Cayo Characters

Sometimes I think it should be called Iguana Island



How can one tell the difference between individual monkeys?
Well at first I was learning them by ear notches and tatoos, but here's
an example of some pretty distinct faces.
Above=17K
Below=99L
They're around the same age, but very different faces,
one rather ugly, one a pretty good looking monkey.



Below: guy w/o a nose.

Below, a female with a very bad wound. It has been
getting bigger by the day, and smells very bad.
Unfortunately, we must let nature take its course.

Bebes

Its birth season!!! There 3 babies so far born in my group, and they are in that half way too cute and half ugly stage. Interestingly and as expected, the three females who have had babies so far are 3 who’s infants died last year. They were able to go into estrus earlier than the other females who were probably still lactating, some Life History Theory for ya.

Besides these two pieces of exciting news, not too much has changed in Punta Santiago. Pandora, my doggy has learned some new tricks. There’s been a kitten living inside the stairs but not inside the patio gate to my house, being whiny as hell and making both the dogs bark at her all day, that’s been annoying.

I do have a place in my heart for this small town that I live in. A few weeks ago when I went on a weekend excursion with Grace, Matt, and J.P. I learned a lot about the countryside of PR, mostly that there are many many small dilapidated towns. One part of “dilapidated” that I can put into words is that there are usually buildings painted many different colors, but all of them fading because of the intense heat and sun. It gives the towns a feeling like they’ve stood still for many, many years, and brings me to understand Garcia Marquez books to an even more extreme degree than I already do.

After driving through many small towns in many a beautiful countryside, it was nice to return home to Punta Santiago, MY dilapidated Puerto Rican town.

The weather report

When the sky is darker than the water, that means its going to rain.

Yes, Puerto Rico has been an interesting place to be during this 2008 Hurricane season’s line-up of hurricanes. Gustav, Hannah, Ike, and Josefine. We got some rain from Gustave, Ike skipped us completely, but Hanna and Josefine caused a ruckus here for sure. Hannah, who hit us last Wednesday, Sept. 3^rd, kept us from going to the island. Guessing the weather is a big deal here, because the boat guys have final decision on if we go, or if we leave the island early.

So Wednesday I got up and went about my daily routine to get ready, but when I got to the office to pick up ice for the poo-packs, the guys said we weren’t going to the island. I was kind of confused because the weather looked alright.

About an hour later, the weather changed quickly. A rapid wind came, causing waves in the ocean and people to look out their windows on our street. I think the schools around us (there are 2 in my very small neighborhood) were having recess, and ran out to the end of my street to watch the ocean, excitedly talking and screaming. Ina, my new housemate who is here from University of Davis for a month put it the right way. She said “it’s nice to see them acting like kids, not like thugs.” Sooooo true.

Then of course, every time it stopped raining I’d try to take my doggy for a walk it would start pouring again, which was about 13 times that day. Ina, Matt, and I played GinRummy for a few hours, it was a nice day.

And Josefine: wheeeew its been hard to sleep during Josefine. She came by yesterday, Saturday evening and then all night. She made pretty much the loudest thunder I’ve ever heard, and put on a brilliant light show. I was watching Saturday Night Live on Saturday Night, and although the host was Tina Fay, I chose to lie in my bed and watch the lightning and listen to the thunder.

After a night of rain (when we do go to Cayo the next morning) we will find group R all huddled around the "monkey rain shelter" which is actually a water catching device. On all other days when I find them, around 7:10 or so, they are dispersed. I believe it is because they do not sleep as well on rainy nights, and so they are still groggy. Its pretty adorable, not to mention wonderful for sample collection.

My camera works = A day in the life.

First of all, thank you Mom for making my camera work again, I don't really understand how you're so efficient but I appreciate it!

Second, I'm figuring out how to format this blog. By that I mean I notice that it is not formatted very well, and I wish I knew how to better it.

(Above) This is the dock where we meet every morning at 6:50, and the boat ride to the island. That's Grace on the right and Doreen in the back.

(Above) Lunch cage. Though its a cage, its comfy. It keeps our food safe from monkeys.

(Below) View from the lunch cage, the lower coral where monkeys get chow, and a water hole, so there's always something entertainin' to look at.

(Above) What we do in the lunch cage. Its true, naps are scrumptious, even on the single wooden bench that's provided

. The monkeys sit around until they get fed, usually between 7:30 and 8:30. On the left is 83L, a dude from which I collect fecal samples. He is alone getting his monkey chow because he just so pompous that he'll scare anyone else away, while on the right the monkeys are nice enough to share elbow room.

This guy I hate. He is 50B and he just doesn't prove very good samples. He has some idiosyncracies, such as here, where he is licking a tree. He also licks bricks, rocks, and metal. It may be a taste thing, it may be a minteral/nutrient thing, I just call him a loser because its fun to have someone to make fun of, especially when they don't "mind."

