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| A monkey on the balcony of a hotel room in Mombasa, enjoying his stolen goodies |
We arrived in Mombasa, Kenya after 2 long days of travel. Our flight had taken us from Salt Lake to Portland then on to Amsterdam for a 12 hour layover and day in the city, then to Nairobi and finally to Mombasa. Rather than get right back into vans and head for the village, we spent the night at a hotel on the beach and got a welcome night’s sleep in a real bed. Our room looked out on the Indian Ocean and we had a good view of the swimming pool and dining room from our balcony. The next morning while I was getting ready for the day, I could hear Tara laughing as she called me to come see something. As I joined her on the balcony, I couldn’t believe my eyes. Everywhere we looked there were monkeys running around - jumping on the pool furniture, running on the beach….even sneaking into the dining room of the hotel!
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| Monkeys on the beach |
They looked like a little gang of thugs as a group of them would congregate by the pool then suddenly one would dart into the dining room while the others watched. A few seconds later it would come screaming back out with a roll or a sugar packet in its hand, being chased by a waiter wielding a big stick. The monkey gang would watch the chase with great interest then when they were well away from their pursuer, they’d pounce on the victor and devour the spoils. After they’d eaten they’d settle down for a minute but before long one more would dart into the dining room and the same scene would play out all over again. We watched this happen over and over until we finally had to go down to breakfast. Sure enough, as we were sitting there, in dashed a monkey who ran around the buffet, grabbed a roll, and zipped back outside with a waiter on its heels. The waiter soon came strolling back in with the unruffled look of someone who had just finished polishing the silverware on his face so we assumed this routine was only new and amusing to us.
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| Monkey contemplating how to break into a hotel room |
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| Babboon at safari restaurant, looking for opportunity |
In thinking back, I’m not sure there were any doors that could have been closed to prevent the monkeys from entering. The dining room opened up onto a nice patio through big open arches and I can’t help but smile as I think of how differently we would handle a “monkey problem” in one of our restaurants! Apparently it’s kind of a common thing because toward the end of our trip we had a similar problem. We had been able to get a 24-hour pass to an animal preserve so we spent an evening and the following morning at a hotel located near an elephant water hole. On our way to dinner that night we got a kick out of the signs posted everywhere that read, “Do not feed the baboons.” Sure enough, the next morning at breakfast, Sue left her seat for a moment and a baboon came running the full length of the dining room, jumped up and grabbed her roll then darted off. What is with monkeys and rolls??!! Curt had his back to the entrance so he hadn’t even seen it coming. Sue saw the whole thing from across the room and it kinda spoiled her appetite. It was sort of a “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner” moment!
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| Lioness on the prowl |
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| Zebra on the plain |
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| One of hundreds of elephants we saw while on safari |
By the way…while on the preserve we saw giraffes, zebras, baboons, warthogs, vultures, impala, lions, water bucks, kudu, one hippo, water buffalo, jackal, dik dik, ostriches, gazelles, and more elephants than you could shake a stick at. At our first elephant sighting we were SO ecstatic, clamoring all over each other to get a good picture. By the end it was like…”Dang! I can’t see anything– there are too many elephants in the way!”
Karen Timothy - July expeditioner
Photos by Taylor Hoyt - July expeditioner
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