Montezuma

This is the last post about my vacation...

Malpaís was great, but due to the lack of things to do there, we packed up our stuff and went to a beach town named Montezuma. The hostel we stayed in was nice and had a great view to the ocean. They also had monkeys! When we first arrived there were monkeys in the trees right next to the hostel. The monkeys went away for awhile, but after we put our bags in the room they came back. I was putting sunscreen on the second story porch of the hostel when the monkeys came back. I set my sunscreen down quickly so I could grab my camera. While we were taking pictures the monkeys kept getting closer and closer to us (there was a roof leading from the trees to the second story porch). I couldn't believe it! I think people may have fed them people food before because it looked as if they were expecting a treat from the humans. Regardless, one of the monkeys ran over to my sunscreen that was on the ledge of the railing. The bad monkey grabbed my sunscreen, looked at me and ran away into a tree like a little thief! He dropped it later, but I never found my beloved sunscreen again.

Aside from having things stolen by primates, we were planning on hiking to some nearby waterfalls. Unfortunately the recent rain had flooded the river we needed to cross making it impossible to get to the waterfalls.  Instead we went and played on the beach. The ocean wasn't safe to swim here, so we played frisbee and beach ping pong. Later that night we all made dinner as usual and then packed our bags to return home. 

 

A map of Montezuma

Criminal Monkeys 1

(These are White-faced Capuchin monkeys. We also saw and heard a lot of Howler monkeys in Montezuma. They sound like barking dogs.)

Criminal Monkeys 2

(The one standing up snatched my sunscreen) 

Banana Spider and mate 

(This spider is by far the scariest spider I have ever seen. The larger spider in the picture is the female; the smaller one is the male. I did some research about this impressive arachnid and found that they look scarier than they actually are. Their bite feels like a bee sting and their venom will cause local pain, redness, and blisters, however they usually disappear in 24 hours. It won't kill you, but I still wouldn't want to mess with this spider... or any spider for that matter.)

This spider is also known a Golden Silk Orb-Weaver, Wood Spider, or Writing Spider