Rainsong 5: Tarzan and Bullet Ants

Trip Start May 10, 2010

Trip End Jun 16, 2010

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Flag of Costa Rica Cabuya, Province of Puntarenas, Costa Rica
Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Forgot to mention my monkey attack. Our three legged cappuchin monkey, Tarzan, likes to go for these baby red river turtles here which happen to be Costa Ricas most endangered terrestrial turtle. He likes to take them and hide them in a hole in this tree. Well, with the new volunteers not getting information passed down to them they had Tarzan out while I was cleaning the turtle tubs and suddenly he was right next to me. I made a quick movement of putting the lid onto the tub with all the turtles in it and he shoved it off so I put it back on and quickly put a cinder block over it. When he figured out he couldnt shove it off for the turtles, he gave me one look like "Oh. Its on." and then jumped on me and attacked me. I was bleeding on my fingertip, on my thigh and on my achilles heel. I still have 2 scars from these monkey bites, though they make for great stories!

Also, Mary taught us how to partake in a healing meditation when we received the electrocuted monkey twins

Rainsong

. We sat in a circle on logs on her property and had this healing meditation. Suddenly a huge ant was down my shirt! Nobody saw this except Sherri who was sitting next to me and heard me gasp. I tried crushing it with the fabric of my shirt but it bit me. IT. HURT! And while trying to find it again it bit me again on my chest! OWWWWWWWWWW another one fell from a vine above me and bit my hand. My body felt like it was on fire, like I had been shot. I actually lost my breath and had to focus to regulate it. I couldnt really say anything since I was regulating my breathe and I couldnt feel my chest or hand! Mary let me go back a few hours later and my body was still on fire! I googled large ants in Costa Rica and the symptoms and discovered it was a bullet ant!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Which according to google, is the worlds most painful insect to get bitten by. I painfully agree. One site even warned me I could have gone into shock if bitten more than 5 times with my body weight being what it is and that would have sucked being that the hospital that could actually help would be in San Jose, nearly 5 hours away! Needless to say I did NOT partake in anymore healing meditations.

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