Yesterday was the first day we've started taking focals on our monkeys, where we record everything they do for 10 minutes. At first it's pretty embarrassing to basically be talking to yourself for 10 minutes, and especially saying "hand to mouth" every second over and over. The forest is still pretty wet and swampy because of all the rain recently, though it's sunny, but very chilly, today. Because we were only practicing I decided to bring my new camera into the field with me. Sadly, my zoom is not nearly as good as I was hoping it would be. It was also a very cloudy day so my monkey pictures are not great, but I did try. All these photos will be going up in the next couple of days (it takes a while to upload down here). Towards the end of the day I finally got to see a Toucan! One just flew into a fruiting tree maybe 20 yards from us, at about eye level, and stayed there for about half an hour. Dan and I watched the toucan instead of tracking the monkeys for a while, but our guide friend helped us out there. Then I fell on my face. I was walking downhill on a trail and it was getting dark. My foot caught a liana (a vine) and that was that. I went face first into the dirt. Nothing but my ego got bruised and Dan laughed at me for about 10 minutes staight. It was pretty hilarious. Back at CIES, we made pizza for dinner and then the night somehow turned into a table-top dance party. Not sure how that happened, but I'm always up to groove. I think tonight we're also going out to a 'club' in town, which should be interesting.

If you want to read another view on my life down here, read my friend Dan's blog: www.orangudaniel.blogspot.com