Monkey Wars

Day four proceeded much as before. Revelry was at 5:30AM and a group of us gathered in the kitchen for tea and coffee before setting off in search of the illusive leopards. Our game muse seemed to have abandoned us as we spent over an hour without seeing anything other than a herd of impalla and a couple of zebras. Suddenly we came upon a traffic jam of safari trucks. It was like the 405 in rush hour except people were craning for pictures of wild dogs rather than rubber necking. The trucks weaved back in forth in front of each other, and did 180s as they vied for photos like paparazzi at a Julia Roberts sighting. Galen and I decided to that fortune favored the brave and made a couple of bold maneuvers to get through the fray. But we got separated from the rest of our caravan. We drove on to see an enormous giraffe just feet from the road. He began staggering towards us on his wobbly knees and we had to back up so he wouldn’t walk right into us. It was pretty incredible. We got back to the house only to learn that the other cars caught a fleeting glimpse of a leopards crawling down from a tree. So at least a couple people saw all the Big Five.

We had lunch on the porch again and our monkey friends came back to play while we were eating. These vervet monkeys are these grey monkeys the size of a back pack with a really long tail and these cute, placid little faces that disguise their nefarious intentions. They scampered into the tree just as we were sitting down for lunch. It immediately became obvious that they have overcome the shyness that accompanied our initial introduction and scurried onto the porch and sat watching us from a few feet away, eyeing our plates with covetous eyes. At one point Jared went into the house and one monkey who had been watching him with particular interest darted out of the tree, streaked across the porch, bounded onto the table, snatched the bunch of grapes off of his plate and launched himself back into the tree. Once he was safe in the canopy he stared down at us with obvious smugness as he gleefully popped grapes into his mouth. Cheeky little fellow. To add insult to injury the rest of the monkeys started chucking berries at us with uncanny precision. Then they escalated their tactics by peeing on Mali and Henry and sending a bomb of defecation onto the deck. Fortunately there were no casualties. But we held our ground, guarded our plates carefully and waved our forks as necessary until eventually they declared a cease fire and went back to performing aerial acrobatics in the nearby neighboring banana trees.

On a related note, Henry seemed to have the worst luck with animals. The second night we were there everyone was sitting by the fire and this enormous beetle the size of a small mouse started crawling across the porch. I saw it and assumed it would give us a wide berth. But before I could say anything it had scurried up Henry’s leg. He hopped around in what looked like a hyperactive Irish jig, trying to dislodge the bug and not fall in the fire. The next night the same bug came back and flew onto his shoulder. He tried to swat it off but it wouldn’t budge so he whipped off his shirt and began beating it against the ground. It was like watching a bizarre cross between a stripper and a Native American war dance.

And yet, when not under siege from impish monkeys and deranged insects the porch was an idyllic place to lounge and chat. The breeze coming off the river kept it blissfully cool even in the hottest hours of the day, the tree canopy overhead made the perfect sunscreen and the smooth wood board were as good of a place for a nap as any. Late in the afternoon I tried to rally people for a run around Skukuzu. Danny said he would be take up running once we got back to Oxford. I pressed him to start right then and he said,  “I should do exercise. I really like exercise. In the abstract.” “What does that mean Danny?” I pushed. “Come on” I insisted, “Your body is crying out for punishment.” I don’t know where that line of reasoning came from but it became one of the most quoted lines of the trip. So we set put for a couple of laps followed by our final evening game drive. The animals were scarce again but we set off for a promontory and watched as the sun sank down and melted into the horizon.