Spider Monkeys at Punta Laguna

On our first full day in Nuevo Durango, we rent bikes and head toward the most visited nearby attraction: the conserved jungle at Punta Laguna. On the ride there, the landscape is a patchwork of agriculture (including one of Nuevo Durango's milpas), small towns, and forest. At Tres Reyes, a long mural promoting environmental education and care for the planet stands between the main road and the town. Nice!

"Whoever takes care of the environment demonstrates a
great education. Don't litter!" We agree.

The lake from which Punta Laguna
derives its name. After the morning
of jungle trekking, I took a swim.

Arriving at the reserve, we meet our guide, Agosto, who takes us into a small museum near the head of the trail into the jungle. He explains that there are two types of monkeys found in the jungle here: howler monkeys and the main attraction, spider monkeys. Because the area at Punta Laguna is only a small part of a larger nature reserve called Otoch Ma'ax Yetel Kooh, many of the monkeys only occasionally pass through. However, a group of 25 or so spider monkeys can generally be found nearby. These social monkeys have a strict dominance hierarchy but often separate into smaller groups or forage individually. Pointing to large photos of individual spider monkeys, Agosto calls them by names like Tula and Juan, explaining that a research study he helped with required the identification of individual monkeys.

The reserve's English translation (from Maya):
The house of the monkey and Jaguar. 

One of the largest chaca trees
seen yet!

In the museum, Agosto also explains the origins of the reserve and associated villages. Initially, the villages were chicle camps. Chicle, or chewing gum, originally came from extraction of gum from trees such as the sapote, Manilkara sapote, a native of the Yucatan. The area around Punta Laguna once had an abundance of sapote trees, and beginning in the 1930s several villages came into being because of chicle production. Eventually, chicle production died out due to declining tree populations and synthetic alternatives. By the 1980s, however, the people of Punta Laguna realized that an ecological reserve comprising the jungle surrounding their villages could help revive a viable economy. Among these original chicle extractors-turned-conservationists was Agosto's grandfather.

You can make out the zigzag cuts in the sapote tree
for extracting chicle. This is no longer done here.

Long before the 20th-century chicle extracting villages,
there were the ancient Maya.
These ruins are associated with nearby ruins at  Coba.

Entering the jungle, one of the first things I notice is the size of the trees- these are much larger than what seems typical for the area. This forest is older and more mature than most of the surrounding woods. The next day, Marco, a resident of Nuevo Durango, tells us that he remembers the trees around the pueblo were once much larger and supported a population of spider monkeys. Hurricane Gilbert, in 1988, however, destroyed most of the largest trees and drove the spider monkeys out.

Make a tea with the leaves of the guarumbo and whatever
your ailment, odds are you'll feel better.

When we ask Agosto if he knows much about the plants of the jungle, he tells us that he learned some things about medicinal plants from his grandfather. For example, the herbaceous contrayerba (Dorstenia contrayerva) is an antidote for venomous snake bites. Agosto also is very knowledgeable about the forests' flora in general. He points out the huano palms (chiit, in Maya) used to make the thatch roofs (including ours back in Nuevo Durango) traditional to the area. Agosto describes some of the medicinal uses of the guarumbo tree  (Cesropia obtusifolia). He tells us how in May, the spider monkeys come to the tallest trees in the jungle, Pich trees (Enterolobium cyclocarpum) to enjoy their annual fruits. And he shows us the trees where we will eventually find spider monkeys- the ramón (Brosimun alicastrum), also beloved by Manuel's deer.

Where did all the leaves go? The ants got 'em.

Of course, the jungle being what it is, the fauna we encounter are not limited to monkeys. Among the most prominent are the huge morpho butterflies, in blue and coffee varieties. Other insects include the mound building Leaf-cutter ants. Among many varieties of birds, the beautiful iridescent Ocellated Turkeys foraging on the jungle floor are the most memorable, not least because they are endemic to the Yucatan. While we see no large cats like the like the locally endangered ocelots and jaguars, in the museum we do see the bones of a howler monkey, which Agosto tells us was killed by an ocelot (which, unlike the larger jaguar, are agile enough to climb trees). Agosto also assures us that remote cameras have detected the wild cats at night.

A cafe morpho. The larger blue ones seem to
never rest for photo ops.

Lurking in the shadows, the most beautiful
turkey I ever did see. 

But the spider monkeys are the biggest draw to Punta Laguna, and we were not among the unfortunate who leave without a sighting. Walking through the jungle, Agosto occasionally stops, cups his hands around his mouth, calls the monkeys, pauses briefly, and quickly moves on (see video at bottom). Agosto tells us that monkeys often congregate near a depression filled with water here. He asks us to wait while he briefly walks off to attempt to track the monkeys. Before long, he returns and tell us that he hears something coming from the opposite direction. We follow the sound. I spot the giant spider monkey near the top of the canopy first, not expecting something so large. Soon, the monkey leaps away from the path, and we follow.

Yes, that's a spider monkey. Nice shot, Jenny!

Later I notice that when moving from tree to tree, the monkey appears to fall before regaining composure, either with limb or prehensile tail. Too interested and busy with my binoculars to take a photo (our only shot comes from Jenny), I notice, on Agosto's prompting, that we are actually watching two monkeys- a mother and child on her back, moving at high speeds at the top of the canopy, only occasionally stopping to forage for food. Later we spot another mother-child pair, doing much the same- leaping 10 or 15 feet through midair, eating a few ramon leaves, and leaping again. Interesting take on childcare.