The Big Bad Monkey Watch

We had a saying at Inti Wari Yassi, “Bolivia: Todo es posible, nada es seguro.” In my thirty days at the wildlife refuge, I would come to realize just how true that saying was.

Inti Wara Yassi (IWY) is a wildlife refuge which cares for physically and mentally abused animals. The refuge is run almost entirely by volunteers; travelers from all over the world who stay two weeks, a month, sometimes as long as six months.

The menagerie at the refuge included 8 pumas, 3 ocelots, hundreds of capuchin and spider monkeys and a spattering of beaver-sized jungle creatures. The big cats lived in individual cages deep in the jungle, save for the Millie the Ocelot who was living in Room 5 of the volunteers’ hostel.

I had somehow been convinced to spend my month at the refuge hanging out with a twenty-year-old Danish guy and a three-year-old Puma, both challenges in their own right. Our Puma, Leoncio, had been sold by poachers as a pet and came to the refuge after having his legs broken in three places by his “owners”. He had his playful moments but was commonly known as one of the more aggressive cats at the park. So, when the monkey volunteers asked for help at Spider Park, I jumped at the chance to take a day off from Leo and his “playful attacks”

Life at Spider Park
Home to the Spider Monkeys, the aptly named Spider Park was situated on a bluff overlooking the confluence of the two forks of the Chapare river. The alpha male of the group, Teho, was one of the few monkeys that had to be corded, due to his aggressive and slightly psychotic behavior.

Two burly, wild Spider Monkeys were trying to kill Teho and therefore take over his harem of fine-looking female Spider Monkeys. The monkey volunteers had been able to scare them off during the day but no one was in Spider Park from dawn till 7:30 AM to protect Teho. Hence “The Big Bad Monkey Watch” was formed. Every morning a volunteer tramped up to Spider Park before dawn armed with firecrackers to scare the Big Bad Monkeys away.

Around 5:20 AM, I left my comfy bed, grabbed my spider man backpack and crawled under the chain linked fence that separated our house from the refuge. I made it up to the Park and got settled on a wooden bench underneath a small shelter.

The Invasion Begins
About 20 minutes later, I heard a noise in the trees. Dawn was starting to infiltrate the dense jungle and I could see two large spider monkeys about fifteen meters up in the trees across from me. I stood up and began shouting rude monkey taunts and then I tried to light the fireworks. Big problem: the firecrackers had gotten wet and none of them lit. But, it looked like my discourteous remarks had been sufficient because I watched the monkeys recede farther back into the jungle until they disappeared. Problem solved.

Ten minutes later however, a big Spider Monkey reappeared from the same area. I started shouting again but this time it didn’t scare him off. He came closer and closer, dropping lower to the ground as he came forward. When the invading monkey was about 10 meters away, I picked up rocks and sticks to throw at him. I tossed a few rocks close to him but it didn’t faze him. He came steadily towards me, looking me straight in the eye.

At this point, I’m very nervous. The wild monkeys had never dared to come so close so I was not prepared for a frontal assault. Teho, whom I was sworn to protect, was swinging drunkenly on his cord on a downward slope behind me. I tried to position myself between him and the incoming wild monkey. When the wild monkey was on the ground about five meters from me I threw two rocks close to him. He looked angry, but not frightened, and kept coming forward. The next rock I threw, I made sure it hit him. It was a soft lob but I was hoping it would shock him into running away. I was wrong.

As soon as the rock hit, the monkey flared up on his two legs, swung his arms wildly, bared his enormous fangs and screamed. Then he charged. I ran about 7 meters down the path leading out of the Park, thinking about what I would do if he attacked.

I stopped running and turned to see if the monkey was chasing me. Luckily, he had stopped and was now riffling through my unzipped bag. In an apparent act of monkey insolence, he grabbed my all-natural mosquito spray and threw it at the ground in my direction. He then picked up my entire bag, shook it and threw it on the ground as well. Finally, while keeping his eyes on me, he ran down the bank towards Teho. I edged back to the shelter, grabbed a few rocks and watched the wild monkey. He had gone about 10 meters down the slope but was staying out of reach of Teho. During all of the drama, Teho seemed oblivious and was simply running up and down on his cord.

The wild monkey and I seemed to have reached a stalemate. He was sitting on the downward slope of the bank and when he tried to get closer to Teho, I would throw a rock near him and he would retreat. I started to calm down a bit, thinking that if I could maintain this shaky truce until the monkey folks came at 7:30, everyone - me, Teho and the wild monkey, would end up unscathed. But then the Capuchins came.

The Gang
Capuchin monkeys are about a third of the size of Spider Monkeys and one-fifth the mass. What they lack in might however, they make up in intelligence. As smart as a 6- year old kid, they act in movies, play the accordion with street performers and pickpocket unsuspecting tourists. In fact, many of the Capuchins at our refuge were reformed pickpockets, confiscated by the police when their owners were sent to jail. Male Capuchins could also be aggressive and so volunteers were told to never fight for a stolen cookie, camera or banana.

