Breakfast in Costa Rica with White-headed Capuchin Monkeys

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Ever have the feeling that someone is watching you? While traveling in Costa Rica earlier this year I made my way to Santa Elena to visit the Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve. Here my wife and I woke up for a classic Costa Rican breakfast only to find a troupe of White-headed Capuchin monkeys gawking at us as we ate. Apparently they knew when breakfast was served and would show up for the start of it in the hopes of getting a hand out. They didn’t stick around long, as they had places to see and food to raid else where. It was quite the experience.

White-headed Capuchin (Cebus capucinus) Monkeys Look in at a Tourist at Breakfast

On a side note there’s a lot to be said for serendipity. My wife set the alarm for us to wake up at 7 AM, so we could catch a shuttle to the cloud forest reserve. It turned out my wife is time zone challenged and we woke up an hour early. Little did we know we arrived for breakfast just as it began. The monkeys only stuck around for 20-30 minutes. Had we got up when planned an hour later we’d have missed the monkey encounter.

Technorati Tags: Costa Rica, travel, photography, White-headed Capuchin, Cebus capucinus, monkey, breakfast, tourism, tourist, stock photo, Monteverde, Cloud Forest, Santa Elena, Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve

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Posted by Jim on 07.21.2009 at 1:04 am
Tagged: Costa Rica, Locations, Photography, Reviews, Stock Photo, Travel, Wildlife , Costa Rica, Photography, Stock Photo, Travel, Wildlife

http://walkthewilderness.net Thomas

It would have been absolutely thrilling experience to see these monkeys while having breakfast. WOW
http://www.rwongphoto.com/blog Richard Wong

Quite a site Jim. You must have seen a lot of monkeys if you had the presence of mind to shoot contextual photos.
http://www.jmg-galleries.com Jim

Thanks Thomas and Richard. The monkeys definitely had some attitude LOL. It certainly made for an interesting meal. There were plenty of monkeys to be seen in Costa Rica, but this was the closest encounter with a window. We had another encounter with a troup of Spider Monkeys raiding a fig tree. Once they caught wind of us being there the went into an aggressive mode (ie urinate on us) to scare us off. Luckily for us we dodged that bullet no worse for the wear.