We hear a great howl. A roar, almost a cough. An echoing with the intensity of George Lucas' ti-fighter screech. Vance gave me this look.

"Big cats," he said.

"Wild pigs," I replied.

"Jaguar," he said.

"Does a jaguar roar?" I said, "I think it's the wild pigs."

The roar becomes louder. And finally we can determine this the howl of the howler monkey. The giant Ceiba tree on the other side of the river is filled with a small troop. A monkey family, one baby. They just kind of sit there, chewing leaves, occasionally looking down at us.

"Is this the answer to life, to sit around and eat and sleep?" Vance asks.

I look at his back. Holy Jesus Lizard.

The guy's back is bleeding. Better him than me. I can see the botfly's sucking his blood. I can see the blood dripping down his back, the incisions. The monkeys howl some more. Actually, they are not going to stop until morning. "I am not sure about your whole idea that the answer is internal.

What about Tom Hanks in Castaway? His isolation was meaningless. The only thing that mattered was the people in his life. Right?" I answered, "So what if life isn't about serving the greater good. What if it is just serving your closest family and friends, of doing your best to make your woman happy, and to protect your family? To work hard for what you want."

"I guess you don't really need anything more than that. Right? I mean, its almost like you are doing good deeds, but on a manageable scale. How often are humanitarians bad family folks?"

Night comes, and the conversation turns to this, "what if Winsley decides not to pick us up?"

"That would be bad," I said.

"We could make it back."

"Swim...?...We don't have enough food," I said. "It'll all be bad by tomorrow."
"Actually," Vance said, "we have enough for a week."

I didn't consider canned beans and four bottles of Belizean habanero sauce to be food.

"But water?"

"Yeah, that's a problem."

I guess that is the point where things come into place, as perhaps it did for us. Vance says the next morning, "You know, I expected Monkey River Town to be this hopeless place. I imagined a dying town. It's the opposite. These are the people that hung on. They stayed. They are rebuilding their town. The smell of raw cement, I thought. "Life is holding on, not stopping, working for what you want, making it happen, despite the barriers," Vance said, "like the people who stayed here in Monkey River Town to rebuild their dream."

Maps and Journals Central America Map Belize Map Belize Moleskine Journal

Isthmus The Kuna Islands Exploring the Kuna Indians island existence and their Caribbean settlement of Panama. The Kuna Coast Continuing from the Kuna Islands, follow us as we dish up the modern history of the Kuna people. Monkey River Town Follow us on a journey up the Monkey River Old Highways of Peten From Belize into the jungles of Northern Guatemala, we travel with redheaded triplets who insist our theories about the Mayan past are all wrong. From San Jose to Ocotal By car to the Pacific Coast of Costa Rica. The Howling Coast From the isolated Pacific Coast of Nicaragua to its bustling center, we find a country ready for something it doesn't quite understand, and we find monkeys. Granada Libre Nicaragua from its tourism mecca, and the choices it faces as it enters a brave new world. Jungle in the Sky A walk in the Nicaraguan volcanic cloud forest of Mombacho with an odd cast of characters and a quick look at the past 65 million years.