Got up early for some horse riding; Li’s horse was called Champion and Tony’s was Belikin (named after the Belizian beer!).
It was a little rough at first getting used to the horses as they knew where they were going and controlling them wasn’t easy. Li’s horse was constantly eating leaves and hence lacking behind so ran quite a bit to catch up with the others causing Li to bounce lots in her saddle. Tony’s horse kept up with the lead horse quite well and Tony got quite good at steering his horse; he even found reverse gear at one stage.
The guide took us through the jungle trail and was extremely knowledgeable about the local trees & fauna and their medicinal use. We also saw a troop of Black Howler Monkeys which apparently is unusual in that part of the jungle. We passed a guy on the trail whose job was to rake the leaves off the trail path (we didn’t envy him). At the end of our horse ride, we booked to go on to a nocturnal night jungle tour for the evening.
Next we headed for a Butterfly Breeding centre which bred to export one type of butterfly (Blue M…). For lunch we went to a Belizian restaurant called Benny’s Kitchen and it was very good traditional food. Li had rice and beans and Tony had a tortilla wrap dish.
It was ever so hot and we both decided to retreat back to our cabin to cool down and ended up sleeping for an hour or so. For our last dinner for this stay, T-Bone steak again; it’s so good. We also had Conch Cervice to start with, which is a salsa style mix with Conch as the meat.
We started our night time jungle walk around 8pm; just the two of us & the guide (called Lion), so that was quite nice. Tony spotted a grasshopper drying out it’s wings (didn’t know that some species of grasshopper had wings) and then a snake that looked like it was going to eat the grasshopper…it didn’t which was quite disappointing for the camera minded amongst the group. Ended up not seeing a huge amount as it was a very bright night with almost a full moon, but we did get to see a number of different frogs and moths as well. The guide tried for almost an additional hour more than we paid for to find some mammals, but they just weren’t there. Really enjoyed it though; you wouldn’t believe just how dark it is in the jungle in the middle of the night! Next, Bed (well, beer & bed)