This is Paco's boat, one of those crazy old men I mentioned a few blogs ago. I'll get a better picture eventually, but every few days he takes groups around the island to see monkeys and snorkel, while playing loud music. I enjoy it. This female is threatening me, and she has a rediculous, very swollen forhead. The females get this when they are pregnant, with increasing swellings on their faces until they give birth. I hear that her's is going to get a lot worse than this because she still has at least a month to go. Damn.

Today, Friday, when we returned from the island to mass beach party on OUR beach. The picture is from the middle of the dock and right there on the left where the red car is located is where my street ends, and I usually walk my dog, but on a desolate beach. It's a holiday, I'm not sure what its called, but it is in honor of the Puerto Rican Constitution. This is what beach parties look like, you drive your car onto the beach, set up some chairs, then make out with your honey in the water, and maybe ride a wave runner. Puerto Rico IS a beach party.

Sam's Terribly-Awesome or Awesomley-Terrible Last Day

A few rediculous things happened this past Wednesday, I'm pretty sure in honor of it being Sam Yale Kid's last day. First, the boat stopped working pretty much exactly between the dock and the island. Orlando was driving, my favorite worker man, and he pulled out his cel phone which didn't get very good reception. The 8 of us or so on the boat started making bad jokes about swimming and entertaining ourselves for the hours we may be on the small speed boat together. After about 5 minutes, Orlando pulled the engine chord and it started up, then died. This repeated for another 5 minutes. The jokes got worse. But then, eventually, after about 15 minutes, the boad started and we made it safe.
Secondly, a few monkeys got into the lunch cage. The lunch cage door must always be closed, because the monkeys do know that there's goo food happening inside. I'm not sure how because I was outside at the time, but a few monkeys got in and stole some of Sams grapes from the table. There was a lot of yelling and screaming and loud slamming, eventually scaring away the monkeys. Everyone was fine, but an intense few moments.
Lastly, as Sam and Meg were leaving the lunch cage after a relaxing lunch, the adult male monkeys decided to threaten the hell outta Meg and Sam. As they slid open the door to leave, a female nearby got scared, grabbing her infant to her belly and tried to jump up onto the fence, but missed because of the baby on her belly, making a very loud noise. The female was a high ranking female so all the males in the area RAN to come threaten sam, and soon there were about 7 adult males, grunting loudly, and showing their shart teeth through the "O" face. Meg ran away, and Sam ran back inside the cage. They continued to threaten, until I picked up some rocks and started throwing them towards the monkeys so that they would back off. They eventually started to quiet down. It was intense, though. Its very scary when that many infectious animals with large teeth are threatening you, and coming closer and closer, even when inside a fenced off cage!
The boad has never malfunctioned, nor that have I ever seen that many adult males threaten so intensly, but a few weeks ago a few monkeys did get inside the lunch cage and poo all over the place, but luckily did not distrub anyone's lunches.
You've got to be prepared for anything on that island. wow.

Other Creatures

Besides monkeys and dogs I also have daily interactions with: lizards, iguanas, crabs, mosquitos, no-see-'ums, chickens, cats, birds, frogs, I'll do this ecology lesson-style
Lizards So on the monkey island there are also many lizards that eat the monkey chow. There are beautiful black and blue ones that are vegetarian and eat leaves and monkey chow. Then there are the brown ones tha teat the blue ones and dead iguanas.
Iguanas There are some huuuuge iguanas on Cayo, and the staff is constantly keeping their numbers down. Last year they dug up their eggs and threw them into the ocean. They also shoot them with rifles and behead them with machetes. The monkeys usually don't pay too much attention to the iguanas, but sometimes they will grab an aguana by the tail and pick it up, swing it around, or just hold it so the iguana cannot run. When they let go, the iguana sometimes slaps them with their tail, which has a ridge that goes all the way down from their backs with spikes, which hurts the monkey. Then the iguana runs away with their funny feet that makes them look like they have wheels.
Crabs Two kinds. Hermit crabs and roadside crabs. The hermit crabs are all over the island, and are pretty cute. I pick them up sometimes and look at the, but if their too big they can reach around the shell and pinch me. Roadside crabs are a whole different thing. So if your driving at night on the roads here there area always people with flashlighs off to the side looking for crabs. There is barely room for 2 cars on the roads, and these people with nothing but flashlighs expect you to see them, and not kill them! Its very scary to drive at night because of it. I've been told if you find a crab off to the side you feed him for a month to clean them out, corn or something, then you eat them.
Mosquitos The mosquitos don't like me, but they loooove Grace. Sucks for her, seriously. The mosquitos are tiny here, and they don't fly straight. Its nice because they don't have the obnoxious buzzing sound, but are impossibel to kill!
No-see-'ums. This is their technical name. These guys are tinnnny little monsters that really sting when they bite or sting you, I'm not even sure what they do. They're very random. Sometimes right when I get out of the water they attack me, but sometimes they don't. Sometimes they get me while walking the dog at sunset, but sometimes not. Obnoxious. Luckily, though, they don't hurt or itch later.
Chickens The house next to the office has many chickens and roosters. The rooster does his call thing throughout the day, so I guess his circadium rhythem is off. There are also chickens up the street, that are uncaged but I beleive belongs to a family. One time a rooster came and sat in front of our house and scared away a cat.
Cats. Sooo many cats, probably just as many as street dogs. They like to sleep on top of cars and taunt our dogs. They make the dogs bark all day and all night, ggrrrr. One time I let Pandora have a stare off with a cat, and the cat pounced at her, and now she's even more scared of them. When we begin our walks, like 4 a day, she always looks under cars for them.
Birds There are beautiful white egrets, and one lands everyday in the same place on the island when I am eating lunch. The pelicans look like teradactals when they are flying. The Pigeons in San Juan are disgusting.
Frogs. There are frogs the size of my fist that are fun to watch jump away. I only started seeing them, but maybe this is because I have to walk Pandora every night now. There are also tiny tan frogs that I've never seen, but are kind of the emblem of Puerto Rico. They are called Coqui's, because that is the sound they make. They're Very loud, and start making their noises once the sun goes down until about midnight. There's a really good cheese called Coqui cheese, and the coqui is the symbol next to the Puero Rico Google home page, because that shows you for real how important the frog is to PR, right? Our neighbor said that once her dog was playing in our back yard and had a frog in its mouth, then 10 minutes later the dogs face swelled up immensly, and they had to tak it to the vet for a shot. I'll work on not letting that happen to me or my puppy.
More Dogs Yesterday for the first time I walked around a neighborhood with Pandora on the other side of the highway(its a joke to call it a highway, its a small but major street). As I walked into the neighborhood the dogs in their respective houses started barking, like a wave. The barking started about 2 houses ahead of my path, and ended about 4 houses behind me. OOO it was loud. Some houses had 4 small dogs, some 2 big dogs, some dogs on the roof. All mutts, ALL strange twists of dog fate.
Rats/Mice. Grace saw a small furry being in our kitchen. Crap.
Horses. Someone has a horse tied up next to the beach in a little green area. Sometimes in the afternoon I hear the guy running around on the horse. That's really all I know about it.
That's about as much as I know. Enjoy!

