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Before heading for our two months staying at TEC, we headed back inland to Orange Walk again in order to visit Lamanai (a large mayan site). We stayed at a much nicer place which backed onto the New river. Managed to get an ear infection so found a doctor who made fun of our english accents and told me that both my ears were infected and the right one had two infections..... he seemed pretty impressed!
Next day we got up fairly early to meet our guide, being on Belizean time he was about an hour late. To get to Lamanai from Orange walk you need to travel by boat. It was abouta two hour journey with regular stops to point out wildlife along the way. The most exciting bit was seeing spider monkeys in the trees alongside the river. They came right down to the edge and seemed to be as interested and curious twowards us as we were to them. The rest of the boat ride was a lot of fun, very fast through lots of twists and turns. Arriving at Lamanai guide gave us a bit of background history about the excavation (which had cost millions of pounds) and some mayan history. Not all of the site has been excavated and it never will be due to the costs involved. We saw a few temples with carvings which he interpreted for us. The most spectacular was the main temple which we were able to climb to the top giving an incredible view over the canopy. After lunch and a wander around the gift shops we got back on the boat and headed back. On the way, we hit a torrential downpour which immediately soaked us all and as we were moving so fast the raindrops were actually pretty painful! I have never gone from being so hot to shivering with cold as fast! We soon dried off when the sun reappeared and passed a sugar cane factory and it's transport barges which smelt of toffee!
The next day we took a bus to Belize city and then onto the TEC, we were shocked to find that the bus actually had empty seats and there was space for all our bags. Learning from our past mistake of having to trek with our bags the long route, we asked to be dropped at the back entrance and were immediately swamped with mossies!
The first week at TEC was spent learning to use the equipment. Learning to radio track was good fun, the Belizean students were given the task of teaching us. They buried a radio collar and we were split off into groups and given the task of tracking it down. We got there eventually with some help! The main problem with radio tracking is that the signal bounces off trees and so in a jungle full of trees it is sometimes a bit more complex! We had a couple more practices at this without the Belizian students help and learning to use the GPS and radios...... basically a technology version of hide and seek. Once we'd got the hang of it, we started being allowed to track the two pacas with collars on. Pacas are kind of large ginea pig type rodents with big eyes and stripes. They're nocturnal so during the day we use radio tracking to determine where they're sleeping. During the night we radio track from 8 till 12, taking positions of the pacas every 15 minutes. At first we were a little nervous of being out in the jungle at night, but it's pretty fun especially as we have the radios to communicate with each other. We also were given the task of checking the traps which had been set up to collect more pacas or some peccaries (scary, evil wild pigs). But we only seem to have caught armadillos and iguanas. The traps have all been moved to a new area now where we're hoping to catch and collar some small carnivores. The new area is more remote and has it's own field station which we'll be taking it in turns to stay in once the traps have been baited. Moving the traps between locations was really hard work. We had to wade up what used to be a logging road but is now pretty much a river and in a lot of places the water was over my wellies. We then had to wade back down carrying the traps which were fairly heavy and hard to carry. But we felt really useful as without our help it would have taken days to relocate them as opposed to a couple of hours. We've also helped cut transects for the camera trap grids...... well I say helped, we actually just follow behind Arturo or Mitch as they machete everything in the way and direct them. It makes us seem ridiculously lazy just standing with a compass while they're working really hard, but I wouldn't really trust any of us with a machete! Arturo and Mitch are the two Belizian guys employed to pretty much make sure we don't die in the jungle!
So we've spent the last week divided up between the different tasks, with people swapping between night tracking, day tracking, trap checking, data input, transect cutting and heading into Belmopan for food supplies and extending our visitor permit. My ear infection came back so had to go to a very expensive (but apparantly the best in the country) hospital to get more antibiotics. Becky, one of the girls in our group was unlucky enough to catch Dengue fever and so has had to spend the time recovering in a very posh hotel all covered for by the insurance.... I think our group will be responsible for an increase in university insurance premiums! We've been invited to an excting ceremony announcing the protection of some of the area of the corridor and staing the governments agreement with the whole corridor project. Apparantly the deputy primeminister will be there so we're going to have to try and find some clean and fresh clothes to wear!
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