Dockside Digs and Monkeying Around

So, I moved.  Hmm… not as great as I’d hoped.

The new flat is located in a big white building on the main plaza of Punta across from the dock and right next to the Post Office. It isn’t on the second floor as I’d been told nor does it have a balcony, but rather it is first floor, with a fenced in outdoor entry area. It isn’t exactly the type of place you’d set up a chair and read outside. The front of the apartment area is kind of noisy as it sits beneath the landlord’s (and his extended family’s) apartment, and they like to sit outside on their balcony, drink beer and talk loudly in Spanish late into the evening, every evening. Across the street is also a bar that plays loud Salsa music until late every night Thursday to Sunday. Perhaps this will help me learn Spanish, though. Heh. 

The apartment itself is smaller, cheaper, and faaaar dirtier than the other place. Unlike the other house, which was pretty much in move-in condition aside from the atrocious plumbing situation, this place had been shut up for quite some time before I was to move-in. They only opened it up a few hours before I was to move-in, and the landlord didn’t get much of a chance to clean. You do the math.

As a result, I spent most of my Sunday and Monday nights scrubbing and cleaning things. I arrived at the flat with only a quarter bottle of bleach and a roll or two of paper towels, and I assure you, it went quickly. What with dusting every surface, bleaching the shower floor, toilet bowl, kitchen and bathroom sinks, laying down paper towel over any essentially uncleanable surface (inside cabinets, top of fridge, inside drawers, etc.), and so on, I was pretty knackered. I managed to make the place livable by evening and with a few more nights of cleaning, I think I should be OK. The place needs a broom, actual gas in the stove so I can cook, and new screens and outlets, but who am I kidding? It is Puerto Rico. It will do just fine. Nevertheless, I triple sheeted my mattress and pillow.  That is one place where unclean is unacceptable.

*Note: There are some happy things about the new place: a crazy mural on my living room wall, a shorter walk to the dock and the Panaderia, warm shower water, and no leaking ceilings. Also the landlord is very interesting: late 70s, extremely frail and still wearing sweaters and pants from the 50s, with a nostalgic passion for NYC rooted in memories of his own early years living on Fulton St. and in Little Italy. We bonded. He tried to set me up with his nephew, who lives in Brooklyn. No joke.*

On another unfortunate note, my right foot is swollen with fire ant bites. There are hidden mounds all over the place, and as I was moving out Sunday, I managed to step in one and get my right foot covered in bites. By this afternoon, the bites were pretty epic. I removed my sock and bam: big, juicy, blistery looking swollen bites all over my second and third right foot toes. I slathered them in hydrocortisone and Neosporin, but my toes still swelled up and look ridiculous.  I hope that by tomorrow the swelling will have gone down. I don’t know how fun it will be to hike around with weeping wounds on my foot. Ew.

Now on to the fun stuff: it rained a lot this past weekend, and this is great. Why, you ask? Well, when it rains a lot, the lowland areas around the feeding corrals on Cayo fill with water and in large quantities. This means… PRIMATE POOL PARTY!!!!  Yup, you read that right. J As soon as it clears up and heats up, the baby monkeys use the giant rain water lakes as pools and the nearby palm trees and bushes as water slides and high jumps.

Imagine yourself standing by a huge pool of water. Adult monkeys are collecting around the edges bending and drinking water, wetting monkey chow to soften it, splashing bits of water around to clean the surface. Then suddenly, FLYING BABY MONKEY *SPLASH!* FLAILING BABY ARMS AND LEGS *SPLOOSH!* BABY MONKEY CANNONBALL *SPELUNK!* Then tons of scurrying and splashing as the babies and juveniles hurry back up to the top of their bush or palm tree and reset. This is literally how it goes… for hours. They are like little human children in that regard. They do belly flops, cannonballs (The actually grasp their feet and tuck in.), and launch themselves off higher and higher branches until they chicken out. I’ve even seen a few juveniles push another juvenile off his branch into the water. I had to stop myself from doing a voiceover. (“Marlon’s a scaredycat! Nyah nyah nyah nyah!!”) 

Anyway, you can imagine how enjoyable this is to watch. It more than makes up for the fact that days on Cayo after it has rained are not terribly fun. We are wet. Our shoes are muddy and gross. The monkeys are more difficult to follow because of the new, soaking obstacles, wet grass, and so forth, but primate pool time is uplifting and heartwarming. J

Ok. I’m off to go clean up a little more and then sleep.

Remember: leave comments! I need to know what you want to hear about and who is out there reading.

Much love,

B