Kayaking in the Jungle
Trip Start
May 26, 2005
1
13
23
Trip End
Jul 27, 2005
Maya Center, Belize
Sunday, June 19, 2005
I spent the night in Maya Centre which is the closest town, if you can call it that, to Cocksomb Basin, also called the Jaguar Reserve. It is the only Jaguar Reserve in the world, so I decided to check it out. I read about a guy who did kayak trips in my travel guide. Mark and I talked to him when we arrived and decided it was worth the $70 US to do the 5 hour kayak trip. We spent the night in Maya Centre and woke up at 6:30 am to do the trip. When we got close to the entrance to the park we came to a locked gate. Our guide was surprised. Nevertheless, we all got out of the car and proceeded to lift the gate off the hinges so we can get by. When we arrived at the visitor center we learned that the park was going to be closed for a couple of days because there was flooding a couple of days ago that spread debris all over the trails. Since we weren't hiking though, our guide talked the park ranger into letting us continue with the trip. We unloaded the car and walked ten minutes with our infaltable kayaks to the river. It was just me, Mark and the guide. He gave us a couple of quick tips and we set off. The trip was a blast. The river was supposedly moving really fast because of all the rain, but it didn't seem that fast to me. There were a couple of small rapids that were a lot of fun. We went through one of them and our kayak filled with water. There were still more rapids ahead. Our boat was pretty much completely underwater but still floating as we proceed down the rapids. The guide said our heads were the only thing sticking up. We made it through and dumped all the water out of the boat when we got the chance. Unfortunately, I didn't see any jaguars. I did catch a glimpse of a river otter and toucan. Plus, I saw a whole lot of birds and really big iguanas. It was amazing floating through the middle of the jungle in kayak. All you here are birds and strange noises. I don't have any pictures because I didn't want to risk ruining my camera with all the water. It turned out to be the right decision.
