I discovered that I came to Belize during the rainy season which means we've had rains about every other day although today we had a downpour around lunch time rather than at night. Of course, hurricane Ian just hit Florida, after doing significant damage to Cuba. The other day, I took a tour to the local Mayan ruins in the morning and stopped for a visit at the community baboon sanctuary. Both places were awesome.
The ruins are called Altun Ha which is a short drive outside of Belize City. This was not a major site but most likely a small town with 8,000 to 10,000 people.
This is the house for multiple generations of the leader. Each level one generations living level. When the current ruler died, the inheriting son made another level. There are multiple buildings around the immediate area, some would house the people who served the rulers, and some would be for the people who were in the upper classes.This phot is take from the top of the temple, looking out on the ground where the people gathered to listen to their ruler who was at the top of the temple. The view from up there is fantastic and just beautiful.
If you look carefully in the picture to the right, you can see the rulers home I had in a picture above. The living area was on one side and the public gathering area was on the left.
From there we drove a short bit and went to the Community Baboon Sanctuary. This sanctuary houses Black Howler Monkeys and not baboons but the British called the monkey's baboons and it kind of stuck. This sanctuary is actually run by the local villagers without governmental support.
The effort began back in 1981 when two villages got together to set aside strips of land for the monkey's. Around 1986, another 6 villages joined in the effort so that there was now 20 square miles of natural jungle for the animals. They believe there are 4,000 to 5,000 black howler monkey's in the area.
This way, the local residents are able to do their thing while the monkey's have access to their native habitat and can live nicely.
The tour managed to find a family of black howler monkey's in the trees. There is one alpha male, three to four females, and a bunch of children. Usually, the units have between 2 and 11 members.The alpha male is the one who usually howls and his howl has been recorded as loud as 90 decibels. We heard him make noise but thank goodness it wasn't that loud.