Today I walked through Maya ruins- Cahal pech and Xunantunich. Archeologists have reconstructed them but they have recreated only what they know was there. It is pretty impressive. Actually, I hardly have the capacity for a proper taking in: today, I've decided to read a novel to relax from all the learning I have been doing the last week. I was on Glover's Atoll, one of four atolls (sunken islands with reefs all around the edge) in the caribbean. Specifically, I was Middle Caye, on one of the three cayes (small islands made of accreted corals) on the atoll. Middle caye is about 7 acres and is taken up by a research facility for anyone who wants to do research. The staff are all locals- creole, garrifina (essentially a unique caribbean african culture), and belizians. They speak english and creole mostly, the latter when they are in a rush or shooting the shit. I shat with them a few nights on the dock where they sit with a shotgun and gaurd their boats from theft by locals or Guatemalans who can boat there in a few hours. BUT, the mostly amazing thing has been what lies under water, through the plastic of a dive mask. Do you know what it is like??? I can't describe it. I wish only that a similarly easy (amazingly easy) portal into the below ground were possible. The water in the whole attol is from 1-100 feet deep and we spent most of our time in depths of about 1-20 feet. You drift on the water and look down at the most-creative-and-full-of-secrets-and-surprises aquarium you can imagine. Parrot fishes eating the corals make an audible crunch and there are so many of them it sounds like rain. Small nurse sharks sometimes can be seen around the reefs hanging out. Angelfishes, grunts, snappers, rockfish, gobies (cleaner fish who wait for large fish to come and bite off parasites even from inside the mouth), wrasses, basslets, squirrel fish, etc. I learned to recognize at least 3 species in each of these groups plus more groups I can't remember. Then there are the corals- hard ones with calcium carbonate between the polyps (clonal indivuals), soft ones with protien structures seperating the polyps, and sea fans. Sponges, amazingly different kinds of algae, land crabs, hermit crabs the size of your fist that can climb trees, parrots, ospreys, grackles, other birds. I haven't coutned but I bet I've learned a hundred or more species in a week.
Now I'm the mainland, enjoying the forests. I think so far I have only seen what we would call second growth and what I thought was great in Alaska until I saw a real old growth forest and realized what was really great. I hope to see a similarly huge and great forest but I'm not sure I will. The trees and amazingly diverse (there are most species of trees in 10 square hectares in the tropics than in all of north america) and they are covered in epiphytes (plants that live on the trees). Iguanas, lizards, kinkajus . . . .