Monkey Business 1 of 2

The stars aligned and -low and behold- both Annika and Elise had birthday parties to go to on Saturday. Since the girls balk every time we propose going on a family hike, Julie and I decided a hike would be a great way to spend our kid-free day.

Lion Rock Country Park is just fifteen minutes from our apartment. I had heard rumors that if you’re lucky, you can see wild monkeys on your walk.

Let me just say that I really, really wanted to see a wild monkey. But alas, we were three hours into our hike and we hadn’t seen any monkeys.

Then Julie saw some rustling leaves in the trees to our right. Through the branches we could see a monkey about twenty feet away. We spent the next several minutes trying to get a decent, unobstructed picture of the monkey.

It turns out I didn’t have to work so hard. A few minutes down the road, we saw several monkeys in plain sight –including several on the path that we were supposed to walk down. We were pretty excited to see our first monkeys. How cool is that. I got my pictures.

But be careful what you wish for.

A few minutes later, we had to walk past a dozen monkeys that were on either side of the path. As we turned the bend, we realized there were another two dozen monkeys in front of us. We were surrounded. We couldn’t go back and we weren’t too thrilled about going forward. We took a deep breath, said a little prayer, and started walking forward.

The monkeys in these hills have had enough contact with humans over the years to know that backpacks equals food. Monkeys have been known to grab backpacks right off of hikers’ backs. Julie and I did a quick inventory of the food in our backpack.

Peanut butter sandwiches: consumed. Protein bars: still sealed in their wrappers. Pistachio nuts? Pistachio nuts. Shoot. Do you think that they can smell them? I don’t know. Should we throw the pistachios and run? I don’t know. Would you quit taking pictures. Hey, if we are going to get mauled by wild monkeys, we might as well have some pictures to show for our effort.