging around our place and doing a few minor chores.  My cameras have not been feeling well and needed some attention.  Mostly they were suffering from electronic heebie-jeebies caused high humidity and salt air.  I cleaned what I could and then resorted to baking them inside sealed plastic bags placed in the sunshine after first removing the batteries and memory cards, taking lenses off, and opening any port that could be opened.  After less than an hour in the sun, there was significant moisture condensed inside the plastic bags.  I wiped that out with paper towels and baked some more.  I think that worked wonders, although I will probably need to do it routinely to keep things working.  I tested one camera and telephoto zoom lens - all the photos below were taken with camera.

We don't have many shorebirds here.  The main resident is a least sandpiper that patrols up and down our beach daily.  It was joined for a week or so by a single willet.

The visiting willet and resident least sandpiper.  Big difference in size!

The willet spent a lot of time with its head in the water.  It closed its eyes before plunging in. 

The willet has a straight dark bill, dark legs, and a striking eye ring.  Until it flies (see last photos in the blog), its plumage seems fairly dull.

It goes deeper into the surf than does the least sandpiper. 

Eyes squeezed tightly shut! 

Looks like it got a little copepod - yum! 

It is a handsome bird, and was very obliging to let me get so close.

But this was as close as it felt comfortable with. 

So it turned to walk back down the beach and I went back onto the veranda.

After the willet came back toward our cabana, it went onto the dock where it was joined by the resident great-tailed grackle horde.  The following pictures tell the story of it being waylaid by grackles.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Those grackles can be an aggressive bunch.  I guess they had the advantage in numbers, even though the willet was larger.  You can see how striking the willet's plumage is in the flight shots.  The willet didn't stay away long, in fact it was back in about an hour.  But a day or so later, it continued its migration after its brief layover in Englishtown.

Thankful

We celebrated our first Thanksgiving in Belize Thursday the 30th by hosting a small dinner party for our nearest neighbors, who are all American, and also Richard and Joy who live on site here and help us manage the place.  The guests included Craig who lives about 3/4 mile up the beach from us, Laquita and Bill who are housesitting at SteppingStones about 1/4 mile up the beach, and Chery and Sam who recently bought the MonkeyHouse about a mile to the south of us.  It was also the first Thanksgiving in Belize for Laquita and Bill and for Chery and Sam.  Everyone brought a contribution to the table and we did it up right with turkey, gravy, dressing, roasted root veggies, cauliflower soup, broccoli casserole, homemade bread stuffed with cheese, cranberry sauce, peach cobbler, pecan pie, and pumpkin cookies. Of course accompanied by lots of fine liquids.  Dennis and I certainly enjoyed it, and it seems our guests did as well.

November is almost at its end and this is only the second post I have managed to make.  Who knew retirement would be so busy?  I have plenty of things to blog about, like this gorgeous moon.  For the full moon and the next 3 nights it had a distinct pink cast to the color that was quite unusual.  It just looks plain orange in the photo, but in person it was a lovely salmon color.

Night after November's full moon (the Beaver Moon).  I wasn't able to quite capture the distinctly pinkish tinge to the color. 

Some of the other things to blog about are the plants that can be seen along the jungle trail we made.  The photo below is of the trunk of a dead tree that is supporting all kinds of epiphytes.

Tree along the jungle path.

Lots of birds have been passing through, too.  And there has been new activity at the hummingbird feeders.  

Juvenile Male Ruby-Throated Hummingbird.  The next photo shows how I know it's a male. ;-)

He's getting the first of his ruby feathers!  They really glow like that when the light is at the right angle; I didn't enhance the color at all.

All kinds of interesting things going on.  I'll do my best to post more frequently.

In the meantime and in the spirit of the holiday I will simply say that I am thankful that Dennis and I can enjoy our new life in Belize; I have never been happier or more contented.  Here's wishing the same for each of you.

Wanted: Lotus Esprit Amphibious Vehicle

I mentioned in my last post that the Monkey River Road was flooded.  Monkey River Village itself was flooded, too. Here is a satellite view of Monkey River Village, the end ofMonkey River Road, Black Creek, and Englishtown (where we live) just north of  the mouth of Black Creek, with Black Creek proper to our west.  

