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Articles By Jack Ewing
Founder / Owner of Hacienda Baru

Dominical Costa Rica

"Monkeys Are Made of Chocolate"
a book review

Author: Jack Ewing
240 pages, soft cover, 16 pages of color photos
Published by: Jack Ewing
Forward by: Daniel Quinn (Read the forward)
Cover art by: Jan Betts
Reviewed by: Ben Vaughn of Dominical.Biz

   I must confess to a slight bias in reviewing "Monkeys Are Made Of Chocolate". I have lived in Costa Rica since 1999. Years of an ever growing storehouse of questions and unsatisfied curiosity about this wild, weird & wonderful country. I felt a tremendous satisfaction as one after another, a good number of my questions that I had accumulated over the years were answered in my reading of Monkey's are Made of Chocolate. "Monkeys Are Made Of Chocolate" is educational and informative, and it is funny and delightful. Its thirty short stories will grab and keep the attention of anyone that has the slightest interest in things pertaining to nature, or man's place on this planet. I found Jack Ewing's writing style to be authoritative, pragmatic, and fun.
   Mr. Ewing quite unapologetically writes of topics that one might not otherwise find available in published literature. I wonder sometimes even if some of the leading nature publications might be a bit prudish on some topics due to the force of what is politically correct in modern society. "Monkeys Are Made Of Chocolate" has a refreshing candor to it.
   There is the example of the sloth mother whose baby had fallen unharmed to the forest floor. When someone tried to return the baby to her, she was uninterested and would not take it back. The author guides us along ignoring the revulsion that the reader must now feel toward sloth mothers and clearly instructs the reader how such attitudes guarantee a prosperous future for the species. From this vantage he brings us back around to looking at ourselves and the place that we occupy on this planet.
   There are the Chaperos, machete guys, working in the fields chopping weeds with their machetes. The author classifies them as the true experts on the poisonous snakes of Costa Rica. He details how on one occasion, they had to sever the head of a nine foot Terciopelo (Fer de Lance) and then turn around and do in its partner the same way. Certainly not wanton killing, but a chronicle of what at times are unavoidable unpleasantries in the brush of the rain forest. I was repulsed and fascinated to read how sometime later on, one of the severed heads attempted to bite a curious horse's snout that sniffed too close.
    I enjoyed the observation of one biologist visitor to Hacienda Baru National Wildlife Preserve, with reference to Costa Rica's poisonous snakes: "I leave them alone, and they leave me alone". The account relates how after having been bit, the fellow's outlook had changed some. He said that he discovered that the snakes didn't keep their end of the deal. Lofty sounding ideals run up against the harsh realities of the rain forest.
   This is not to say that that book is all about snake bites and killing snakes, because it is not. In fact the author states that the Chaperos prefer to avoid killing snakes and only do it when they have no other alternative, and that he had worked at a "ranch for six years, and even though (they) had over 70 employees, nobody was bitten by a snake during that time." It is to say that the book is quite real.
   The author repeatedly uses our "superiority" as a spring board into comparisons of our intellectual brilliance to the solid, unwavering wisdom that is seen in the design of life. "With a really big brain, and an opposing thumb, our destiny is to dominate nature, control it, and bend it to serve our own needs". (pg. 51) Outlining the war against malaria, a glaring example of man bringing the full force of his superior intellect against the "problem" of nature. We read about the lowly mosquito and the Plasmodium parasite that the mosquitos carry that are the harbingers of malaria. The result:

We created a super mosquito & super Plasmodium that can drink DDT
We weakened the natural defenses of humans in malaria infested regions.
We contaminated our own environment with dangerous chemicals.

"Home sapiens won almost every battle, but Anopheles (the mosquito) won the war".
(pg. 52)
   So now what? Yet another treatise on hopelessness & the vanity of man in his struggle against the elements? Not so. Mr. Ewing establishes clearly that to work with the systems of life is quite do-able. He calculates the land mass necessary to sustain a viable carnivore population: "we have come to appreciate the crucial function carried out by animals that kill other animals" (pg. 57) An animal must acquire a calorie by expending less than a calorie. Otherwise it will weaken and die. So there are some finite terms to the equation of sustaining life at the top of the food chain. Mr. Ewing calculates that 7,500 sq. kilometers, or roughly 20% of Costa Rica's land mass would be necessary to sustain a viable population of the large carnivores. Put simply, "that is not going to happen" (pg. 60), "but there may be another way".
    An ambitious project called "The Path of the Tapir" might just establish a strategy for man to find his way to being able to co-habitate with nature. If it works, as only time will tell, we will be able to see how nature, if left to herself, can heal.
   "Monkeys Are Made Of Chocolate" has served as the theme setter for numerous family discussions in our home-schooling family. Yes, the book is educational, but it is also a thought provoking adventure into the questions that deal with some of the most basic and elusive issues confronting man today. Can we continue to live here on planet earth? The jury is out, but in the meantime we can certainly make our time here just that much more enjoyable by taking in this well written and engaging book.

"Monkeys Are Made of Chocolate" may be purchased:

At Hacienda Baru - 787-0003

In San Isidro at 2 locations outlined below.

Order online using the button below.

San Isidro Location 1
Selva Mar travel agency.
771-4582.
This is a green building about 75 meters west of the central park where the church is.

San Isidro Location 2
Centro Didactico
No phone yet
Walk out the back door of the Musoc bus station, cross the street, and there it is.

Dominical Costa Rica

"Monkeys Are Made of Chocolate" a book review

"Monkeys Are Made of Chocolate"
a book review