Sunny days!

That's right. I hope I'm not jinxing myself by saying that today is the first afternoon it hasn't rained, I mean poured. As I type this I am sitting by the pool under an umbrella enjoying the afternoon. Some folks went on an ATV excursion and some went sea kayaking. I would have done that but after my hydration issues yesterday i thought it was good idea to chill out today by the pool. 

This morning we were out by 7am for a boat ride thru the Damas Island Estuary. However, b/c we were up so early we were treated to some squirrel monkeys out early in the trees around our hotel.  

Once on the boat we saw A lot of wildlife on the ride:

Great blue herons
White ibis
Rosette spoonbills
Snowy egrets
Grey egrets
Tiger face crabs
Silky anteater
Lesser white-lined bat
Green-backed heron
Yellow and orange breasted tiger herons

The Damas Island is made up of different variations of mangrove trees (red, black, pineapple, etc). The roots of the trees and how they grow were fascinating.  It was so relaxing just cruising thru the canals. 

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So, I said earlier that it was a beautiful afternoon but that changed a few hours after I lasted started writing. The plan had been to go to the Anaconda Bar for monkey happy hour around 4pm. At that time there's a ton of monkeys swinging by on their way home for the day. Well, I did jinx us. It started to rain about an hour before we left. We figured it would stop after an hour or so.

It didn't. 

In fact, it was the most insane downpour I've seen in a long time. At first it looked like it was going to let up but then the skies just opened up for the next four hours like it hadn't rained in a year. It was almost like a hurricane rain w/o the wind. As much as I wanted to see all the monkeys, seeing a true rainforest deluge was pretty damn cool! 

I got some great shots and movies from the rain. When I get home I'll upload a video of the storm.