Puerto Limon, Province of Limon, Costa RicaWednesday, January 8, 2014
The monkeys appeared one, two, three,or four of them on the very top branches. They kept swinging from one branch to another, appearing like a flash of brown mass, about twenty feet above us. One of them was busy peeling off leaves, and eating them as fast as he could. They stayed together in small groups and we watched them within easy earshot from our our small canal boat.
habitat.
“There's another one on the right,”
pointed Freedom, our private guide for today. “Over there, on that
big branch,” he added.
“They are howler monkeys,”
explained Jardin our river guide. We have three kinds of monkeys
here. They are the howler monkey; the one that you can see now. We
also have the capuchin monkeys, or the white-faced monkeys. Last but
not the least, we have the spider monkeys. They are the smallest and
they are lighter in colour,” narrated Jardin.
Our small boat drifted slowly on the
Tortuguero canal. This is a national park created in 1975 to protect
the spawning areas of the green turtle (Tortuguero in Spanish), and
the regions rich flora and fauna.
``This canal stretches from Moin to the
Colorado River near the border with Nicaragua,`` Jardin continued to
explain.
``That tree is called the Calabash
tree. The green fruit that you see, is what we pick and dry, and
then later on make into Maracas``, as Jardin pointed to a tree on our
side. The fruit was big, and looked very hard
.
``Can you eat them,`` Bert asked. `No,
you can`t. Inside is just pulp,`replied Jardin.
Suddenly, we saw some movement in
another tree directly to our left. ``Can you see that,`` asked
Freedom.
``Those are Sloths. The smaller one is
a two toed sloth, while the bigger and darker one is a three toed
Sloth. We are lucky, that we can see them moving and eating. Most
of the time they are just hanging upside down, and sleeping during
the day,`` said Jardin. ``Similar to Koalas in Australia,`` he
added.
Just as on our river tour about a week
and a half ago, we saw tons of birds during our jungle river Eco-tour
today. For a short time, our boat drifted slowly in the mangrove
swamp. There were several kinds of Heron and Egrets on the bank that
was their nests, and home. We saw lots of Sandpipers that our
guide Freedom, referred to as the dancing birds, for the way they
move. At times, our eyes were fixated on Kingfishers, Hawks, Falcons
and Swallows. The birds sometimes were still, while our boat slowly
drifted through the clearings in the canal. Thrice more, we saw a
different grouping of Howler monkeys, and the Capuchin monkeys were
leaping amongst the great mass of foliage.
``The bananas here are wild, and not
edible for human consumption,`` said Jardin while grabbing a banana
from a nearby tree
. He peeled, and broke the fruit into half, and
handed it to us with the black seeds exposed. ``You see those
seeds; they are the ones that will give you a stomach ache if you eat
that banana,`` he continued to explain.
For more than an hour, while our boat
slowly drifted along the canal, we heard constant shrieks and howls
from the Howler monkeys along with the tweeting of birds. Sometimes,
there would be silence, then we could hear the distinct sounds of the
jungle. There were a couple of iguanas high above in the tree
branches, sun bathing. We noticed a green but bigger Jesus Christ
Lizard, and Jardin explained that it was a male. Among the Herons,
the most beautiful one is the Green heron. We saw one crouched on a
branch, but ready to take flight, at the first sign of danger. As
we got closer for a photograph, it moved from branch to branch. It
looked small and the colour appeared black. Whatever spooked it;
whether it was our boat or our voices, it took off and we then
discovered its true size and colour. As it flew away, we could see
its huge dark green wings, now fully spread before our eyes, as it
disappeared in the surrounding foliage.
We could have wandered further along
the canal, but had we were running short of time. With Freedom`s
explanation, that we needed to be back at the docks at 3:00 pm, the
boatman sped up. The sounds of the howler monkeys became fainter and
fainter, until at last it was masked by the sound of the boat
engine.
We were back near the dock just before
our schedule. We stopped by at a local supermarket to get some
precious Costa Rican coffee. Freedom, our guide from Javac Tours,
knew where to drive to avoid the afternoon traffic. He used to live
in New York and serves in the US Army. He is married to a local girl
and now considers Costa Rica his home. He also made sure, that we
got the best coffee ever. We give Freedom, two thumbs up!
The scenes we witnessed in the Costa
Rican jungle will forever be remembered even if we didn't see the
relatives of Hugo Chavez and Osama Bin Laden (crocodiles) this time
around. We didn't feed the monkeys just like the way they do in
the zoo, or in Disney World. We didn't do the zip lining, or the
canopy jungle ride. There was just not enough time to do all of that
in one day. I dare say, it is hard to leave Costa Rica without
thinking of the remarkable way the country has preserved their
living, and breathing forest. There are over 28 National Parks in
Costa Rica, which is remarkable considering its size
In any case, my husband said, ``There
are lots of monkeys in Ottawa, so we are not going to miss these
monkeys!``
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