KRISTI: Last week was mostly a tough one (a lot of ups and downs) - BUT the rainy season started so we’re VERY thankful for the cooler temperatures. YEAY!! Sorry it’s been a while since we’ve posted. Last week Melvin, Kender and Charles were all at El Peru station. But they were only able to visit one nest that week. Charles was pretty bummed out about that since he has a lot of temperature loggers he needs to set up and show people how to use. Father’s day was last Wednesday here but I’m not sure if that was the reason the staff returned early or not last week. A lot of times we’re kind of in the shadows waiting for people to make decisions for us. It’s too bad Charles is under the gun to get so much done in such little time – it’s a really busy office here and multiple conversations going on at once. Plus it’s just the way things work here in Flores and in Belize – you need 3 weeks to get 1 week’s worth of work done since logistics and organizing are so tough (plus language and cultural immersion is hard at times). BUT, we’re enjoying it here overall...well….EXCEPT when I had some weird allergic reaction and my face swelled up last week. Yeah, OK, maybe we can just admit that last week was NOT the banner week for us! So I was looking forward to seeing Charles – we hadn’t seen each other for 2 weeks – and his reaction was great!! (“OMG! What’s wrong with your face!”). Perfect! So the next day thanks to the awesome local medicos, a couple of steroid shots, some pills and ice packs, I got better by Friday afternoon so we decide to take off for the weekend.
We made it to El Estor on Lago Isabel. We stayed in this really great eco-lodge we lucked upon (It’s the 1st sign as you come into El Estor). So we chilled out there right on the lake. Next day after a slow morning we drove up this windy mountain road through several Maya villages (this drive reminded me of Batopilas/Copper Canyon Mexico). 5 hours later up to Tactic/Coban area (high fern/pine forest). We headed south from Tactic to the Biotopo Quetzal and stayed at the Eco-Rancho a night in a casa Madera (wood cabin). That was really such a nice place – very cool and wet forest. We took a 2 hour hike up to some waterfalls looking for the quetzal but of course the ONE quetzal people saw was right back where we were staying 5 minutes walk up the road. So close! We’ll go back again – actually we were surprised to hear they were even out since the trees were not fruiting quite yet. The ranger said July-September is the best time to see them.
The next day we thought we were in for a long haul getting back – we had heard it would take up 6 and a half hours north driving from Coban to Flores through mountains and so we were in a hurry to get on the road since we were hiking all morning. But we lucked out - it was a perfect paved road – really easy and incredibly beautiful to drive through - highly recommended! We made it in 4 hours from Coban to Flores with time to swim in the lake before dinner. Ahhhhh….back to Flores and the apartment we’ve gotten very used to calling ‘home’.
It’s a pendulum – good luck, bad luck, good luck, bad luck the past several days! SO, this morning a little bad luck. We’re kicking ourselves a little for not taking the jeep back to Challo’s house last night where we’ve had it parked the whole time. Instead we left it parked in Flores and some punk broke the small triangle window in front and stole the radio Charles got right before we left. Oh well. (Man, this past week sounds terrible written down – but actually we’re doing OK I swear!). We heard of this ventana repair shop in Santa Elena so we’ll take the jeep there this afternoon to get it fixed. No hay problema, just part of the adventure I guess! Oh….time for the pendulum to stop for a few days!
More later! Happy (belated) Fathers Day to you guys and see you soon. This summer is going fast!
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