Day Ten in Costa Rica

Day Ten in Costa Rica is our last full day in this wonderful country with its gentle and beautiful people and its awesome birds and other incredible critters.  Tomorrow we will be on the road and in the air most of the day on our way home.  Home?  An interesting word with a fascinating meaning for monkeys of every type.  "Home is where the heart is" or is it where one has built one's nest?  Where is home?  What is home?

We spent this morning on the beach watching the blue waters of the Pacific flow with peaceful surf into a little cove. A soft, cool breeze came off the water and some trees provided comfortable shade from the intense sunlight.  It was all very pleasurable.  I have seldom done that kind of thing before!  As I watched the Capuchin Monkeys  in the treetops and everywhere around us seeking treats from tourists (who by feeding them are often killing them) I tried to imagine what it must be like to see from their perspective.

This dry tropical forest has been their home for centuries, long before the strange two-legged creature invaded it.  They managed for all that time to survive very well without handouts (bananas, Fritos, Chips, and other junk)  from the hands of the strangers in their midst.  As I observed their inquisitive faces looking and wondering at the human horde gathered in their backyard, I imagined them this evening sitting around their dinner table high in the trees and conversing about the scene.  I can hear them now:  "What kind of monkeys are these?  They lay about all day and do nothing.  They strip off their skin coverings and sit in the hot sun until burned to a crisp!   Yet, they have all this food in backpacks that they just throw away in our direction.  All day long we watch their antics and it is great comedy.  These kinds of monkeys are not like us at all.  They all look different--different skin tones, different shapes, different languages, different head coverings (some have no head covering at all).  What strange monkeys these are?  They eat and drink all day long--and other monkeys in special skin coverings bring it to them.  They don't even get up off their backsides.  They don't have sense to climb a tree and stretch out like we do.   Instead they lay on hard benches without any leaves to protect them from the weather.  Why have them come to our yard?  Why do they spend a lot of time sauntering about and gawking at us as if we are some kind of freaks?  They are all confused.  Never have we seen a freak show like the one that is now going on in our backyard everyday.  Incredible"!   Thus spoke the monkeys....on the last Day and the Tenth Day in Costa Rica.