Adventures in Vietnam

I may perhaps be one of the worst bloggers out there. It isn't necessarily that the content is boring or my writing style unpalatable, it's more that I just don't do it! At least, not with the frequency that I probably should. I don't know what the rules are on these things. We just finished up a round of data collection with CP group. For those of you who don't know (which is likely 99%) they are the most annoying and disliked out of the capuchin groups here at Santa Rosa. Perhaps people also dislike Exclosure group because they are so small and boring, but that's neither here nor there. What exactly makes CP group so distasteful you ask? For starters it is their territory. In order to get into the heart of CP territory you have to walk through the park's campground. Usually this isn't an issue, unless it is the wee hours of the morning and you are going to wake up monkeys and you trip over the line to someone's tent. Or perhaps you pass a sizable mound of human feces laid delicately in the middle of the path. From there you walk down A-trail and after about 100 meters enter what I like to call, "the death zone." Not to be confused with "the death zone" of mountain climbing, i.e. around 29,000ft (or 8,000 meters, after all I am basically a scientist), the imminent danger in this area is most certainly pumas. Surrounded on either side by head height razor grass, the path turns into a gelatinous ooze that has the power to suck the boot right off your foot. No joke, this actually happened to my courageous assistant, Meg. When one passes through this danger zone at 4:00am or 6:00pm the threat of pumas seems all around. The fact that it takes all of your strength and at least 3 seconds to pull your foot from the mud and place it down again makes you an easy target. It's the classic nightmare of being pursued by something deadly and having your feet stuck to the floor. Only this time, there really COULD be a puma lurking in the grass. This is unlikely however. The logical side of me knows that the puma has plenty of its natural prey (deer) to consume in the forest. It is also unlikely that the puma would approach a smelly, upright creature with bright light shooting directly out its forehead (our headlamps). Finally, the fact that Meg and I have taken to singing show tunes at the top of our lungs probably aids in banishing all living creatures from our immediate vicinity. We both love "Les Mis" and "Phantom of the Opera." Their protagonists often feature in our ever-popular would you rather (know, in the biblical sense) game, i.e. would you rather, Phantom or Javier? I said Javier, because Phantom would definitely cry afterward. But I digress, beyond "the death zone" plenty of other natural surprises abound. Leaf-cutter ants, for example, build impressive nests. They are underground farmers (they cut leaves to grow the fungus they eat) who remove all the iron around their gardens and bring it up to the surface. Not only does this make the ground a rusty color, but it leaves the earth below even more disturbed and cavernous. So much so that you might just put your whole leg through what previously looked like solid ground and end up in a pit of water, mud, and ants with large, unfriendly mandibles. This AFTER passing through the death zone at top speed (2.5 steps per 10 seconds) and then tripping on a liana and losing your water bottle. Oh yes, and remember it is 4am.

All of this agony and turmoil to get out to a group you don't even like that much! Now I realize for most non-monkey researchers, all monkeys look exactly alike, however this isn't the case....except with CP. For literally the first 5 months, these buggers were borderline indistinguishable. Meg and I would limp along with our binoculars:

Claire: I dunno, waddya think?
Meg: Well I don't see the spot, but that kinda looks like Ariel
Claire: That's what I was thinking, doesn't her left eye look smaller than the right?
Meg: I never can see that, doesn't she look kind of small?
Claire: Not too small to be Ariel, oh wait, *&#$% that monkey has balls

Things finally clicked in this last round with them. We got a fair amount of data and all the poop samples we needed. However, we got to spend the whole time in our favorite part of CP territory, a warm and fuzzy little place we like to call Vietnam. Now we aren't referring specifically to Vietnam, the country, just perhaps the ethos, the sentiment that someone might have experienced during the Vietnam war. No doubt melodramatic, but said with all due respect. For starters, this place is chock full of that head-height razor grass. You don't know if you are stepping on vines, snakes or the occasional turtle. You can't see around corners, hell, you can't even see your field assistants. The grass is literally slicing up your hands and arms. There are also a wide variety of squatty trees, with long, convoluted branches. All of this tree have razor-sharp thorns of various length and durability. There are Acacia tree, which are also thorny but as a special treat, are the home to aggressive stinging AND biting ants. Each step is like a fat mans squeeze between acacias only to tumble forward into a thorny tree or some razor grass concealing a wasp nest. Oh yeah, and its flooded up to your mid-calf, providing a fertile breeding ground for mosquitoes and black flies. Plus it takes about 45min walking to get to this little paradise. The nice thing about Vietnam is that the monkeys are right up close to you. This way you can really see the blood on their canines when they are threatening you.

