Happy New Year of the Horse, Beautiful Belize, and Unplanned Paths
- Wild Honey Blogger
- 2 days ago
- 4 min read
Happy February 2026, and Happy Lunar New Year of the Horse! I am posting this on Saint Brigid's Feast Day which is also Imbolc, the first day of spring in Ireland. January was quite busy for me as I enjoyed yet another travel adventure, this time to the lush jungles of Belize! I won't share as many photos of this trip as I have done for past journeys because my media storage capacity is getting low on here and I don't want to upgrade!
It was our first trip to Belize which was once British Honduras, so English is spoken there along with Spanish, Creole and a few other languages. We also enjoyed a day trip into Guatemala to visit the Mayan ruins at Tikal. Here is an amazing video of a jaguar catching a coati (small mammal similar to a raccoon) right in front of a tourist at Tikal about a month prior to our visit! On January 16, I woke up in the early morning hours and felt the bed shaking and thought " earthquake" since I live in earthquake country and recognize the feeling. Sure enough, there was a 5.2 earthquake in Honduras which was also felt in Belize and Guatemala.
To prepare for my trip to Belize, I read "How to Cook a Tapir: A Memoir of Belize" by Joan Fry written about her experience living in the rainforest in the 1960's with her anthropologist husband. It was a delight to see a tapir (now a protected animal) at the fabulous Belize Zoo, considered one of the finest in the world. A framed photo of wildlife enthusiast Steve Irwin's visit to the zoo was proudly displayed. The highlight of our zoo visit was seeing this magnificent creature:
We spent a week in the San Igancio area and a week in Placencia on the coast. It was awesome to see the Myan ruins in San Ignacio and in Tikal, Guatemala. To visit the Mayan city of Xuantunich, we road horses along the Mopan River and had to cross the river on a hand-cranked ferry which was quite the experience! We dismounted the horses and led them onto the ferry. Being from Seattle, we are accostomed to ferries and waiting in ferry lines, but this was not your typical ferry! We were delighted by the howler monkeys in the trees alongside the trail. What a scary (and loud!) sound their howls are! And what a treat to be on a horse during the Year of the Horse.
Other highlights of our Belize trip were boatrides on the Monkey River and ocean fishing which included a stop on Ivan's Island (one of 400 small islands in the keys). On the river cruise, we saw crocodiles, a boa snake, a variety of birds, numerous iguanas and many bats. The bats are well fed due to the large numbers of mosquitoes which devoured us - biting us even through our clothes! We were especially enchanted by Belize's fanciest of birds - the toucan! Some folks visit Belize just to see one of these fabulous creatures in the wild! We learned about the many medicinal plants in the rainforest as well and visited the Belize Botanical Garden. We were introduced to a new tropical fruit called sour sop, a favorite of the locals. On our fishing trip with Rudy's Adventure Tours, Rudy caught a grouper fish (using a spear!), 6 spiny lobsters, a crab and a conch which he then helped prepare for our lobster feast on Ivan's Island.
In addition to reading the book about Belize, my other vacation read was Octavia Butler's "Parable of the Sower." I don't usually read dystopian fiction, but was motivated to read this book because Butler lived in my neighborhood and has a nearby street named for her. I was struck by how eerily similar the dystopian landscape and societal collapse Butler imagined is to our current reality! She wrote the tale in 1993 imagining a world in 2025 - 2027. Reading the book along with daily news was trippy to say the least. She was certainly a visionary - could even call her psychic! In an interview in 1999, Butler said, "I imagined the US becoming, slowly, through the combined effects of lack of foresight and short-term unenlightened self-interest, a third world country."........WOW!
I read a total of 30 books in 2025!
In writing news, I'm excited to share that my new poem, "Unplanned Paths" has been accepted for publication by the wonderful Tiny Seed Literary Journal and will appear online on March 24, 2026! It is a poem from a book I'm currently working on which contains poems about my various experiences while traveling. I am grateful to Emily and the other editors for selecting the poem for inclusion in a collection of poems on the theme of paths. The acceptance was a very welcome gift following a year of numerous rejections!
I continue to be heavily involved in the anti-fascist resistance movement here in the states - protesting, contacting representatives, supporting campaigns and charities, boycotting non-supportive businesses, speaking out, etc. We can all do something and every act of resistance matters. The general strikes are particularly important. I strongly believe that economic disruption and sustained long-term boycotts are the most effective way of bringing about the changes we desire. Gratitude to everyone in the movement, especially the artists and those on the front lines. I extend my deepest condolences to the families and friends of those who have died as a result of the federal government-sanctioned violence and pray for the souls of the departed - may they rest in power and may their memory be a revolution.
I'm wishing everyone a very happy Groundhog Day, Valentine's Day, Lunar New Year and Mardi Gras! Special blessings to all observing Ash Wednesday and the Season of Lent and Ramadan. And oh yeah.....Go Seattle Seahawks - I hope they will be our Super Bowl Champions!!
Look for my next blog post around the Spring Equinox!
Love,
Marianne (aka Wild Honey)
After reading your blog, I checked out Joan Fry's journey. There's a website of her return to Belize with photos. All so very interesting. Thanks for sharing, Marianne.