Waterfalling

Yeah, I'm verbing a noun, but that's the best way to describe what I did yesterday. The jaguar researchers who are staying here wanted to see some of the waterfalls on the farm property and the neighboring Hidden Valley property, so my friend Marjie and I accompanied them on an all-day excursion.  We started out on Hidden Valley property because the HVI staff told us that they had some guests who would be visiting the waterfalls in the afternoon, and we didn't want to intrude on the guests.



We started with a quick stop at an overlook to view King Vulture Falls.



The first waterfall we visited was Secret Falls.  We drove to a small parking area and hiked about 45 minutes to the waterfall.  It's not a big fall, but it is very secluded and very beautiful.


We then went to the top of 1000 Foot Falls.  This waterfall is the tallest waterfall in Central America, and is actually 1600 feet.  It has been designated as a natural monument in Belize, and a public park and viewing site is situated at the top of the escarpment to the west of the waterfall.  To get to the top, you have to cross farm property, and the farm property is not open to the public.


This is probably a good thing, because the edge just drops off and goes about 800 feet down to the first pool before going over the second edge to fall the remaining 800 feet to the river below.  This picture doesn't do the drop justice; everybody gets vertigo while peeping over the edge, even those not normally bothered by heights.


It's unfortunate that from the public viewing area you can't see this gorgeous waterfall which is at the very top of 1000 Foot Falls.  It's probably one of the prettiest waterfalls in the Mountain Pine Ridge, with a beautiful pool just above where the water runs over the edge to form the 1000  Foot Falls that everybody sees.


After 1000 Foot Falls, we went back across farm property and visited Manakin Falls.  This is another one of my favorites.


We then went back onto HVI property to visit Butterfly Falls since we didn't want our time there to overlap with HVI guests, and we had run out of time in the morning.  It's just a 15 or 20 minute hike through the broadleaf jungle to get to the waterfall, and well worth the hike.


As we were hiking out of Butterfly Falls, we saw this beautiful but deadly coral snake in the leaf litter on the side of the trail.  We all said the rhyme to figure out if it was really a coral snake:  "Red touch black, friendly jack.  Red touch yellow, dangerous fellow."  This was a dangerous fellow!

Jaguar Project photos

Hanna and Lori, the women working on the Jaguar Project for Marcella Kelley of Virginia Tech, have shared some of the pictures they have collected from their camera traps in the past few weeks.  We are very excited to see what is wandering around here.



This a picture of a mother and her cub from last year.



This is the same mother and cub this year on the Slate Creek Line, which is not far from the farm compound.




Hello there!



This is from last year, but we thought it was interesting because we don't usually see or hear howler monkeys up here...but obviously they at least pass through sometimes.