As promised, I am putting a new post on this blog today and by gum I hope it is entertaining at the very least. One of the many perks of studying monkeys in the wild (above being pooped on on a regular basis) is that it invariably takes you to interesting locations all over the world. As such, when a principal investigator, indefatigable as we are, decides that he or she would like to take a vacation, paradise is always within striking distance. I was blessed to have my best friend in the whole world, Leah Prandi-Abrams, come and visit me here in Costa Rica. After a few days with the monkeys, we picked up and headed for Nicaragua. I don't have anything against my host country, it's just that Nicaragua is incredibly cheaper, the culture is more suited to my blunt "forma de ser" (manner of being), and it just happens to contain my boyfriend. All plenty of motivation in my humble opinion. So off we went to the Isla Ometepe in the middle of Lake Nicaragua. The island is made up of two active volcanoes, the more imposing and symmetrical of the two, Concepción, is pictured below.
To get to the island you can take a ferry or a barf-o-matic lancha. We opted for the latter on our way there and it almost cost Leah her lunch. Perhaps we shouldn't have purchased street hamburguesas ten minutes before boarding. Live and learn. We spent a day on the lake's volcanic sandy beach, soaking up the rays and consuming our fair share of alcohol and fried food products. We met an acupuncturist ex-pat who lived in Costa Rica. He had come to the island on the advice of his maid because of some of the brothels that are supposedly found there. Here I would like to note that this particular bit of information was wholly unsolicited. The next day we took an overcrowded ferry back to San Jorge. We parked ourselves next to a surly pre-teen boy with enough product in his air to incinerate the boat and all its passengers. He had no interest in interacting with or moving his selfishly placed bookbag for a couple of dopey looking gringas. I resorted to the gentle shove method, which I have also seen employed getting on and off buses. Worked like a charm. We made our way to Granada and checked into the Casa del Agua. At first it seemed like a great little place. The inner courtyard had a swimming pool, a living room with free cable tv, and a well-stocked courtyard kitchen. Our room was comfortable but incredibly hot because we opted to have fans instead of A/C to save some money. The proprietor was Irish and as it turned out surly, a commitment-phobe, homophobic and generally an unpleasant drunk. Suffice to say I won't be returning there, but not for lack of good pricing and nice facilities.
We went to the market. We went the spa. We swam in this pool guarded by these three ducks. It was a lot of fun, but it didn't particularly feel much like Christmas. That is except for the giant metal "tree" sponsored by the cell phone company that sat in the parque central. Or perhaps the church service that we dropped in on, along with some loud obnoxious urchins and a man with his pitbull. Dogs in church? Perhaps this a concept we should be importing into the USA. From Granada we moved on to San Juan del Sur, a slightly gringofied but still relaxing beach town just 45 minutes from the border. It also happens to be where my boyfriend works so we had the added benefit of hanging out with him. I only wish Leah spoke Spanish or that Luis spoke English better, but así es. Regardless, featured below are two of my favorite people.
Now on to the title of this post. Leah and I finished our vacation in Liberia at the Best Western, gorging on chocolate and reality television. She had to leave very early in the morning and though I got to to give her a hug, when I woke up several hours later I had a very deep sense of emptiness and longing. One of the drawbacks of studying monkeys is that it separates you from the people you love for extended periods of time. Sure there is always skype, which makes awkward silences on the phone even more awkward than they would be in person, but it just isn't the same as sharing the same space as someone else. Along with PBR and fried oyster po-boys, I would love to spend an afternoon on my porch in NOLA with my best buds around me. If only I could be teleported. I went back to Nicaragua spend New Year's Eve with Luis, which was an awk-fest of immeasurable intensity, but that perhaps is something left unblogged in detail. Suffice to say I met his family and spent three hours in an evangelical church service. It took me 5 hours to get through the line at immigration to re-enter Costa Rica and then missed the last bus to Liberia. It was alright in the end, as I likely would have had to walk the seven kilometers from the park entrance to the Albergue in the dark with no flashlight. I hired another pirate taxi as Ronny had a family emergency. I arrived back in the park to a world completely changed. All the rooms here are now filled. I have two new assistants, two old friends also working on their PhD's and their assistants. A film crew is here in the park and we'll be working with them in a few months to capture the night activities of the monkeys. Everything is different, just as I knew it would be before embarking on an epic adventure with my best friend.
So here I sit, reflecting on all the joys and pains of working in the field. The separation, the anxiety, the joy, the isolation, the bug bites. Yesterday was marked my seventh month here. The half-way point. I can scarcely believe it. Only seven more to go, and with hope, I'll have at least double that number of blog updates by the end ;)
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