Feliz Dia de las Brujas!

After work today, I painted Joel's nails for Halloween. He loves Smurfs, so I tried my best at Smurfette.

And then 30 minutes later he came to me, devastated.

He's not the best at the whole "painted nails" thing. But I couldn't be too mad- it was his first time!

Introductions Part 3

Here's a bit of insight into a day in the life of a monkey fecal sampler. 

5:50am Wake Up

6:20am Head to the office to put on work shoes and organize fecal pack

6:50am Boat leaves from Punta to Cayo

7:20am Find group F and collect fecal samples and random behavioral data

10:15am Lunch

11:00am Find group F and collect fecal samples and random behavioral data

2:30pm Boat leaves from Cayo to Punta

3:00pm Take off work shoes and store fecal samples in the freezer

3:15pm Enter data

3:30pm Second lunch

4:00pm Grocery Shopping at La Favorita, the local supermarket

5:00pm Relax, read, watch movies

6:00 pm Dinner

8:30pm Bedtime

And on special nights, open up a bottle of Malbec to go with Mac and Cheese! (Wine and cheese, get it?)

Rain day

No monkeys today. Stacey and I went shopping at Marshalls and I found wasabi peas and strawberry rhubarb jam in their fancy food section.

Meet 43P

This is 43P, the beta male of group F. He's pretty large and is easily distinguished by an awesome mohawk he wears proudly every day. I still haven't found his stylist but will continue searching.

More walking on the beach

Things to do in Punta: 

1. Go to Cayo

2. Walk on the beach to the left

3. Walk on the beach to the right

3. Go to the Nature Reserve

4. Go to a local bar and drink your boredom away

Today I chose option #3

Beautiful beachfront property!

Look at that great beachfront.

WIIIIILLLLSOOOONN

Walking on the beach

I took a walk down the beach in the direction opposite of the Nature Reserve and found a group of fishermen trying to catch fish before a storm.

These guys were cheating using nets.

These guys back in the cove were "fly" fishing in waist deep water. 

Cabin in the Woods

Tonight for our movie night, Carrie and I watched "Cabin in the Woods", a thriller film making fun of other thriller films. Personally, I really don't like thrillers as it is since they give me nightmares, but I gave it a shot. It made me jump a few times and unfortunately since I don't watch thrillers I didn't get most of the references but it was still enjoyable. The ending was good.

Oh, hey there O0O. YOU'RE SO GREAT, YOU KNOW?

Surfeando

Since I have such an extensive surfing background (grew up in So. Cal, surfed once when I was 10), Nahiri invited me to come surfing with her and Josue at El Cocal, a very local beach south of Punta. We went right after work and scoped out the beach for a few minutes. The waves at El Cocal are big but it's a very short break, which translated into me spending 2 and a half hours sitting on the board trying to maintain my balance. Even though I didn't catch any waves (I did ride a wave using my surfboard as a boogie board- Nahiri called me brave for not jumping off), I still had a blast and hope that they'll invite me on their next trip!

At a locals beach you still have to lock up anything valuable in the car, including my camera, so I didn't get any shots of the beach. But here's a curious adolescent in return!

Baby Sea Turtle

This morning at the Punta dock, we saw a baby sea turtle swimming away from shore as fast as his little arms could carry him!

I didn't get a picture of the turtle but here's an equally awesome picture of an eagle ray I saw from the Cayo dock a few days ago.

Introductions Part 2

Meet the CPRC (Caribbean Primate Research Center) boatmen! This is not all of them because unfortunately I couldn't find an appropriate time to ask, "can you please all stop working and come together for a photo so I can post it on my blog?" They are the backbone of the entire operation. They run the boats, run the trucks, feed the monkeys, fix the feeding corrals, clean up Cayo, take away dead monkeys, perform general maintenance on the lunch cages, and many, many other things behind the scenes jobs.

The boat we take every morning from Punta to Cayo (some boatmen + researchers)

A few more boatmen + more researchers

Meet 7B7

This quirky girl is 7B7. She is addicted to licking leaves. Like, actually addicted. Sometimes she won't eat chow in preference of licking leaves. In the 6 weeks I've been on Cayo, I haven't once seen her with  a stalk of leaves, licking away.

