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Jamie's Central and South American Adventures
So I made into Cariari one more time before heading back to San Jose. Mom, thanks for posting a few days ago! =) The spider monkey was incredible to see! They are so graceful when they swing thru the trees with all four limbs and tail. Very different from the howlers who almost seem to just flop from branch to branch, then sleep. I have 25.5 hours of data recorded as of this morning, and 65-70% of that is sleeping! Oh, and just to add to the spider monkey story, I had been following the howlers all day and that afternoon the capuchins were foraging in the same patch of forest. I was pretty excited to see both species in the same area. Within an hour I found the spider monkey and followed it as far as the river until it crossed over with the capuchins and disappeared.
On the 5th, I was finishing up a 5 hour shift of watching howlers with some of my friends, when the white-faced capuchins showed up. It was extremely frustrating because the howlers were just starting to get active after sleeping for 4 hours when the capuchins showed up. I really wanted to catch some feeding or foraging behavior so I could map out at least a couple more trees. Every time I found a howler feeding, it turned around and became one of those damn capuchins! So as of Aug 5th, I am no longer a capuchin fan. However, as soon as the capuchins showed up I said, jokingly, to my friends, ¨Hey guys, we're gonna see the spider monkey, I guarantee it!¨ No joke, 5 seconds later this large orange mass of limbs and tail is flying thru the air on front of us. I yelled, ¨Spider monkey!¨ and my friend Rachel and I started running to find where it had landed. Unfortunately I didn't have my camera with me. I don't think I will ever lose that image of the enourmous orange monkey climbing up the tree 20 feet in front of me. We followed the spider as long as we could, for about 30 minutes. He then disappeared again into the forest with the capuchins. We never found the howlers again.... Nature is so cool!
On a side note... Nothing to do with monkeys... I am fascinated with the music here. Most radio stations play a mix of Costa Rican hip-hop and reggae, with some American pop thrown in. Imagine some good Latin dance music next to Christina Aguilera and Sheryl Crow. I enjoy the music, the stations are just structured differently than radio stations in the States. Right now the internet cafe has that famous Andrea Bocelli song playing in the office next door. Crazy mix!
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