Privado

My main objective for yesterday was to find the North group (that of Wrinkle Belly) and collect focal data on an adult male all day. It seemed like a simple plan. But when I got to the forest, the North group was nowhere to be found. I checked all their trails and there was no sign of monkeys. At last I heard a howl in near the North/South group border zone, and I raced over there. The monkeys were feeding and traveling through the exact same area where I had watched the North group on Friday. But what made this interesting was that this was not the North group at all—it was Uno’s group, the South group. All day I watched the South group hanging out in the North group’s home range (and beyond), and I grew increasingly perplexed. Not only where these places I had never been with Uno’s group, but also, I couldn’t figure out where the North group had gone. At the end of the day, I decided to explore a little bit and see if I could find them. At the entrance to main part of North group homerange up the volcano, several trees and large rocks had been spray painted with the word “PRIVADO.” A sign with “PRIVADO” written in red had been nailed up to one of the trees, and a few of my trail markers had been cut down. I was filled with a sudden and intense feeling of dread.

Last week I had heard a huge commotion in this part of the forest, and later on I asked Simeon if he knew what was going on. He said some gringo was building a house somewhere around here, and workers were digging a trench to pipe water to the property. I hadn’t thought much of it at the time. But apparently, whoever owns this land now doesn’t want trespassers.

Its one thing if the toughness tester quits working. Its quite another thing if I am prohibited from following the monkeys.

Feeling sick, I raced down the volcano and went to Simeon’s. I told him about the signs in the forest and asked him what this meant. He considered this for a moment and told me that most likely I could still follow the monkeys—the signs were probably meant to keep people from cutting trees on the property. He said he would speak the people in charge of the property and ask them if I am allowed to walk on their land to follow the monkeys.

I left to head back home, and there on the road I saw a dead snake. I stood over the it, studying its pattern of striping and trying to remember the rhyme: Red next to black is a friend of Jack, Red next to yellow will kill a fellow. This snake definitely had red next to yellow stripes—a clear indication that it was a highly venomous coral snake the only thing in Nicaragua that could kill me. Some guys on bikes came by and confirmed that this was in fact a coral snake. I stood looking at the snake for a long time, glad that the it was already dead and wondering if I could get antivenin somewhere to have on hand.

So in retrospect, when I remember this day, will it be the day that I couldn’t find Wrinkle Belly? Or the day when I got kicked out of the forest and had to start this project over somewhere else? Or will it be the day I saw a coral snake?

Just for the record: in spite of everything, I still love Nicaragua.