Sunday Mofongo

Milly, the bartender from the Garden-Hawk bar where we went a few Fridays ago, invited me back for Sunday dinner, live music, and dancing at her bar. I was able to drag Joel along (once again- what a trooper) to dinner and we were both extremely surprised to discover that the dinner was a legitimate "fancy" meal. Locals were dressed up in nice Sunday clothes and were dancing to a man playing karaoke-style music (and occasionally singing along- pretty poorly). It was a very social gathering. We were then even more surprised when our plates were delivered to our table- authentic mofongo (mashed plantains), camarones (shrimp) with onions and bell peppers, and a side salad. Joel had only brought $5 (I mean, it is only a local Punta bar!) so I covered him for the remainder of the overly-exquisite meal. Oops. Sorry Joel!

My attempt at mofongo with yuca and onions - NOTHING AT ALL like authentic mofongo (except for the plantains)

BBQ on the beach

This afternoon, the Cayo researchers got together for a potluck BBQ on the Punta beach. We all headed over to the beach to stake out a spot and (unsuccessfully) start a fire before sunset. It was quite a lovely feast- spicy shrimp kabobs, steak strips, corn on the cob, stuffed portabelas, seasoned potatoes, chips and salsa, and lots of medalla.

This was one of those sunsets when I wish I had something a little stronger than just a point-and-shoot camera

Dead Alive

Today was half day Friday so I was able to get back to the office early and get some work done in the air conditioned office. It was lovely! Later, Carrie and I watched Dead Alive, a really old budget movie directed by Peter Jackson (his first, I'm almost positive). I now understand why it is considered the bloodiest movie of all time.

6C0 is all like, "What do you think you're doing, looking at me?!"

Introductions Part 1

Wow, it's been over a month and I realized I haven't really given a proper to Punta Santiago, Cayo Santiago, and a typical day in the life of a fecal sampler/behavioral researcher. So, to start off, here is a view of Cayo Santiago from the docks.

Cayo Santiago is a 600 x 400m (thanks, Wikipedia) island filled with over 1500 rhesus macaques that were brought from India a few decades ago. Cayo is now a "research" facility held to the same standards as typical biomedical research labs, so the monkeys are fed and given fresh water daily.

Even more progress!

Today, I got 5 whole fecal samples.

SO. MUCH. PROGRESS.

How absolutely adorable!

Michael Platt

Michael Platt, the Duke professor in charge of the entire research project, came to visit us today. We talked with him and his wife over lunch at a local restaurant. Rice, beans, and plantains. Yum! It was some good conversation and I got more insights into a future of working with primates.

Meet 30C

This old guy is 30C. He's very calm around the researchers (probably because he's older than most of us...kidding) and doesn't fight much with the other monkeys. Actually, the other monkeys don't fight much with him. They show him a lot of respect, most likely because he is so old and frail and has been with the group quite a while. 30C doesn't walk very well because he has arthritis. So whenever he walks or sits down, his legs are splayed outward. He's a very sweet old man!

La Reserva Natural

There's an ecological reserve about a 45 minute walk (along the beach, don't forget) from my house. I've been wanting to go for a while- on my last attempt, I ran, but by the time I got there, I was too tired to actually go in. This time I was able to drag Joel (my housemate and co-worker) along.

The entrance to the reserve is just before the cliff

Upon entering the reserve, I was pleasantly surprised at the smell. I guess I didn't realize how bad the smell of garbage in Punta and of monkey poo on Cayo really was. But the fresh smell of the rainforest was extremely refreshing and made the trip much more enjoyable!

Joel looking over a lake in the reserve

We were also surprised to find out that there was a running competition going on in the reserve along the trails- you could sign up with teams and everything! It was either a 5K or half marathon or some run-for-a-cure event, but either way, I am pretty sad I didn't find out about it earlier- I definitely would have signed up! Next time.

On our walk out of the reserve, I saw a small off-road path heading up the cliff. I convinced Joel to climb up with me in hopes that it would end at the edge of the cliff. Lucky for us, it did! There was a beautiful view at the top and even some structures that lead me to think it was used in the military as a defense/alert system against incoming ships. 

Notice the openings at the bottom of the structure (now overgrown with plants)

View of Cayo Santiago from the cliff - the smell of monkey poo wafting over

Meet the Kittens

Yes, there are kittens that live on our porch in addition to the white cat. They're pretty cute but I usually stay away from them because I don't want feral cats sticking around!

Carrie with the white female kitten with a grey striped tail

Adorbz orange kitten with blue eyes

PS These guys are up for adoption if anyone is interested! I will gladly save them from a future on the streets if you want to take one in.

