Hiking “RARE” trail is fun family activity
The weather may have kept most of us indoors this week, but with the promise of sun over the weekend, a family trip may be just what the doctor ordered. As part of our efforts to help people see Belize first, tonight we’ll revisit an attraction centrally located on the Hummingbird Highway. But you better bring your hiking boots as News Five’s Patrick Jones did when he scrambled up a newly opened trail in 1997.
It’s a journey that is not for the faint of heart. The long winding RARE Trail at the Blue Hole National Park will literally take your breath away.
Edgar Cano, Visitor
“I almost died, but it was worth it, it really is. But at my age, you do these things when you’re young, then you talk about it when you’re my age, not the other way around.”
The trail is named after the Philadelphia based funding agency, the R.A.R.E. Centre for Tropical Conservation, which provided close to fifteen thousand dollars for its construction. It compliments the park’s other attractions, the Blue Hole and St. Herman’s Cave, to make the area a one-stop shop for nature lovers.
Patrick Jones
“Apart from being physically challenging, the mile and a half trek through the trail is also mentally and spiritually stimulating as well.”
Derric Chan, Park Director, Blue Hole
“If you listen to the trees, you can learn a lot from them. When I walk through the jungle, I can absorb a lot of energy from the trees. A lot of the perfume makes you feel new.”
The trail is a new opportunity for the Blue Hole National Park to raise revenue for it’s own upkeep. One of the criteria for funding was that the project would eventually pay it’s own way.
Osmany Salas, Executive Director, Belize Audubon Society
“The idea is to put in several types of developments and infrastructural facilities in the parks that would improve the appeal of the park to the Belizean public and the international visitors as well, so that they would then want to come and visit. And by visiting, they will spend some of the much needed revenue that would go towards trying to cover the running costs of the park and also spill over into the community.”
Other trails through the park allow you to walk for hours without retracing your steps. There is also a secluded camping area and an observation tower at the top offers a panoramic view of the surrounding rainforest and farmland. And if you are patient you may get to meet some of the park’s permanent residents.
Derric Chan
“We have seen a lot of animals around and more specially, the red cap mannequin. We have an area where red cap mannequins breed, they are one of the most beautiful birds that we have in the area. You can also see the majestic mahogany trees, towering above the canopy, one of the biggest trees we have seen around. It might take up to three people to palm the tree. It is very rare to see trees like the mahogany around other areas.”
And among the first people on the trail, those who made it to the top were not disappointed.
Edgar Cano
“I think people can be attracted to this a whole lot, especially people who are involved in ecology.”
David Cano, Visitor
“Well it was pretty hard to get up there, but at last we got up to the towers. It’s beautiful. The trail to up there is great and you have a lot of jungle and it’s beautiful.”
Christine Anthony, Accountant, Belize Audubon Society
“It’s very challenging for me, especially since I have haven’t done that amount of walking over the past two years. I wanted to turn back when I reached half way, but my co-workers said “Keep on going, you will reach there.” And I did reach the top.”
And the trip back down the trail was another adventure for this determined climber. But with a little help from friends and a walking stick, she made it back to home base.
The Belize Audubon Society, which operates the nation’s parks for government, hopes that many others will follow in her footsteps.
Osmany Salas
The R.A.R.E. trail is very important because it could become a shining example of how one can use a national park, a natural area in a non-extractive way, where you can entice people to come into an area to sights that might not otherwise be able to get to. So a trail provides a access to otherwise unreachable areas.”
The trial is being touted as a model project. A perfect example of how conservation and environmental awareness can work hand in hand for the common good. From the Blue Hole National Park R.A.R.E. Trail in southern Belize, Patrick Jones for News Five.
