We are a little surprised that the howler monkeys are still around...  they spent the morning lounging and nibbling leaves.  One came over to check out our bedroom patio, leaving behind a nasty momento and greatly ruffling the dog's composure, but otherwise innocuous.

Eventually we cruised next door to watch from our neighbor's better vantage point and had a great time inventing stories to describe the troop's behavior.   Of the 13 monkeys, we think that we identified the alpha male- other than his absurdly large and dangly bits, we also figured that his general attitude could only be described as "in charge".  There is an infant that was being cared for by what we think is an "aunt", because one of the other females looks much more like a nursing mother with a still-distended belly that could be from a recent birth.

When the "aunt" tried to hand the baby over to the female that we think is the mother, "mom" scurried away and went back to sleep, covering her bosom.   Her actions left us wondering what could be going on.

There was a minor tussle at one point, with one monkey walking up to another who was feeding and giving her a good verbal dressing-down.  The 'victim' ran off to a third monkey, who then went over to the first monkey and told her off.  In the mean time a male moved in between the first two and sat there scratching his butt, perhaps to say "Hey, you two.... settle down."  At least that is how we imagined the conversation to have gone.

Perhaps the most notable part was that a single male was sitting lower and apart from everyone else, once in a while the two other males would hoot and grunt in his general direction, at which point he would look away with what we imagined was a very sad look on his face.  We think that maybe he was either getting cut out of the troop or perhaps just failing to join.  Hard to tell.  As the day wore on he was further from the rest and around midday he seemed to have left to go off on his own.  Such drama.

Labels: Costa Rica, dog, garden, photo, tamarindo

Right around sunset we were doing some yardwork when a troop of about 9 Howler Monkeys cruised through out neighbor's yard, onto our fence (just about eye level, less than 3 feet away from us) then up into the neighbor's trees for a nice snack of tasty fresh leaves.

It amazes me that after nearly ten years of watching those beasties, I'm still totally fascinated by them.  They are just so amazingly....  primate.  How people can possibly persist in the disbelief of evolution, confronted with the intelligent stare of a monkey, is beyond me.   But that's another discussion.

Back to the antics of the Howlers.  They strolled through the trees, working their way to or back yard, munching on fresh bugs and blossoms while grunting and squeeking at each other.

We had made plans to have a small bonfire in the back yard and I worried a little that the fire/smoke would bother them, but it didn't seem to do so as at least one was in a tree almost directly overhead throughout the evening.

We watched a spectacular moonrise as little puffy clouds organized themselves into what looked like ripples on the sand at the beach.

This morning my love of the Howlers waned as their guttural screams greeted the first rays of dawn.  If you've never been awakened by a large howler monkey less than 10 feet from your window, I won't be able to describe for you the mix of terror and annoyance that you feel as your heart rate slows and your sluggish pre-dawn brain remembers that "It's just a monkey". 

And so we start another week...

Labels: monkey, photo, tamarindo, weather

One problem with the factory temperature gauge on most modern Land Cruisers is that it has a "dead spot" in the middle.  While the motor is anywhere from about 185 to 225 the factory gauge sits exactly in the center of its sweep.   That isn't specific enough for my preference.

One of folks on ih8mud.com has taken the time to figure out how to make the gauge indicate a better range- by changing some resistors.  I'm going to try to duplicate his efforts...  we'll see if I succeed or if I need to buy another gauge.  It'll be one of the other, I imagine.

These are some before pictures:  In taking the gauge apart, I also realized why my oil pressure gauge doesn't work.  It seems to have burned out at some point, probably because of bad grounding on the motor swap.  I'm going to try to repair it as well, can't break it any worse than "not working".  I'm not sure yet, but I wonder if the bent portion in the photo below, with the white wire wrapped around it,  is supposed to be straight.  If so, then something went horribly wrong at some point.

---

Update: Wow, it didn't take much time to de-solder the two bits (a zener diode and a resistor) and re-solder on two resistors. The new parts look about like two dark grey sausage-shaped things. Here are some pics of the finished product.  The first picture is before I trimmed the "legs" on the resistor.  The 2nd picture is the final version.

I look forward to assembling it tomorrow to see if it actually reacts to temperature changes now!

Labels: land cruiser, photo, repair

For many days now Jocelyn has wanted a day trip to Marbella Beach.  Playa Frijolar, to be more precise, named for the gravelly beach that looks like a pile of beans in some spots.  An apt name.

I've been reluctant because I've spent a lot of time on the road recently and didn't particularly want to be in the car on a Sunday unless we were going somewhere new and thrilling, or particularly difficult to reach which involves a reasonably high chance of getting stuck.

Regardless, her feminine wiles overcame my masculine stubborn-ness and so to Marbella we went!

The key to the story is the simplicity.  We drove south for a while (40 minutes or so).  Stopped to snap some photos of my favorite windmill (which I never photograph despite tremendous being tremendously photogenic).  Then proceeded to a beautiful beach with very few other people.  We bathed.  We snacked.  We enjoyed a cold beer.  We strolled.  We read.  We harvested some driftwood.

The breeze was onshore and cooling, the water crystalline.  

We drove home mellow and sunkissed, stopping for another photo or two.

Turns out that Jocelyn was right, it was a great way to spend a Sunday.

Better-than-typical gravel road, Guanacaste	Beach, Wife, Dog. Happines	Goats!! We always yell "Goats!" when we see them, for some reason.	The roads are already dry and dusty, I predict a dry summer.

Labels: beach, Costa Rica, day trip, dog, photo, weather

While Nicolas was here (see last week), one of the things that we did was to install an electric temperature gauge so that he could have some sense of the actual temp of his coolant vs. the stock gauge that basically says "ok" or "about to boil over" with not much info in between.

There are many options as to where to put the probe in such a setup, we chose to take an easy route that may or may not stand the test of time.  I post some photos here for others who are keeping track and to open the door to "I told you so" later.  Either giving or receiving (hopefully me giving). 

Installing the probe was darn easy:  the plastic top of the radiator is a thick section of high-quality resin that drilled nicely and was stiff enough for a 1/8" NPT tap to get a good bite.  The thickness is about 1/4" in this area, and not too rounded.  In all I estimate that we had 4 or 5 threads in radiator into which the probe could get a good hold.

Because the probe relies on a ground path through the probe housing, we added a washer and a short wire to a nut on the upper radiator support, the ground wire has a blue shrink-wrap cover.  The top wire goes to the gauge.   The wiring tucked neatly into the corrugated wire sheath as seen, and in general was a clean installation.

To prevent getting plastic bits in the coolant, we detached the top hose and stuck a bent soup spoon into the radiator.  It caught a large amount of plastic from the drilling and tapping.

To help prevent future leaks, we dabbed some silicone sealant onto the threads of the probe.  Normally that's a bad idea- because the probe grounds itself through those threads, but in this case it should help seal and keep the probe from moving against the threads and potentially stripping them (brass is much harder than plastic, after all).

We were worried at the height of the probe, but the radiator sits pretty far back under the bulge of the hood, so there is no contact with the heat-insulation and no need to fret.

Labels: expedition, land cruiser, repair