We just arrived in Samara after spending 10 days back in Nosara. We spent the whole time with Marc and I heading to the beach in the morning, he surfed, I body boarded. Then back for lunch, Yoga at 12:30, back for an afternoon hangout by the pool or visiting with Alexa, our neighbour at the hotel, then back to the beach in the evening.
On our last day in Nosara, we decided to donate our yearly travel donation (I give to a local organization on each trip) to a monkey sanctuary. I had met the couple who run the place, Steve and Vicki when I was looking at buying property earlier on. They rescue orphaned howler monkeys after their mom's get shocked from the hydro lines. Very sad. The babies are often burned from the electric shock, sometimes they lose limbs, and they are always traumatized and dehydrated. And they do a lot of work trying to get the local power company to insulate all of its lines. So off we went to give them our money.
Lucky us, after meeting Marc for the first time, Vicki led us into the large rehab habitat to see the monkeys (they also had a baby racoon). The habitat is a huge 15 foot high cage that keeps the babies in and keeps the boa constrictors out. It has numerous trees in it, kennels where the babies sleep and feel safe, places for shade, water, sun and food. It must have cost a small fortune. It had 2 gates that we had to walk through to prevent escape...reminded me of the petting zoo door system that I used to have at the store...I hated that petting zoo, I loved this habitat though!
It must have been because I have dark hair like their now dead monkey mommas had, but the youngsters completely ignored Marc as we entered the habitat and made a bee line for my head. Within minutes I had 6 baby howler monkeys on me, gripping my hair, riding on my back and curling themselves up in my arms. Their fur is sooo soft, and they wrapped their tails around my arms and neck. I was covered. Then the raccoon wanted in on the action and started climbing up my skirt (on the skirt itself, not on my legs). The little raccoon girl was just a gray bundle of trouble with sharp little claws that kept climbing up me. Vicki had to keep trying to grab her as she scrambled out of Vicki's arms and headed my way time and again.
We got to spend some wonderful time in the habitat getting to play with and cuddle the monkeys. Vicki of course asked that we not post the photos up anywhere public as they rarely let anyone into the habitat and they get so many calls from people just wanting to play with the monkeys. They are slated for wild release so they don't want them to get used to lots of different people.
She and Steve do nothing but pick leaves in the wild to feed the monkeys, build bigger habitats, spend time feeding and consoling the orphaned monkeys, holding fund raisers, writing letters to government officials to try to change how the power lines are set up. They are tireless. They need more money. I'll be setting up a collection box at the store for them this summer.
The next day (Friday) we packed up and headed to Samara a beach town just 45 minutes away to see what was there to see. So far the town and beach are less picturesque than Nosara. The paved road that ends as Samara and doesn't continue to Nosara means that there are LOTS more people here. Jet skiis are present, lots of nosiy bars and restaurants. So we'll hang out here for 6 days. We hear that the snorkling and kayaking are great. Then we head back to Nosara for a concert that we bought tickets to with friends that we made. Marc plans on another surf board rental, he was pretty stoked about the huge improvements of his surfing skill in just the week that we had rented boards previously. Don't you just hate talented people. We'll spend our last 3 days in Nosara until we have to drive up to San Jose to catch our flights home...sigh.
Gotta go, got a kayak to rent!
Erin
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