Warning. This post contains photos of monkeys. Super cute ones at that. Consider yourself warned.

Nate and I weren’t super adventurous travelers in Costa Rica. Weak, I know. We were more into getting a little R&R on this vacation. We did go on a half day “Jungle River Cruise.” It was a totally good use of our time.

The excursion included an hour bus ride. The tour guide filled us in on some local Costa Rican info. Home prices, flooding, festivals. The good stuff.

We stopped and had a photo op at this tree. Some type of fig tree. I’m bad at paying attention…unless there were monkeys involved. (The tour guide obviously needs to improve his photo taking skills…or crocodiles got our feet. I’ll let you decide.)

Across from the giant tree was a sugar cane field. This is what most of the hour long bus ride looked like. I didn’t complain!

We then boarded a covered boat on the Tempisque river.

A good blogger would have a picture of the boat. A good blogger wouldn’t rely on her husband to take photos. A good blogger’s husband, however, should keep her blog posts in mind. So just envision a small covered boat, mkay? We were told to keep all body parts in the boat. The river was supposedly full of crocodiles. I was picturing them circling the boat. That never happened but I wasn’t really into proving points that day so I kept all body parts well within safe limits.

The blogger’s husband did get some great animal shots though so we’ll forgive him for the lack of boat photo, mkay? I don’t remember the names of any of the following other than bird or iguana or crocodile. I really only paid attention to the monkey talk.

I’m still not sure this crocodile was real. I think it was a prop. Again, I wasn’t into proving points that day so I let it be and played along. (Crocodiles open their mouths like this to let heat escape. I did listen…a little.)

And now what you have all been waiting for…..monkeys!!

We saw two types of monkeys while in Costa Rica. The first type was the Howler monkey. They are big ol’ lazy monkeys that hang out in one spot and protect their territory. They have the coolest howl.

The second type of monkey we saw were the White-faced Capuchin monkeys. The tour guide whistled as we floated down the river and before long, monkeys were on our boat. Hanging out. Wanting banana.

Nate is smarter than I am. He was a little startled at a wild animal crawling all over him. He thought at one point the monkey’s tail was trying to choke him. An assassin monkey.

We were instructed to only give them tiny amounts of banana. The monkeys obviously know the tour boats and know there is food involved. The people of Costa Rica, obviously, don’t want the monkeys to become reliant on tourists for their food. Once the banana was gone, the monkeys were gone.