jungle beach//day two aka best day of my life

4.04.2014

This day was insane.

Since we had a very limited amount of time to spend in Manuel Antonio before we needed to jump back in the car for another several hours drive, we vowed to wake up with the sun. I was inside gathering my last bits together when marcus saw something move and at the same time i heard my brother yelling in the room above us, "WHERE'S ASHLEY?!"

We both ran outside and were greeted with little white-faced capuchin monkeys all over our balcony and in the trees outside our room! I thought I was going to die! I had heard that this area had tons of monkeys but we hadn't seen any, and even if we were going to, I figured they would be high in the trees. Instead I was looking one right in the face! Sometimes less than two feet away from me!

It was amazing to see them use the palm leaves like little ladders and how they could fly from tree to tree using their long tails as an extra arm. My favorite were the mamas with little babies clinging onto their backs.

We spent about a half hour watching the little guys play around the trees, eating, grooming, and checking out marcus' go-pro cam before they moved on, and so did we.

When I have these experiences, face-to-face with animals, I feel like I'm high on drugs (or I assume that's what it must feel like) only way better, because it's natural and I can fully remember it all. It's an experience I will truly never forget. 
We then headed out to the National Forest, which was much less exciting than our balcony encounter--all the animals were way high up and could really only be seen with binoculars, although we did come across a raccoon and a tiny jungle deer that reminded me of my poppy and I loved that, but at the end of the trail we ended up on a beautiful beach and saw lots of iguanas and other lizards. 

As we were checking out of our room, we ran into another troop of monkeys--this time red squirrel monkeys, they were smaller and so dang cute! They also had babies on their back and were extremely close--didn't have my camera, but it was so exciting to just stand there and make eye contact with them. They were so playful and amazing at jumping. 

It was such a great day!

4 comments

Kitsune-kun said...

so pretty!

Teresa said...

Oh. My. Goodness. I about died at the picture of the Capuchin with the baby on it's back! What an amazing experience!

AMG said...

Such great pictures! Love your blog!

Where is her French days of the week shirt from? I must have! :))

Ashlee D said...

Great blog thanks for posting this

© i believe in unicorns. Maira Gall.