The Garden Hawk Bar

There are a few local bars in Punta and I've been wanting to check them out (especially since I found out one of them had a pool table), so I invited all of the researchers to a relaxing night of drinks and pool at the Garden bar. This relaxing night of pool quickly turned into an actual night at a bar, filled with getting my first Medalla (a crappy beer you HAVE to get when in Puerto Rico), having the bartender mix me a mystery drink of cranberry juice, orange juice, passionfruit liqueur and tequila, free shots on the house, pool, AND karaoke! I spoke the most spanish I have in a very long time (i.e. since Buenos Aires) and really enjoyed the night, especially when it ended at 10pm!

This guy's really enjoying his chow

Messing Around

In my free time I like to mess around with the adolescents. This is done best by putting your head down while staring at them, then bobbing it up and down as if you are doing a dominance display (and sometimes mixing in some grunting). This is one adolescent's reaction to me:

"What are you doing"

"You don't want to mess with me"

"Ok I'm just going to sit here now and pretend I'm OK with you staring at me"

Hurricane Season

So I'm not sure if I mentioned this, but it rains nearly every day here. Most of the time it's just a harsh downpour, but sometimes (if we're lucky!) it's a full-blown lightning storm. Today (and yesterday) is one of those days! Yesterday the storm hit while I was working on the island, so I had to hang out for a good 30 minutes while lightning struck a mere 6 miles away (if my calculations were correct). The monkeys were surprisingly chill with it- I mean, they weren't hanging out, lazing around in the rain but they also weren't cowering under shelter. Today, we were lucky and the storm didn't hit until after we got off the island. And it's still going...

A radar image of today's storm.

Feeding time

When the truck arrives to deliver the chow every morning, nearly every individual of group F (over 300  monkeys) runs down the hill and into the feeding corral to grab as much chow as they can carry, then runs out of the corral to either break the chow apart with their hands then eat it or roll it in water and then break it apart and eat it. Utilization of each approach depends on the individual, but the outcome is the same- they all get very fat on the concentrated protein and fat in the chow.

I would have gotten an even more hilarious shot of a mom doing this with her baby clinging on, but couldn't catch it in time!

Yep, it's a lot of monkeys.

Meet 0OO

This sweetheart is 0OO. She is the only female in group F that is totally OK with humans. She'll follow you around and sit down 5 feet away from you as if you weren't even there. We think she is this chill because she is infertile and can't have a baby to go crazy over to protect. It's sad because she gets very frustrated during mating season. But she is still the sweetest female I know on Cayo!

Luquillo

Today Carrie and I joined Michelle and Aneila, two other researchers working with the University of Chicago team, on a beach trip to Luqillo in the Northeastern part of the island. We started off with brunch at a beachside restaurant. A surf bum walked up to us at our table and offered surf lessons- for only $60/hour! I declined (obviously). I then ordered my first authentic piña colada and eggs benedict with crab cakes. It was a very tasty start to the day.

We then headed off to the beach where we were able to snorkel right off the shore. There were a surprising amount of colorful fish in the small, rocky patch reef. And a refreshing lack of jellyfish!

Happy JGL day!

JGL, you might ask? Why Joseph Gordon Levitt, of course! Carrie and I found we shared a liking for the actor and so we've decided to make every Saturday night a JGL movie night (popcorn and all). Tonight we watched Angels in the Outfield- I forgot how "great" (see: sarcasm) the angels animation is and how adorable Joseph Gordon Levitt is as a child actor.

Some males relaxing in the afternoon

It's Friday

It's Friday, meaning it's a half day on the island! Not that work isn't the bomb, but I do enjoy half days. It gave me time to do laundry, finish watching the Batman trilogy, get caught up on office work, and do a sketch on an acrylic sketchbook I just bought from Walmart. WOOOOOO art. Also, a few researchers and I went to a nearby town to see "Prisoners". It wasn't my favorite movie genre, but it was a decent movie.

He was so confused at my camera.

Kiss the cook

I joined Stacey and Charlie on their beach walk today after work. It was great- Charlie is really improving on his swimming and I didn't get stung by a jellyfish!

For dinner, I whipped up a caesar salad and pasta with mushroom and bell pepper sauce. Paired with a Harpoon cider (yeah, I was amazed to find those here too), it was a fantastic dinner.

Yoga

I admire this adolescent's aptitude for yoga.

Group Wars

These guys are vicious when it comes to group outsiders. As I was walking along the beach following a focal adult, a non-F-group male ran out from the bushes. It may be hard to tell from the photo but he has two big gashes on his side, just above his leg. Chasing after him were a group of 6 F-group males angrily grunting and making a scene. 

The poor outsider running for his life- he's quite emaciated, as F group won't let him get anywhere near the feeding corrals

Two males staking out F's territory

Another male making sure the outsider didn't return