The sinuous Monkey River winds along south of the Monkey River Road.  At the mouth of Monkey River, the dirt road ends in a parking lot with a small dock.  On the south side of the mouth is Monkey River Village.  A handful of dwellings are on the north side of the river.  a little farther north is Black Creek .  Our place (red asterisk) is at the south of the area called Englishtown, and Craig's place (orange asterisk) is at the north end.  

The village has no paved roads or sidewalks (the road ends on the north side of the river and the village is on the south side), but does have houses laid out in lots along "streets" and paths across public areas.  

There are close to 40 households in the village along with at least 1 bar, 1 church, 1 school, 2 guest house/hotels, and several places you can buy a hot lunch.

Even lower than our place, the village is only a few feet above sea level and is also bordered on 2 sides by the river.  With as much rain as we had in just a few short days, it is easy to see how the village gets waterlogged.  Richard took the next 2 photos with his phone October 28th. 

 

 

Ironically, with the road flooded, the village ran out of "pipe water" (Belizean for municipally supplied water).  How did that happen?  It was only about 6 or7 years ago that the government provided funds for the village to install its own well, water pump, water tower, pipes, and water meters to the inhabitants of Monkey River Village.  The well and pumphouse are about 3 miles from the village on the site of a natural fresh water spring; otherwise, a well around here will hit a water table that is brackish rather than fresh.  The water tower is a little removed from the well and pump.  Prior to this setup, villagers relied on rainwater just like we currently do.  The pump is turned on and off manually, which means that someone has to go to the pump house to turn it on and then go back to turn it off once the water tower starts to overflow - a very low tech system.  The village has an official Waterboard who oversee the operation, meter reading, and bill collection. But with the road flooded, no one could get to the pumphouse to turn the pump on.  The solution to this problem?  Go by boat!

Take the boat up the Monkey River (which, remember, is in flood!) to the farm at the bend in the road.  Drive the boat up the boat launch and down the driveway to get to the road.  Then drive the boat down the road to the pumphouse!

The next 2 photos were also taken by Richard on the boat trip to the pumphouse.

Crossing the flooded farm by boat. 

Going down the road in the boat.

 They were successful in getting the pump on and water to the village.  You do what you gotta do, eh?

Meanwhile, back in Englishtown, we had a little flooding from Black Creek at the rear of our property, but it receded quickly.

Black Creek water edging onto our property from the west.

 And from the east, we were getting pounded by the sea.

The waves were so high, they were breaking over our dock.

The rough sea brought a lot of things to the beach.

This sea heart was deposited right at my feet by a wave.

Cubic yard after cubic yard of dead sea grass was washed ashore, along with plastic trash of all descriptions and some little treasures.

The lovely sea purse was mixed in with dead sea grass and a plastic bottle cap. 

We always have the sea grass raked up to use as a soil amendment.  Basically our "soil" is just sand, so organic material is a great addition.

The occasional golfball-sized Valonia ventricosa was in the sea grass too.

 I loved spotting Valonia ventricosa.  Valonia, also called sailor's eyeball, is a green alga that is normally attached to something hard like coral or rocks throughout tropical waters.  The stormy waters must have detatched quite a few of them.  They are very cool organisms.  Each ball is just a single cell covered with a cell wall that looks like glass!  I got a little carried away trying to take photographs that do them justice.

With a little help from Picasa photo editing, I tried to highlight the metallic sheen of the Valonia.

This single celled green alga is home to other organisms that grow on its surface.

After more than a week of stormy, rain-filled nights, we finally got some clear and calm weather.

I love the sea when it is calm and flat.  I can spend hours mesmerized by subtle greens and silver colors.

 After several days of clear calm weather, the roads and villages dried out.  And that means - 

The guys unloading our lumber.  This is boat-load 1 of 3.

 You got it - we can get our next construction materials delivered.  Work will soon re-commence on the cabana.

If anyone has a lead on James' Lotus (seen in "The Spy Who Loved Me") for a good price, don't hesitate to let me know!  I have some sea hearts and sailor's eyeballs I could trade ...