Monkey River

While we were in Belize we spent a morning exploring Monkey River - Which I keep wanting to call Monkey Town which makes the song Funky Town play over and over again in my head...

Just thought I would share...

Anyway...

To get to Monkey River you have to go by boat.

There are no roads, or cars in Monkey River which is kinda cool I think...

So four of us plus our guide set off by boat to explore Monkey River and see the Howler Monkeys that live there...

It took about 40 min by boat some of it wandering through mangroves, how our driver knew where to turn when is a mystery to me! He said it took him months to learn his way through the maze!

It was raining the day we visited, but it wasn't cold...I don't think it is ever cold in Belize...

Monkey River is not a fancy place by any stretch of the imagination...

They do have ceiling fans! 

After ordering our lunch to be eaten after our visit to the jungle to see the monkeys just up river, we hopped back in to the boat and began seeing some pretty cool things

Crocodile! We saw several.  This one was so close to the boat I could have reached over and given it a pat...I'm sure he would have loved that!

These are birds nests, which I thought were super cool and I've decided our birds here in North America are just lazy! They need to step up in their building abilities!

Can you imagine seeing one of these babies if you were in the river for a swim? Yikes!

These two iguanas were about 30 ft up a tree...

I did not know iguanas were tree climbers...

They seemed a bit snobbish to me with their noses in the air...

We then parked our boat and hopped out for a walk through the jungle...

It being my first time to a jungle I completely forgot that just perhaps bug spray would be something to bring along...I will never make that mistake again!

Things grow really big in the jungle...

This is a claw from a "blue crab" they live in the jungle in huge holes in the ground...

In addition to forgetting bug spray I also did not know that mosquitoes are attracted to dark colors...So I did everything wrong...And while NA mosquitoes generally leave me alone...I am a HUGE hit with the CA mosquitoes!

My guide got a bit nervous when I went over to check these guys out...

"Those are poisonous!" He exclaimed...

I took his word for it...

We felt very small in the huge bamboo forest...

Sadly after walking around for 25 min and then standing around waiting for our guide who disappeared into the jungle for about 25 min we didn't see a single monkey :( I was very sad and frustrated that I was going to leave Monkey River without a single monkey sighting :(

Nothing like manicured toes in jungle mud...

We then headed back to "town" to eat our lunch. After we finished our guide told us he had found one monkey in a tree behind some houses near by...I was thrilled! 

We went trooping through peoples yards and there he was...one lone Howler Monkey...

And he looked right at me!

He even howled for us... 

While I was disappointed to not see a family of them I was relieved to see one and to be able to get some good shots of him...

I spoke with someone about their trip to Monkey River the day after we went and she told us how they saw lots and lots of monkeys and even a baby!

Whatever...

I saw one and that was better than none!

Frychik