We had an amazing day yesterday. It started at 5:22 am. We got up early in order to hear the Howler monkeys in nearby Monkey Bay. We motored the dinghy down river and into the bay, cut the engine and then paddled quite a ways up a creek into the jungle.
I we’d never heard Howler Monkeys before so we weren’t quite sure what we were listening for but somehow I thought we know it once we heard it, and we did. Off in the distance we heard a couple of tentative calls, then a few more and then again. After listening for a while we tried some vocalizations on our own. That got an immediate response; the monkeys responses got lower and more frequent and then they started moving toward us. We could see them coming as they moved through the treetops, a troop of about a dozen monkeys. I was hoping to hear some Howlers but I didn’t expect to get lucky enough to see them as well. We experimented with different vocalizations as the troop collected in the trees directly above our heads. We imitated their own sounds, omed, even howled and they called back in kind. That all seemed to be interesting and ok with the monkeys as long as we never got any louder than the alpha monkey. That is until Susan tried overtone chanting, they didn’t seem to like that. So she backed off and we continued with the fun. After about 45 minutes we’d had enough and headed back down the creek.
From Monkey Bay we headed up river and out into Largo de Izabal. We passed the old Spanish fort that guarded the entrance to the lake. The fort dates back to 1600 and was repeatedly attacked by pirates, destroyed and rebuilt over the next 200 years.
On our way back to our marina we stopped at Fronteras to buy some fruit and then ended up having an excellent breakfast on the waterfront in town at Bruno’s Marina. After breakfast we dinked back to our marina for a hike through the jungle to the rubber plantation, which is part of the whole operation.
Before we found the rubber trees we discovered a pristine pool that was feed by a little stream coming out of the jungle. It was too tempting to resist. The cool waster felt delicious after our hike up the hill on that warm afternoon.
After cooling down we set off up hill again to find the rubber trees. The marina is part of a conservation project that includes a private natural reserve and a sustainable forest management project that includes rubber and teak plantations.
Each tree had its bark scored and a little metal cup suspended just below the last cut to catch the latex sap as it drips out of the tree. Latex has been harvested in this part of the world for the past 3600 years. It was used among other things to make the balls used in the ballgame played by the Pre-Columbian people of this region. Those balls were solid rubber, weighed up to 9 lbs and judging by the latex we could smell, were quite stinky. That pungent odor probably didn’t bother the ancient Mayan athletes as they probably had other more urgent things on their minds, such as, the human sacrificial aspect of the games. Who worries about smelly balls when ones life hangs in the balance?
We hiked though the plantation to the top of a hill to discover what they call the Shaman’s Tower. It’s a three story tower that gives one a 360° view of the surrounding countryside, the river, the town of Fronteras, Lake Izabal and the far off mountains of interior Guatemala.
With no one else around and the place powerful and special we decided to hold our own ceremony to honor and consecrate this natural place.
With air temperatures well into the 90s we were fortunate that the hike down was a lot less strenuous than the hike up.
Once back at our marina we jumped into the pool, which felt wonderful. We were soon joined by other boaters and guest whom we chatted with until our skin wrinkled up like prunes. After the pool Susan got a delicious frozen lemonade from the bar and I enjoyed one of the best Margaritas I ever had.
We needed some more quetzals (Guatemalan dollars) so we jumped in our dink and head for the bank. The above photo shows how we get to the bank from our marina. How cool is that? We get an aquatic jungle ride every time we go to the bank.
