Monkeys Galore

We went to La Gorge Noire Rivière. It’s a national park in Mauritius famous for its waterfalls and vistas. It’s a paradise for hikers. Other excited visitors take buses to the top and crowd the edge. Just beyond the cliff is a beautiful site of rolling hills of trees. Within the trees lie the waterfalls.
Then there are the packs of macaque monkeys. Not the cute, cuddly monkeys you see on TV. But aggressive, little thieve monkeys. Hunger lives in their eyes. Their fur stands roughly on their backs. Their claws are sharpened. Everything about the monkeys look tough.
To get to La Gorge we went up a mountain. No less than five minutes after our group piled out of the bus and walked thru the tree-lined path to get to the edge and a guy said he spotted a monkey. I competed amongst the others for position to see the cliff. We all grew excited and hoped he’d come back. Five minutes and the words weren’t cold from his mouth, a monkey jumped on the top of the concrete slab. He grabbed a woman’s purse and she pulled back. For a few seconds the woman and monkey had a tug-o-war battle for the bag. She moved away. He barred his teeth and took a swipe at the woman and everyone cleared that portion of the cliff like roaches.
In the mist of the commotion, Kell snapped a quick photo of the monkey. My concentration stayed on moving back with the crowd getting away from the monkey.
The monkey looked around and scratched himself. He seemed to calm.
Then someone in our group made the foolish mistake of feeding him a sandwich. The tour guide lady came running and screaming, “Do not feed the monkeys.”
There were signs posted warning people to not feed the monkeys.
At home, I had watched enough of “When Animals Attack.” I didn’t want that monkey jumping on me. Just imagine, when I get back home to America I have war wounds to show them from a monkey. Yeah, I pictured my family dying laughing at that one.
The one monkey incident that we saw with the woman scared me and I left back for the comfort of the tour bus. He showed his teeth.
I didn’t feel safe.
Plus, I figured he’d already been enticed with food and I knew that where there is one monkey there are many more.

I closely watched the tree lined pathway and covered my head as I walked out.