When it came down to the last few days before we left I did start to get more curious. I had absolutely no idea where we were going. I knew we had to take a plane there and then drive another hour before we go to our final destination. She told me that even when we land I would still have no idea where we were going.

The day finally came and we woke up early on May 8th to go to the airport. My girlfriend had packed my bag for me and gotten us a car service to take us to the airport. Once we arrived I knew I would finally get to know where we were going. We walked up to the check in counter and immediately the gentleman behind the counter looked at me and asked me where we were going. I gave him a blank stare for a second and then referred him to my girlfriend. She then finally said “Cancun”. This whole time I thought the guy was going to get suspicious. I had no idea where we were going and I didn’t pack my own bags. I thought this was going to end up on “Locked up abroad” with 20 pounds of cocaine in my luggage.

I’ve never been to Cancun before and was looking forward to some nice weather and relaxation. As I thought about it more I remembered that Cancun was where we were flying too, not where we were ending up.

After about a 4 hour flight we finally landed in Cancun. We grabbed our luggage and headed to the rental car place. We got our car and headed on our way. It was a little frustrating not knowing exactly where I was going at first. I was in a foreign country that didn’t speak English, and I didn’t know all the rules to the road. My girlfriend though had all the directions and information we needed. She made sure she gave it to me on a need to know basis.

I became comfortable with the driving after a while. There were two quirks about driving in Mexico that I didn’t quite get a handle on.

1. There are speed bumps everywhere. I’m still not sure why there are so many speed bumps. They are in at intersections and in the middle of the highway. With all these speed bumps everywhere you would think people would drive more carefully…

2. People pass you constantly. It doesn’t matter how fast you are going, someone is going to pass you on a two lane highway. I was amazed as people would pass me and anyone else in front of them as if it were nothing. They would swerve over into oncoming traffic, floor it and pass the person.

Anyway, back to the vacation… We drove down the highway for a good 50 minutes or so. We finally decided to stop for lunch at a nice little restaurant by the beach. It was called Turtle Bay and the food was great. We sat and relaxed a bit and then it was off again to our final destination.

We drove for another 10 minutes or so and it was time to turn off the highway. We drove through a small town. It was small and a bit intimidating as I felt out of place driving through. Before I knew it we were on a white “dirt road” (I’m still not sure what the road was made of, but it looked to be made of crushed coral or limestone). At this point I still couldn’t figure out where the hell we were going. We continued along this dirt road and into the jungle. We were completely surrounded by Mexico’s wild with only a few strange driveways leading into the jungle along the way. After about 10 minutes of slowly going along this road, my girlfriend read off the rest of the instructions and we found the entrance to where we were going. We pulled up to the driveway and I read the sign “The Jungle Place - Kuchi Kaak”, I was still confused. My girlfriend just looked over at me and giggled.

I pulled in slowly going down a very narrow and bumpy dirt road. We passed through the gates and saw a few small bungalow’s on the side of the drive way, finally we pulled up to the main area and saw the main house. I looked around and saw that there were several larger bungalows. I thought, “Wow, we’re probably staying at a nice private resort without all the tourists around” I was right in a sense.

As I pulled up to the main house a gentleman came out and asked if we were Laurie and Ted. I rolled down my window and said yes. He then asked us to pull around to another bungalow and park there. As I pulled in to park that’s when I noticed it. Off the main house there was a very large cage. In that cage were MONKEY”S. I couldn’t believe it. I was still perplexed as to what we were doing here. I got out of the car and Joel introduced himself to us. He said that we should unpack the car into our bungalow and meet him up at his bungalow to talk and meet his wife. I looked at my girlfriend and it complete amazement. She then proceeded to tell me that we were going to be staying at a Spider Monkey reserve. All I could think was Wow! What a great idea!

We unpacked the car and went up to the porch to speak with Joel and Heidi. Joel spoke to us about the reserve and what it is all about. They take in orphaned or injured Spider Monkeys and nurse them back to health. They also take in Toucan’s that need help. After sitting for a while and discussing the monkeys and different things to do in the area he suggested we go to the market and pickup food for the week. We needed to fend for ourselves while we were here.

