Enid's Trips: Thursday, February 1, 2018: Feeding the Howler Monkey

In the morning we drove to Altun Ha, Mayan ruins about 30 miles north of Belize City. A man was waiting when we parked the car and encouraged us to have lunch at the Mayan Skull Cafe just across the street. The words which worked for us were “Free Wi fi”. Altun Ha was composed of multiple step pyramids. We climbed most of them.

After that we went to the cafe where we had rice with beans and veggies and coconut water from a fresh coconut. The people there were really friendly and helpful. It was fun!

On the way back to the cabin we stopped at The Black Howla Ecolution. The people there had spent 7 years taming the monkeys, enough that they would come eat out of people’s hands, but not so tame that they wouldn’t go immediately back into the jungle. While we were scouting the jungle looking for the monkey family, we learned about the monkey’s habits. The Howler monkey is the second loudest animal--only the lion’s roar is louder--and it travels in family groups. When we found the monkeys the guide enticed the matriarch and one of the babies down. They took several minutes to entice down. When they got close enough they swung down, their tails holding onto the branch above and ate out of our hands. They ate the entire banana, peel and all except for the very tip which the matriarch flung on the ground. The Community Baboon Sanctuary Association is a community conservation project where individual land owners in the area sign pledges promises to protect the monkey and its habitat. The property we had been staying at was part of this agreement.