Bob wanted to go to the Belize Zoo so first thing in the morning, we headed off to the water taxi. Here we see Bob waiting patiently for the water taxi to load up and leave.
We got a bonus on this trip as there was a stop at Caye Chapel, the golf resort. Neither one of us had been up close to it before.
Once we got to Belize City, we wandered around and then went to St. George's Dining Room at the Radisson Fort George Hotel and Marina. We had a great buffet breakfast to hold us over during our tour of the zoo. We grabbed a taxi to the bus terminal and you can see Bob standing in front of one of the buses.
The ride to the zoo was about 40 minutes or so and we were let off on the side of the highway by the sign. It was a very short hike from the highway to the entrance of the zoo, where they looked at my camera and decided it was not professional enough to charge us the fee. That worked for me.
This is a tapir called Navidad because he was brought to the zoo at Christmas time. Navidad was a "pet". It is illegal to keep any wildlife as pets. As you can see, he looks happy now.
We didn't actually see "Scotty" but my sense of humour would not allow me to bypass photographing this sign. At least Scotty is honest.
We don't know what kind of bird this is, he just kept flying closer and closer to us, just begging to have his picture taken. He is certainly a handsome little guy. (I found out this guy is a Great Kiskadee).
This is a turtle, with his head up and neck stretched, looking around, probably wondering why I was making such a fuss about him.
This Green Toucan was very friendly towards us. He kept going to his food dish and bringing some fruit, probably to share his dinner with us.
There were lots of howler monkeys in the zoo, I think they were breaking into the zoo, instead of trying to get out.
Bob was busy making new friends and here he is trying to determine who was the most hard-nosed.... Bob won.
Junior is a 16 month old jaguar and you can plainly see by the size of his paws, he still has some growing to do. According to one of the staff at the zoo, Junior likes to play football. Quarterback or running back?
This Harpy Eagle strutted his stuff and did many poses for us.
The birds all seemed quite taken with Bob, maybe they knew it was his birthday. I think the Red Lored Parrot wanted to come home with us. One of the parrots talked a blue streak every time Bob came near.
We saw many different animals and birds, but we couldn't begin to put them all here, so we are just taking the highlights. This zoo is not like any other I have ever been to, more like some of the sanctuaries in Australia.
After walking around for about two and a half hours, we had seen most of the zoo and we were getting tired, hot and hungry. We headed back to the highway to flag down a bus heading back to Belize City.
Getting off the bus, we were approached by two cab drivers, we took the closest one and headed off, so we thought. We got in the taxi and the driver was being written up by a uniformed traffic police officer. He was illegally parked, had no licence as a taxi driver, and apparently had no driver's licence. We got out of the taxi and headed to the next one. The officer told us the next one was okay to take. We headed to Brodies for some shopping. Brodies proved to be pretty much what we expected and we picked up a few things that we can't find on the caye. We walked across the bridge and to the water taxi.
On the trip back, we stopped at Caye Chapel again. It is a very beautiful spot and we are thinking we will soon be taking a day trip.
After we put away our goods bought at Brodie's, we headed to the Lazy Lizard at the split to check our emails. Here we see Bob singing "Happy Birthday".
Finally, there was a beautiful sunset to end the perfect birthday, right Bob?
it was perfect
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