Cheeky monkeys

After breakfast this morning, we bought some lunch, packed up our stuff and headed out to spend the day in the Parque Nacional Cahuita. We walked through thick jungle on a small path along the beach...here, the jungle literally falls right into the sea. For about 7 km we followed this quiet path, hearing many birds and howler monkeys along the way. We saw tons of lizards, butterflies, leaf-cutter ants, and birds. We passed a sleepy sloth high up in a tree, and then, after trudging through foot-deep mud, we stopped to watch a group of capuchin monkeys play in the low brances of a tree on the beach. They were not shy at all (perhaps some annoying tourists have been feeding these guys?) and before I knew it, one had jumped from a log onto my back, hanging onto my backpack and knawing his way through the plastic bag tied to the bag, which contained our lunch (some bread, a can of tuna, and an avocado). I didn't want to slap it off for fear that it would bite me, so I yelled to Nige to get it off, and he kicked it in the head (gently, kind of). After the second kick it released its grip and scampered up a nearby tree...with our avocado! Cheeky little bastard. And it looked like such a good avocado. There was much fighting among the group as everyone tried to get a piece of the fruit. Half of our lunch gone, the monkeys then began mashing an odd looking fruit from the tree, and rubbing the juice and mash into their fur. We think that it's a natural bug repellant. Too bad it smells worse than a garbage dump, or I'd be slapping that stuff on myself!

We continued our walk out to the point of the small peninsula and around to the other side. It was just so beautiful, and where the path came out along the beach, we were treated to endless views of the clear, turquoise waters. What a gorgeous spot of Earth.

We headed back to the perfect, 2km-long beach near the entrance to the park where we had a dull lunch of plain tuna sandwiches. We spent some time swimming in the warm water and just relaxing. Before we knew it, it was after 3:00 and cocktail hour was well on its way. We walked further down the beach to the park entrance, and I headed to a shop to get some drinks. We had cocktails on the beach while swimming and listening to the incredibly loud howler monkeys in the jungle directly behind us. As it got dark, we headed back to the hotel, had a shower, went out for some dinner and then headed to bed.