The next jump was to Puerto Jimenez, Costa Rica. Costa Rica has been changing from an economy run by coffee and bananas to one funded by eco tourism. They have set aside many areas of the country as national parks and turned them into tourist destinations. Costa Rican jungles have the densest population of species of just about anywhere. The numbers of birds and monkeys is incredible.
Because of the curve in Central America, I was off the coast the whole way down. As I approached the coast of Costa Rica, the clouds started building up. By the time I got to Puerto Jimenez the ground was socked in. I switched on the airport weather frequency and the ceiling was 1,000 feet. That is plenty for instrument approaches but not VFR. Quickly, I considered going to my alternate airport up in the highlands and away from the coastal fog. But 1,000 feet is my personal minimum in this plane so I felt okay. I called the tower and asked for an ILS approach. I dug out my book that had approach procedures for all the airports I knew I might use.
The tower gave me a squawk and put me on the ILS approach. It was a standard ILS approach and as I came down through 5,000 feet I went into the clouds. Unless you are used to it, flying in the clouds is disorienting. It is something I don’t practice enough to tell the truth. There just isn’t enough bad weather in California that isn't too bad for practice. I felt myself clenching up so I started doing breath exercises to relax. I kept flying the instruments, watching the needles to keep them centered. This part of flying is exactly like a computer game, all you can do is keep the gauges where they belong and hope they are right. The trouble is if you miss on a computer you get to try again. If you miss in a plane you don’t get another chance, ever.
As the altimeter hit 1,000 feet, the clouds broke up and I came out of the clouds lined up perfectly with the runway and a mile and a half out. I had to add a little power to reach the runway and power off the last few feet, flare, and touch down in a perfect three point landing.
After my landing and check in, the hotel shuttle took me to the local park. I should have gotten a guide I guess, but I wasn’t interested in anything except the monkeys. I didn’t need the grand tour. I wandered in for a mile or so until I heard the Howlers. I sat down and waited. Soon, they were foraging above me. Howler monkeys are unusual for primates in that they eat leaves. Leaves are a poor source of energy. Animals that eat only leaves usually have very elaborate digestive systems, like cows do, so that they can extract every bit of useful food value. Howlers have to eat all day long and don’t expend a lot of energy because of their calorie poor diets. Most primates eat fruits and insects for the protein as well as an occasional leaf. That high quality protein from insects or invertebrates is essential to most primates.
There has been an argument for years as to when and why human brains started to grow large. The early hominids had brains no bigger than a chimp. One argument was that the brain got big then we started to walk because that freed the hands and the use of the hands forced the brain to develop. That is all very Lamarckian which should have made people wonder. But the fossils now show hominids walking well before the brain developed. Ardipithicus ramidus kadabba walked on two feet 5.2 million years ago but still had the brain of a chimp. Australopithecus Sediba, half ape - half man, has human hands but an ape size brain. It wasn't a free hand that caused the brain to develop. What the archeologists have found was that the brain began to get big after the early hominids diet changed and they started eating large amounts of meat.
A brain needs a lot of high quality protein and energy. A big brain needs even more. Once our ancestors starting eating more meat, the protein and energy was available to support a big brain. We got smart once we started eating meat. Vegetarianism is a decadent sign of civilized man’s disconnect from nature. Vegetarians in Nature are dumb prey with big complex stomachs. I don’t need to make the obvious commentary that goes with this. If you eat meat you should be smart enough to figure this out and if you are vegan, well, too bad: next time I’ll use really small words. I will just comment that scientists have now looked at vegans and found that the low quality foods they eat does cause shrinkage of the brain, like that isn’t obvious. With the PETA honchos being vegans, their political antics make sense. It is the only way their shrunken brain idiocy makes sense.
Pretty soon, I noticed capuchin monkeys coming down from the trees. I sat still and they came down to the ground. They watched me for a few minutes, then came across the ground and right up to me. I was surprised to see wild animals come right up like that. I found out later at the hotel they were looking for hand outs or to steal any food I might have. Tourists frequently have granola or such and the capuchins of the parks have become adept at liberating the tourist’s snacks. Monkeys are a lot safer than the bears people have attracted in Yellowstone with their food handouts.
Watching the monkeys, I was struck by how human they seemed to act. I had to laugh at myself since that anthropomorphism, they are human like, is completely backward. I’m sure the monkeys tell each other, those strange big ones sure act a lot like monkeys, don’t they? The truth is we act like humans and they act like monkeys, but because we are so close to each other, genetically and behaviorally, we seem alike. What we should be saying is, funny how we both act like primates. That would be accurate.
It is interesting to me how initially scientists classified primates. Basically the more human the ‘higher’ they were: prosimians, simians, apes, great apes and at the top, humans had their own little genus, homo. But that will change one of these days once we get past the religious prejudice of us being different and special and Godlike and admit how close we are to other primates. Genetic studies have found that we share 98.7% of our genome with the Bonobo and the chimpanzee. That close is almost brothers in the animal world. We and the Bonobo should be in the same Genus rather than different ones.
It is amazing how genetic studies are changing the world around us and most people don’t even know it. The National Geographic’s genome project has found that all humans came from the same little place in Africa and we are all cousins. Wait till those crackers in Alabama have to face the fact they are just pale skinned Africans and cousins to the black folk they hate. Even better, what about the LDS church whose theology excludes Africans as descendants of Cain? What do they do when they find out that all their good white American bishops are Africans and therefore descendents of Cain by their theology? Who’s going to be left to be the bishops? I guess God will just give them another revelation like He did when the LDS church wanted Utah to be a state and Congress wouldn’t admit them with multiple wives and God changed his mind about plural marriages. It is of great theological interest that Congress is so powerful it could get the Mormon God to change his mind. The nonsense people are willing to believe.
Even better is that all the genetic work on offspring is finding out how little monogamy there is in the animal kingdom and human society. You can lie to a spouse but you can’t lie to a genetic test. If testing ever becomes widespread, it is going to be interesting finding out how many kids who don’t look alike don’t take after their father, they take after the postman.
Pretty soon the capuchins wandered off I’m sure disappointed that this funny looking monkey didn’t have anything good to eat. I went back to the main gate where the shuttle was waiting for me. I tipped the driver for waiting and off we went to the hotel.
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Copyright Rod O'Steele © 2011