Day 7 - San Ignacio

LISA:Today we went bird watching with a incredible birder named Ben. We had to get up pretty early (4:30 am) but it was totally worth it. We had never been up so early to bird watch and it was so cool to hear all of the animals awaken as the sun came up. We heard a symphony of not only bird calls but many insects (like cicadas) and other cool creatures. Ben was able to recognize the birds by their calls and had an uncanny ability to locate them with the binoculars within seconds. He guided us through 2 great birding areas in town. The little digital camera we brought wasn't good enough to adequately capture any of the birds we saw (here's a sample shot)...


...but Greg went online and got images of some of them so you can see a little of what we saw.




Seeing the keel-billed toucan (the bottom picture) was surreal. I mean we knew they really did exist but seeing one live in the wild was incredible. Once again we were reminded of how miraculous our world is.





















GREG: So that was the morning. The afternoon gave us a little reminder of our last week in Chicago and our flooded basement. About 1:00 in the afternoon, a hard rain began to fall. It hadn't rained at all since the very first day of our trip, so we were happy to see it and hoped it would cool things down (it's been really hot here). Then the leaks began. Our room was (yes, that's past tense) on the top floor of the guest house we're staying in, and before we knew it rain was dripping in, pretty heavily, from about 10 different places through the wooden ceiling. We had to pack everything up and get out quickly. They ended up moving us to a much smaller, more cramped room downstairs (with no balcony or sitting room, as our other room had), but we're getting the last night of our stay free and -- the only real upside -- the new room has an air conditioner! We feel like typical spoiled Americans, but man, does the AC feel good.

A couple days ago we met a kid named Orvin, a really sweet 11-year-old who lives in a nearby village and is spending his summer making (and selling) slate carvings, one of the local crafts. We asked him to make us a lizard carving and he finished it today. Here's Lisa with Orvis, proudly showing off his masterpiece.


We're loving San Ignacio and wish we had more time here but tomorrow is our last day before leaving for Caye Caulker Friday morning. We'll check in again tomorrow or Friday.