Monkey Thief!!

He looks all cute and cuddly, but don't let that fool you!

 

One thing I’ve learned in less than 24 hours of being in Zambia: you needn’t worry about humans stealing your belongings, but beware of monkeys taking your belongings.

Baboons are as common in this country as stray cats or chickens are to the BVI.  They are everywhere.  And they aren’t afraid.  They will take your belongings out of your car if you leave your door open.  They will approach you if you leave a bag sitting next to you. They will come into your campsite and ransack your garbage if you leave it out.  Thankfully, no baboons have come into our campsite, but we’ve seen them crossing the streets and walking around just as if they were another resident of this place.  Which I guess they are.

There are other kinds of monkeys here too, but I’m not sure of their name.  But I had an encounter with one three five of them while we were hiking in the Falls.  I, being the nerdy silly tourist that I am, saw a few of these little guys (whom I was told are NOT aggressive) while we were walking, and so I started to take a few pictures of them.  One of them started to approach me, and I moved toward him a little, which scared him away.  However, his 2 other friends saw this and decided they didn’t need to be scared of me, and approached me a little more quickly.  Once I saw that they weren’t backing down, I went into a panic and started to run, which got them going.  And so they started to chase after me (Matt even said that the third monkey leapt over the other two like an acrobat to chase after me!).  While this was all happening, I apparently dropped my sunglasses on the ground, and a fourth monkey swooped down, picked them up and ran up a tree.

Oh crap.

Now I’ve got 3 monkeys on my back, one in the tree with my sunglasses, and a fifth monkey looking at me from another tree with a twinkle in his eyes.  What am I going to do?

Thankfully a park ranger was within, er, range of this little spectacle and came over to see what was going on.  Because by now there was quite an audience looking at me and the monkey.  The ranger looked up and saw the little guy with my sunglasses (I believe the actual word he used was “rascal”) and assured me that once the monkey realized it’s not food, he’ll drop the sunglasses.  Whew.  Okay.  So now we just wait for him to realize it.

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Hmm, evidently, he’s bound and determined to find food in these glasses dammit!  Because he refuses to stop chewing on them-oh NO!  He’s bending them to look “inside” to see if he can find another entry and, NO!! don’t put them ON!!!  Oh man, these are the only pair I brought and it’s SUNNY here in Africa.  Come on little guy, drop the sunglasses.  Come on, you can do it….come on you little swine, er I mean, monkey…

But he doesn’t.  And by now he’s starting to catch on that he has an audience.  And that apparently what he’s holding has some value to someone.  So he moves further up the tree to contemplate these glasses some more.  And I promise you, he puts them on and looks right at me.  Okay, I get it.  This is a game now.  Ha ha, really funny. 

His crime?  Stealing my sunglasses!

Meanwhile, Matt and the park ranger are gently throwing little pebbles at him to distract him so that he drops the glasses, but it’s not working so much. 

And just when I think he’s going to take them with him to the highest point possible and never give them back, he runs onto a limb directly over me and either drops them on accident or decides he’s bored with them.  But no matter, the monkey and me receive a round of applause from the audience, and I pick up my slightly more-used-than-before Ray Bans.

They aren’t too damaged; definitely some monkey teeth marks on the frame but nothing I can’t handle.  And besides, now I have a good story to tell behind it, right?? (not to mention a little scarring souvenir to show for the drama…

The moral of this story: don’t show fear to a monkey.  ‘Cause you never know what you might lose…