We drove down to the supermarket which was about 20 minutes down the road and picked up the essentials. I thought it was going to be tough seeing as we spoke very little Spanish. I was pleasantly surprised by how helpful everyone and nice everyone was. We got our food and plenty of beer and headed back to The Jungle Place.

Once we got back we decided to unpack our stuff and get ourselves settled in. The room was
beautiful. They bungalow we stayed in had a full kitchen, bathroom, living room, dining room, bedroom and porch with a very comfortable hammock. We were able to cook ourselves nice meals and keep our beer nice and cold. The rooms had air conditioning but we ended up not using it at all. We found that at night there was a nice breeze that went through the room that kept us comfortable.

The Monkeys

The next day we went back up to the main bungalow where Joel and Heidi stayed and sat upstairs with Joel and talked about the trip and more about the Monkey’s. He asked us if we wanted to go in and hang out with the monkeys and of course I said YES!

The Monkeys live in a giant cage that stretches from the bungalow to the back of the property. It gives them enough space to run around and swing. There are actually two cages there, one for the females and one for the males. The males have to be separated as they can become very violent and can seriously hurt someone if they wanted to. Joel showed off some of his war wounds from some of them. The females lived in a cage right off the upper deck of the bungalow. There was a door on this level to enter the cage. That’s where we went in.

The spider Monkeys were great. My girlfriend went in first while I took pictures. They absolutely loved her. They hung in her like jungle gym checking her out. She sat on the ground and they continued to play and jump all around. They were adorable. All of them were very gentle and enjoyed the company.

Next was my turn. As soon as I entered the cage I think I had about 4 monkeys climbing all over me. One particular monkey “Ichelle” decided that I was her new boyfriend for the week. She clung onto me almost the entire time I was in the cage with them. If anyone else came around and tried to get my attention a little scuffle would take place and she would make the competition run off.

We visited the monkeys every day and got to hand out with them on numerous occasions. We went into the cages with them several times and also helped feed them a few times. They were really amazing to be with.

Rebecca

Rebecca was a recent rescue for the jungle place. She lived in a cage by herself just below the other females. The reason she was separate was because she had not been to the doctors yet and needed a full checkup before interacting heavily with everyone else. She looked a bit scared and was very curious to her new surroundings that she didn’t eat much. She was skinnier than everyone else. Joel and Heidi worked with her each day to try to get her to eat as much as possible so that she could start feeling better and become part of the family.

You can see the other things we did while in Mexico by looking at our pictures here and here.

You can visit the official Jungle Place website here: http://www.thejungleplace.com

You can also go here to learn more about The Jungle Place.

http://www.locogringo.com/akumal/jungleplace.html?name=The%20Jungle%20Place

The Patriot bar is a nice seedy bar that attracts just about any booze hound that’s in the general area. Usually when you first walk in the bar there are a few people hunched over their drinks listening to the blaring country music on the jukebox. The smell is tolerable and the crazy crap on the wall, such as alligators, bras, hats, license plates…etc, keeps you entertained. It’s usually not one of my first choices of bars in the city, but I’ve been there enough times to grow accustomed to it. Plus it’s close enough to the PATH train for an easy get away back to Jersey!

My co-worker and I got there pretty early and started drinking. Once my GF showed up we decided to go introduce ourselves to the rest of the Farkers. Everyone was absolutely great. If you know anything about Farkers, it’s that most of them are pretty funny people. We ended up talking to everyone there and having a great time. I was able to get a lot of pictures but I can’t remember a name for the life of me. I’m sure once the hangover clears up I’ll be able to pull some from memory.

Besides it being a great time there was an added bonus! Mike Rowe from “Dirty Jobs” was upstairs. A fellow Farker had spotted him and told us that he was up there. I immediately grabbed my camera and went up there. My GF came with me, but unfortunately she got a little star struck and ended up going back downstairs as soon as she saw him. I went up to him and asked for a picture and shook his hand. He was very nice and even let me get a few more pictures in when I was able to get my GF back upstairs to meet him. We were both estactic to meet him and he turned out to be a really nice guy. Thanks again Mike for the pictures!

After the pictures we went back and joined the Fark party again and threw back way to many beers. Then probably around 10:30 we decided to go home. It was a great night and we met a lot of new friends. We can’t wait to do it again!

**update**

Here are the rest of the pictures from that night.