howlers

My husband and I, well at the time we were just dating, spent the summer in Costa Rica doing a research project. We won a grant for a LOT of money from the medical school and were able to work with 2 missionary doctors that I knew from the previous summer, having worked with them in Peru. The missionaries' names were Alekcey and Judith. They are both family docs that did their residency at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester Minnesota (somewhere Josh and I will explore for our studies!). We were thrilled to receive the grant and the opportunity we were going to have to learn more first hand about the life of medical missionaries, because we are sensing the call of the Lord in some fashion to missions. We spent 7 weeks there, and learned more than I can begin to tell you over this blog...so I decided there is a story that is too wonderful to not share...it involves being chased through the jungle, miles from anyone around us by what we thought was a jaguar... Here we go:

So Josh and I were able to do a little traveling after we finished our research and work with the Cabecars of Costa Rica. We picked the places we wanted to see, and we headed on our way. Now, one of the more remote places we decided to visit was a National Park that Josh had not been to on his previous trip to Costa Rica a few summers ago. The name is Rincon de la Vieja. Now, keep in mind national parks are NOT like what you might be thinking...we are in Costa Rica people, and even though it is the wealthiest country in Latin America...well it is not America.

So the second day we are there, we decided to do a 7km hike to these natural springs. Already since we had been in Costa Rica we had spent 2 full days hiking mountains to get into the reservation...so we think we are pros. So we set off and we are just chatting away, hiking on the dirt path for miles and miles. Well we get literally half way into our journey to the springs, and we STOP dead in our tracks because we hear the most ferocious growl and horrific sounding howl you can imagine, all at the same time. Josh had been leading the way up to this point, and he precedes to turn around, look at me with his jaw dropped and says "what, was, that?" Well I am about to pee in my pants because I am seeing the headlines in our hometown newspaper that said "Medical Students found dead on a trail, mauled by a jaguar"...so as you can imagine, Josh says "RUN!!!!!!!". So I run. We run and we run and we run... literally because we think our lives are about to be over. Josh stops and picks up a big branch and begins to YELL, telling me "YOU HAVE TO BE BIGGER THAN WHATEVER IT IS!! SO TALK LOUD! YELL BECKY!!!!!" So we are walking at this point and Josh is explaining to me, YELLING of course, how he is going to kill the jaguar with his bare hands that is surely going to jump out any second. He is instructing me of what I need to do, and I am naturally going through the motions in my head.

Well for the remainder of our hike to the springs (I had wanted to turn around, long ago), I am so nervous and in all seriousness felt what I believe to be true terror. You see, this is not like some joke, there are jaguars, wild ones, in that park, they don't keep them contained or anything safe like that! So anyhoo, we get to the springs and are so relieved so see a few locals hanging out there. However, it was not soon after that we got there, they left, and we were alone again, 7 km into the jungle. I am really unhappy at this point and any sense of adventure I like to think I have is long gone at the thought of hiking those 7km back right into the danger zone. It was hard to for me to love those sulfur smelling springs too cause all I could imagine was them opening up and swallowing me whole!

A little while after Josh and I are hanging out, a young couple from California walk up. They were quite interesting people and we learned a lot from them about California life. Sounded quite different than what we are used to. So we tell them our horrible story about being chased through the jungle and are a little upset when we see them laughing at us. They looked at each other and laugh, well I was mad cause I mean for real I was terrified...how could you seriously laugh at that??!?! Well in the midst of the humor they inform us that what we heard was not the wild jaguars that were hot on our tail...they were howlers, yes howler monkeys. We had not heard the howlers before then, but apparently this couple had some that liked to hang around right outside their tent they were staying in, so we decided to believe them.

Do I need to tell you how relieved and yet upset I was at the same time?! It was a miserable experience feeling like you are being hunted by something that has like 20 senses and knows where you are going to step before you take the step!!!!! Only to found out they were howlers...hmmm. So Josh and I made the 7km hike back that day miserable for a different reason...the rain decided to come down, and I mean flash flood come down. But I think we would both tell you we would take on the flash floods on dirt trails in the jungle any day over our experience with the jaguars...or should I say howlers? ;)