All in all, it's been a good week in monkey watching. Today we started a round with Guanacaste. They started ranging really far to the south and west. Lo and behold, we were in a painfully similar environment, only with less grass and more acacia trees. If CP crap territory is Vietnam, then Guanacaste crap territory is Afghanistan.

Without further ado, I will now post some pictures of monkeys that belong to neither CP nor Guanacaste, but the beloved monkeys of LV, who also forage on the seeds of the razor grass, but at least their version of Vietnam is within 2min walking distance.

Nutmeg

Poppy

Sassafrass and Sage

Sage and Sassafras

Grooming

Today we skipped our tropical forest adventures for a trip into Liberia, the capital of the world, according to Ronny (pictured above with former assistant, Peter), our beloved pirate taxi driver and surrogate Costa Rican father. That looks like a run-on sentence, but I digress. We did a massive shopping trip and then everyone was kind enough to wait around for me to get my hair cut, which was a blast. Something about living in the forest makes you stop caring about your appearance. Probably because your appearance deteriorates rapidly under these extreme conditions. Bug bites, spider bites, lizard bites, the occasional human bite, and the scratching. My God, the scratching is intense and often completely unconscious. I'll wake up the middle of the night, clawing my legs like the girl from the Exorcist. I know it scabs and scars, I know it just makes everything worse, but I just can't help it! Anyway, living with crooked bangs and scarred, scabby appendages takes its toll after awhile. Even the most adventurous, hard-ass women need a little beauty in their lives from time to time. Pretty much I just wanted someone to run their fingers through my hair. My family is heavily into contact and I definitely go into withdrawal when I am far away like this. Luckily Meg is snugly (I cannot believe that is how that is correctly spelled, but that's what google is telling me) and we can groom each other. It'd be nice to get the monkeys in on the grooming session, but they play a little too rough for my tastes. Sometimes I feel bad for the infants, who get pinned down WWF style by juvenile females who want to "practice" their mothering skills. Much like the way certain girls may have dressed their cats in doll clothes when they were younger, these juvenile females don't realize they are inflicting pain. Yet they jerk the little baby heads around with enough torsion to pop open a champagne bottle. The infants, wide-eyed and helpless, must submit to this rough grooming until the juvys lose interest or their mothers come along to rescue them. I prefer the gentle touch of human hands, but perhaps I could enlist these females to help scratch my bites. Now that, would be immensely satisfying.

 My fresh haircut. Taking pictures of yourself is more challenging than the hipsters on facebook would make it seem. I just couldn't seem to get it right, but this expression best encompasses my general state of being: joy, interest, surprise, and of course, confusion.

Costa Rica 2010-2011

A New Era Begins....

      I'd been toying with the idea of creating a facebook page or a blog to make it easier for people to keep up with what is happening here in Costa Rica. No time like the present, I suppose! My faithful assistant and eternal friend, Meg Zuercher, and I have been soldiering away on this research project for the past 5 months (down to the exact date in fact). We just came through a tropical storm that claimed many lives in mudslides in the central valley. Luckily, we were not nearly as affected here in Guanacaste. In fact *fingers crossed* it feels like the dry season has finally begun! Today the sun is shining, the sky is crystal clear blue, and a gentle ambient breeze is blowing.
       Meg and I started this project with two other indentured servants, Catherine and Peter, in addition to another PhD student and good friend, Mackenzie, along with her assistants. They have all long since left us to our own devices, and for the past two months we have roughed it alone. That is to say, with the exception of a gentle fellow monkey researcher, Elvin, who moved in to our digs shortly after the great exodus of foreign workers. Elvin is a thoughtful Tico, who helps us practice speaking Spanish and frequently annihilates us at cards. We had just gotten used to our own little family and settled into a routine with the three monkey groups. Yesterday, we were blessed with the arrival of another short-term assistant Charles. A full grown man complete with masters degrees and lots of world experience, Charles wanted some hands on time working in the field with New World monkeys. We hope not to frighten him off too quickly. He is eager to learn and doesn't appear to be offended by my sailor-mouth. Meg and Charles are diligently processing monkey poop for the extraction of hormones, an integral part of my overall project. I should be working on grants, a never-ending cycle of frustration, toil, and hope, that has to this date, been fruitless and fraught with constant rejection. My skin continues to thicken.
     In that spirit, I feel it is now time to get back to work! This is only the beginning and we've got until August 2011 to go. I'll be sure to post pictures and give frequent updates to anyone who feels like reading about it. I just read an article about narcissism and facebook posts, so I will endeavor to keep the self-promotion at a minimum. I hope this allows aspiring monkey researchers or adventurous travelers to live vicariously, and perhaps inspires someone to embark on a sojourn of their own. Until next time!