Soymilk, etc

So, I didn’t go to the forest yesterday (Friday) because I was messed up from my encounter with the ants. I spent about 7 hours talking to my new German friend Sven. He’s been in Guatemala for about 2 months and he had some stories about some really amazing places to visit. I am looking through my schedule to see if there is time to fit in a trip to Antigua and the Volcan Pacaya. You can hike up to near the top of Pacaya and see the red lava flowing out; I can’t imagine anything cooler than that.

As I was chatting with Sven, I saw a truck pull up and out came my friend Lilia. Lilia was actually a student in the field course that I TA’ed the first time I was in Nicaragua. She’s gone back to grad school and her dissertation project involves making a model of the effects of continued agriculture on Ometepe. She’s here right now doing a really brief survey of the island, and she is going to come back and stay here at the Hacienda for about 6 weeks in January. That should be great fun!

This morning my hand and ankles were better, so I went out to the forest. There had been a really bad storm in the night and there was no electricity (no Internet either, that’s why this post is late and I’ve been incommunicado for a while), so I think that caused breakfast to be delayed. I didn’t end up getting out of here until pretty late, so I was worried about finding the monkeys once they were done with their morning howls. Call it blind luck or call it skill, but I managed to find them. Stayed with a juvenile and its mother for several hours. That juvie was eating like crazy the whole time. I got some pretty good data on its feeding behaviors, but I was unable to identify 2 of the plant species it ate. The monkeys were moving around quite a bit too, and I marveled at the brilliancy of the trails Simeon cut. The trails followed the monkeys’ route precisely, so I had no problem staying with them, and I didn’t have to hack my way through any more Acacia.

I came home from the forest early and then Rob and I kayaked out to Monkey Island. It’s a tiny little scrap of land where a couple of spider monkeys live. Spider monkeys are not native to Ometepe; these monkeys had been someone’s (illegal) pets. There’s no suitable food on the little island (spider monkeys eat like 80% fruit), so someone boats out there every day and provisions them. The monkeys are quite aggressive and mean, so Rob and I stayed our distance. The lake was pretty rough too, so we were quite tired by the time we got back home. But we’d had a lot of fun, and had some really amazing views of both Volcan Maderas and Volcan Concepción.

After the kayak trip, we went over the little Marfil Tienda. I am amazed at the random assortment of items they have. We even discovered that they have some backpacks, which is good, since mine is falling apart. We found some little chocolate cookies—a whole big package for only about 50 cents—a real deal. Amazingly, they also had a selection of SOYMILK. I couldn’t believe it. For those who know me well, you are aware of my propensity to be eating cereal with soymilk at any time of the day, sometimes for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I never thought I would have a soymilk source on Ometepe. The selection they have at Marfil is powdered and comes in chocolate, vanilla, or strawberry. Since we have no cereal, I bought a tiny little package of the chocolate (for 3 cordobas, something like 15 cents) to try it out. When we got home I mixed it up—it wasn’t too great, but not horrible either. I put my concoction in the fridge to chill and have after dinner.

Tomorrow, Rob said he wanted to come into the forest with me for a little while. Hooray. Hopefully my Monkey Sense is working and I find the group again right away!