(QCOSTARICA TRAVEL) I visit places, that’s what I’ve been doing since I retired a year ago
It was mighty nice to have someone/something visit me instead!
I rented a condo in Coco Beach. The sides of the mountains are being torn down, trees being cut to make way for the “progress’ of new developments. Of course, when this happens, the wildlife either dies of or moves to another location, if there’s one available.
The condo had a swimming pool, and there were about 6 of us enjoying the pool on a hot afternoon. Mostly small talk, not people knew one another, and I was the odd man out.
I was swimming lazily from side to side in the pool, just enjoying myself, not interfering with the conversations the other folks were having in the pool.
On one of my looks up into the sky and trees surrounding the pool, I noticed some movement in the trees.
A family of monkeys had decided to move through the neighborhood that the bonds were in to munch on some of the mangos that were growing in the trees.
I watched for a bit, and the people around me continued their conversation, not paying any attention to what was going onion the trees.
the people in the pool were either Canadians or Americans. In either country, you NEVER get a chance to watch monkey’s eating mangos in a tree – not even in a zoo!
After about 10 minutes of watching the monkeys, I said, “Excuse the interruption, but do you know we have a family of monkey’s that have joined us?”
The conversation stopped immediately, and the group responded, “Where are they?”
Now, this is a family of about 7 monkey’s, they’ve made little nose while eating the mangos. They’ve been moving from limb to limb, hanging upside down to reach the fruit on the trees. Not right side up – which is what I would do – but they’re eating the mangos while holding onto the branch above with their tails.
The tail are about 4 ft. long, I kid you not. If you look at the photos in the slide show I created, the tails of the monkeys are probably longer than the monkeys height.
“See the tree at the end of the pool?” I ask.
“Follow it up, then slowly look to the right or the left, the monkey’s are eating on both sides”
“Oh, look,” they all said. “There’s one there, there and oh, a baby over there!”
Slowly swinging from the branches, the monkeys ate what the wanted along the way. They made very little noise, stealthily moving from branch to branch.
When they were done in this tree, they headed slowly north, sometimes actually coming down to the ground when the couldn’t grab hold of another tree branch, heading to an unknown destination.
Never seeming to move quickly, the monkey’s headed away from the condo, stopping long the way to eat some other mangos and fruit off of other trees.
One could pay for a tour, and not get to see the actions of monkey’s like we were witnessing from the pool.
I left, grabbed my camera, but I was to late – the monkeys were on the move, heading for a destination unbeknownst to me.
I did get a few shots off, but the tree close to the pool would have been the ideal spot to get some great pictures. Alas, the hassles of not having animals behave or follow your instructions!
A “this is what traveling is all about” moment.
As the saying goes, “Wish you were here to see it all!”
Original artile on Examiner.com