Fruitless in San Juan and the pain of July 5th

The event of not seeing fireworks in San Juan on July 4th is largely representative of Puerto Rico in general. Everyone in my town told us, me and Grace and her visiting bf that Old San Juan is the place to go on July 4th. The three of us, incrediblyl skeptical about the possibility of entering Old San Juan with the traffic situation, headed out. Once parked we started to ask around if there were going to be fireworks and where. Everyone gave us the same answer, "We thought so.... but it doesn't really look like it. . . " There weren't many people there. We saw fireworks beginning about 20 miles away, low to the groud across the bay and sat down to watch, just in case they were the only fireworks we were to see. And they were. Grace's bf, Geremy from Seattle then coined the term "Fruitless in San Juan." True. Hilariously Puerto Rico, no one knows exactly whats going down.
But the night did provide a few more entertaining moments. We met one of the 4 electricians for the US Coast Guard, getting very drunk and very eager to talk about the doings of the Coast Guard. His rablings were interesting, including how if your in the military and your not paid to scratch your ass, then you don't do it. Since there are 4 electricians for 150 Coast Guards in Puerto Rico, he replaces light bulbs every few days and basically does nothing else. So I kept asking questions to see what else would leak out of his mouth. He continued to tell disturbing truths about how the Coast Guard's job to keep immigrants from setting foot on land, because once they do they are safe, really is just a big game of shark and minnows. So there are planes that survey the water, and they coordinate with coast guard ships to intercept people. He's been on the boats a few times, and explained that when they intercept attempters they usually get them on board, give them blankets because they've usually been at sea for a few days, a majority of them coming from Dominican Republic or Cuba. Then they take them back from wherever they came from. He said the success rate of making it if you attempt is about 40%, the other 60% are either caught or drown. They come on small speed boats, sometimes with 30 unprepared people. He was a nice guy who went on to rant, furiously that if everyone who tried to come to the US just stood up to better their country, it wouldn't be like this. Intense shit, I had to take a break after hearing the story. SOME kinda patriotic July 4th. . .
So maybe I should have thought ahead of time about this, but it is a BAD IDEA to take 2 dogs walking on the beaches in Puerto Rico on July 5th. Can you guess why? Trash and bbq chicken and fist bones EVERYWHERE!!!! I was excited for a walk on the beach with 2 dogs, and I was going to get them, Pandora and Ginger to play with a ball instead of just gnawing on each other's ears. Everything went wrong as soon a I let them off the leash. They ran in the direction of a quiet thicket, where there was a couple getting IT on. I got all nervous and flustered and w/o making too much eye contact chased the doggies around until I got them both back on their leashes, which they continued to twist around each other and tangle. The only way to make these 2 dogs keep moving when they smell something fishy or are into playing is to start running and they run with me. Once I finally go their leashes untangeled, I started running, but right next to me there happened to be a cement wall about 1 foot high, which I fell over, pretty f-ing hard. So my legs are and look pretty beat up right now, a week later. I blame it on July 5th.