Feel the Burn

Hi everyone-

After 2 weeks of living in the field, we are starting to get into a routine. We spend 2 days in a row out with the monkeys (generally 5:30am-6:00pm) and then 1 day back at the Centro. We look forward to our days off since we get to catch up on sleep and emails. They also give me an opportunity to review my experiments on video and plan ahead for the next field days. And sometimes slip out for a swim in the poza :)

So far things have been going well. We have been rotating between 4 different monkey groups in order to avoid having monkeys habituate to the models. This makes it difficult for Shira, my assistant, to learn the monkey IDs, but she keeps plugging away at it. Two of the groups live near our house which means sometimes we can leave the house 5 minutes before dawn, walk down the trail behind our house, and pick them up. Other days we travel to one of the 3 monkey groups on the other side of the hills (Pelon side). We only go on days that other people have the monkeys since it takes an hour to hike over there and so we can't be there when they first wake up (or we'd have to walk an hour in the dark). On these days we leave the house at 1st light and start hiking. Once we reach Pelon side we radio our fellow monkey researchers to figure out where the monkeys have travelled since daybreak. It makes for a long day, but we figure we will be really strong after doing this every few days for 5 months!

Living in the Centro has been good. Shira and I take turns cooking dinner on the propane stove and everything has been yummy so far. We even invited our "neighbors", the other grad student and her assistants (who live 30 minutes away via trails) over for dinner. We made lentil rice patties and french fries which turned out pretty well. It was nice to socialize although the Centro is generally pretty lively. Living with the park guards and now their cook allows us ample opportunity to learn and practice Spanish. Hopefully, my Spanish will improve while I am here. So far so good. One more week of work and then we'll head to the beach for a little vacation!



And now for your viewing pleasure...BABY MONKEYS! YAY!

Welcome back to Costa Rica!

Hello again!

After 6 months spent video analyzing, TAing, and presenting talks in the U.S., I have returned to Costa Rica for round 2 of my PhD research.

The trip to my field site was a bit of an adventure. I flew in to San Jose, the capital, but almost didn't make my flight. In Phoenix, US Air gave me a hard time for not having a roundtrip ticket (although numerous monkey assistants have flown one way in the past) so I was forced to buy my return ticket right there in the airport in the 20 minutes before my plane boarded. Talk about stressful! I spent New Years Eve in Alajuela (near San Jose airport) with a friend I had made at the airport and saw tons of fireworks. The next day I met up with my new field assistant, Shira.

Me and Shira, my new field assistant in Alajuela

We found out that no buses were travelling on New Years Day and the trip was delayed. But we had fun touring Alajuela that day. Unluckily, I got very sick that night and was barely able to make it through the 4 hour bus ride to Bagaces the next day. I found out that chewing on ginger root is great for fighting nausea. Once in Bagaces, I rested up and started to prepare for the trip to the forest. Yes, I am living in the middle of the forest this year. No town life for me...I will be one with the monkeys :) ! But first, we had to go on the big supply trip. Marlon, our friendly local taxi driver, took us to the "big" city of Liberia to buy a locking filing cabinet (to keep electonics safe), pots, pans, plates, utensils, and lots and lots of food. Then we drove out to the Centro de Lomas Barbudal, the park guard station for this reserve, where we will be staying for the next months!

My new home, the Centro (de Lomas Barbudal)

I really like my new home. It's great living out in the forest. We even have wireless internet!!!

My assistant, Shira, enjoying the plentiful internet access on our porch/dining room

We have a nice kitchen which we share with the park guards

The kitchen

And the best part...the monkeys travel right by our house every day. Well only one of the groups does, but still pretty cool, right? And sometimes the monkeys sleep right behind our house so we can just get up and walk outside and say hello...much nicer than a 30 minute car ride every morning.

Monkey stopping by the Centro to say hi

Monkey hanging out by our clothesline

Our house is right next to one of the main trails we take to get to the monkeys

The trail/road leading from our home to the monkeys (and the poza)

And if we get overheated we can take a dip (just a 5 minute walk)

Our swimming hole (aka the poza)


The poza

I am excited to be back in the forest and hanging out with monkeys again! Look for more exciting updates on the life of a monero in the future!

Back in the forest again!!!