BELIZE - JUNGLE RIVER CRUISE

After well over an hour of riding the vans South into central Belize, we arrive at the departure point for our river cruise on the New River. We board two high powered speed boats.
And they are fast . . . The boat pilots clearly know this river. They speak to each other in a mixture of Creole Spanish, pidgin English and who knows what else - I could not understand them even though I picked up a few Spanish and English words mixed in.

Friends Bill and Sherry MacKellar from Michigan enjoy the fast boat ride with Teri.

Here is a school bus -river cabin.

Some people are clearly not in the same hurry to go down the river than we have.

Cormorans and Anhingas - two fishing bird species also very common where we winter in Fort Myers Beach Florida.

A young crocodile awaits its meal among the floating water lilies.

These tree bats were caught sleeping on this tree by our lens. They flew away a few seconds after I snapped this picture.

We disembark and trek into the jungle. Here are friends Bob and Ede Trockels hiking among the jungle vegetation.

And we find a sleeping boa among the ground debris.

This family of howler monkeys were not howling today. When they do, you can hear them for over a mile.

This is the give and take tree. It gives liquid from its tree trunk and takes revenge with its spines.

A giant cohun palm or Corozal in Spanish.

The black orchid here is the national flower of Belize. This is a macro shot. The flower is a mere inch wide.

The ceiba is the national tree of Costa Rica.

This strangler fig - also very common in Fort Myers Beach - is riding on a ceiba.