So, the Capuchins arrived; most likely attracted by all of the screeching -- by me and the wild Spider Monkey. There were four in all and they had the vibe of an adolescent monkey gang. The alpha and undisputed gang leader, aptly named Jefe, sauntered in front, his huge balls trailing behind him.

Jefe found my mosquito spray on the ground and began gnawing on it. Intent on getting to the golden liquid on the inside, he soon figured out how to unscrew the top.

I panicked. Although he was a tough bully, Jefe was nonetheless an innocent bystander to my confrontation with the wild monkey and didn’t deserve to be poisoned by my bug spray. I started yelling at him as I ran directly towards him, trying to scare him into dropping the bug spray. He took in my antics with a look of bemusement as he tipped back his head and chugged the bug spray.

I involuntary stopped mid-stride and watched. He shook the bottle to get the last few drops out and then chucked the empty bottle on the ground. While the natural spray was made mostly of eucalyptus leaves, I was still worried that chugging a full bottle could do significant damage to the internal workings of a 15-pound animal. But the deed was done and now I watched as he and his cronies rifled through my bag.

Monkey Trickery
There was now a perfect three-point triangle consisting of: me with rock in hand in the clearing; the Capuchin gang under the shelter checking out my tampons and other back bag items; and Teho and the wild monkey down the slope. My eyes flicked back and forth between my various adversaries as I assessed my next move. The wild monkey was sitting calmly on his haunches so I decided to go after the Capuchins and salvage the contents of my bag.

I ran the remaining three meters towards them, yelling obscenities in Spanish. This time I was successful. The Capuchins slowly edged away from my bag and scuttled up nearby trees, just out of my reach. My plan had worked, except for one minor exception: Jefe had my headlamp. He was sitting on a branch chattering loudly as he poked and prodded it. I watched helplessly as the light went from on, to flashing, to off and then back on again. With a pain in my heart, I knew I only had one option available to me. I grabbed my packet of double-stuffed Oreos from a hidden compartment in my bag and offered them to Jefe as a trade. He couldn’t resist. He edged down the branch and grabbed my Oreos from my extended hand, dropping my headlamp in the process. Success!

As I gathered my things, I began to feel pretty good. In fact, I was feeling a bit proud of myself. I had thwarted a Capuchin gang thievery attack (I was ignoring the possible poisoning issue). As if to acknowledge my dominance of the situation and my new position as supreme Alpha, one of the lesser Capuchins scampered up my leg and sat on my shoulder. As I awaited my grooming, a monkey sign of respect and submission, I gloried in my new situation. I had out-smarted the monkeys! I was brilliant.

The grooming never came. The sneaky monkey had lulled me into a false sense of security with his offer of friendship. While I was puffing my chest out in pride, my new ‘friend’ scurried down my torso and poked a skinny little monkey hand into my pants pocket, restealing my headlamp. Within two seconds of the crime, he was up on the same branch Jefe had used and was looking down at me with an evil-looking monkey grin. I watched in defeat as the little devil bit, shook and finally ripped apart my headlamp, scattering its parts to the wind.

Help Arrives
The next 20 minutes were spent watching the wild monkey glare at Teho while battling off the Capuchins from the remaining contents of my bag. Trying to argue fundamental principles of ownership with a monkey just doesn’t work. So was the state of matters when my salvation finally came: the monkey volunteers. I ran towards them and breathlessly recapped the wild monkey incident while pointing frantically down the slope at the evil monkey still calmly staring at Teho. The three monkey volunteers looked at me in disbelief and then looked over at the wild monkey. And then looked back at me, this time in anger.

“Are you crazy?” the alpha volunteer, Nick, shouted at me. “That’s Juanita, she’s one of ours and she’s a friggin female.”

I feebly dropped the rock my hand had been sweating around for the last half hour as Nick ran down to console Juanita.

The other two volunteers looked at me with pity. “It’s okay” said Tina, “the females and males are hard to tell apart.”

Defeated, drained and now thoroughly humiliated, I mumbled a goodbye and started down the path with backpack in hand. Remembering my headlamp, I turned back and shouted, “The Capuchins stole my tampons and my headlamp. If you see pieces of it, the headlamp that is, could you pick them up for me?”

After getting their assurances, I turned my back on Spider Park and headed back to the relative sanctuary of the jungle.

Epilogue
Jefe never showed any symptoms of having been poisoned by the mosquito spray; he also never had a single mosquito bite.

Apparently Juanita and Teho were “special friends” and they continued their monkey romance without the hindrance of air-borne rocks.

Tina lived up to her promise and a week after my stint at Spider Park she presented me with 80% of my headlamp.

I never again ventured into Spider Park, preferring the relative safety of spending nine hours a day with an aggressive full-grown Puma.