if you can be one thing in life, be interesting.: Costa Rica, Day 6: Cabo Blanco National Reserve

This morning we woke up early, about seven here (5 at home--eek!), and headed to Cabo Blanco National Reserve. Cabo Blanco is Costa Rica's first national reserve, and takes over the entire southern tip of the Nicoya Peninsula. It was super interesting to see the difference in primary forest and the secondary, or replanted, forest. In the rain forest it works the same as our forests back home--the old growth is enormous and spread out, while the new growth is over crowded and smaller.

Mom and dad made me the sherpa, and I carried the water for our journey of about 8 miles round trip in 90 degree heat. I'd like to continue to tell myself that this was good practice for backpacking season, although backpacking season is still months away, considering the rumors of rain and snow at home.

I saw a slew of wildlife--mostly monkeys, birds, lizards, and butterflies, and a ton of flora and fauna. It was pretty incredible. Even the spiders here are pretty, and I really do hate spiders. They are also incredibly large...so big in fact, that I think they could eat me, but they're still pretty.

Be forewarned, I have LOTS of monkey stories. BUT I will share with you only the top three:

On the trail, we met a few white faced monkey's face to face. Like, literally. One monkey apparently wanted me off his property and shook a stick at me as if he was Rafiki. There was an entire colony though, it was pretty neat, although I was scared for my life (for no particular reason). They were running all around us, swinging from the trees. It was like the bell had just rung for recess as we walked up. We knew we had worn out our welcome when they started throwing things at us (although I'm pretty sure my welcome was worn when that damn monkey shook his stick at me).

As we were walking back we could hear a few howlers off in the trees, we stopped to see if we could spot them, and, waited, in silence, to see if their sounds would help us see them. Then I heard the saddest, most terrible noise as I saw this female with a baby on her back. I'm not sure what the noise was, but I'm pretty sure that she was either in mourning or in pain. The sound made me want to cry. It was so sad. Absolutely heart breaking. She was certainly an emotional lady...I almost hope that there was a reason for her pain, other than PMS. No one likes a PMS-ing monkey.

On the trip back, there was all this commotion in the bushes and I was sure that I was about to see the elusive giant Guinea Pig thing, but then there was this crazy screeching and howling and scariness, quickly followed by a monkey falling from a tree, and a howler monkey going crazy like he was a badass UFC fighter above it. It was INSANE. Who knew that monkey's had turf wars like the bloods and the crypts?! Crazy!

That's really all I have for today. I'm ridiculously sweaty and look like a disaster, and my sunburn has become this disgusting blistering mess. Time to finally jump in that pool....