The vervet monkeys in Samburu National Reserve, Kenya are such characters … I love watching them at play – they jump all over the elephant collars on the branch outside, chase each other all over the river bank and swing off tree branches. They’re also opportunist thieves and since I’ve been here, they’ve swiped a banana from my hand, a bounty bar off the table and an entire bacon sandwich from a friend of mine as he was about to take a bite! It’s also not uncommon to find a monkey or two sitting in the wall of your outdoor shower[…]
monkeys
The cheeky chocolate-cake-stealing monkeys of Jinchini
In the gardens of Jinchini on the coast of Msambweni, Kenya live a band of Sykes monkeys who tear through the neighbouring properties like marauding pirates – sucking the pollen from flowers, licking leaves like their lives depended on it, stealing chocolate cakes, fighting over food and inhaling bananas left behind by the Humans. These comical monkeys, which consist of nervous mothers, gangly spider babies, boisterous and naughty juveniles and the larger ‘dude’ males with their moving caterpillar eyebrows, series of squawk, barks and squeaks and unsubtle crashing from tree to tree, provide hours of entertainment every time I visit Kenya. They are such[…]
Thieving monkeys and grumpy vice presidents in Transylvania
By Jane Wynyard – Poiana Brasov, Transylvania, 2005 Forget Dracula, vampires and werewolves. The most menacing creature you’re likely to encounter in Transylvania these days is a thieving monkey dressed in a blue suit that hangs around nightclubs. A resident at the ski resort of Poiana Brasov in the Southern Carpathian mountains, the jittery, red-eyed primate with the sharpest fangs in the business, is usually shoved by its Dracula-like owner into the arms of gullible and unsuspecting tourists. If you don’t pay the 150,000 lei (three pounds, fifty) for a photograph, the monkey bares his fangs, extends his long spidery[…]