Ometepe, Nicaragua

"I spent the last few days hiking through a cloud forest on a dormant volcano on an island within a giant lake inside beautiful Nicaragua. The trail got muddier and muddier as I ascended, until I was sloshing up to my shins in milk-chocolatey mud. Whether I looked more like I survived a fudge factory explosion or more like the losing contestant of a mudwrestlin' match, I stumbled into a face to face encounter with a rare black howler monkey. Since I had learned how to speak some howler monkey in Belize, the formidable male and I were able to have a brief conversation about territory."