monkey love

one day when im back in a place that has the computer capabilities to upload pictures onto blogs, there will be a very funny picture on my blog accompanying this entry...
the picture is of a monkey sitting in my lap. big deal, you say: mine is not the first lap in which a monkey has sat. yet however, this was quite an alarming experience for me.

what happened was this: we were at this place called isla de los monos, which means island of the monkeys, and once we got there, there was a pool and there were plenty of monkeys in the trees and swinging on vines, using their tails to hold themselves while the rest of their 4 limbs hung free. unfortunately i was to see a fifth limb all too close-up.

in any event, there was one particular monkey who seemed very friendly with the human beings. all the human beings liked him too because he was sociable and let people pet him. he didnt give outbreak to anyone so he seemed pretty clean and he was cool. sure, he stole a little girls orange and began eating it, then emptied out all of the cups of beer into his mouth. but these are the things monkeys do, right? they play and flip around and act very athletic and mischievous. also, it was the first monkey anna had ever seen so it was fun to watch her run and hide every time the monkey came near.

so the monkey was a good monkey and soon we left the pool area and went for a walk through the jungle area towards the river. it wasnt long before we noticed that the monkey was following us. each time we turned around, the monkey was there, a few paces behind us. once i waited behind the monkey to see what he was doing and it seemed that he would wait for us to walk a bit and then run after us just to keep us in sight. the running theory was that a) anna had some oreos in her bag that the monkey wanted and so he was following us hoping for some food because people by the pool had spoiled him into thinking he was an oreo eating, beer drinking kind of monkey. b) anna had seen a monkey in the dressing room as she changed into her bathing suit. she wasnt sure if it was the same monkey, but perhaps it was, and he had been smitten by anna.

both of these theories held up for some time, because when we returned from our walk to the pool area, the monkey was there yet again and this time he got even closer, just as people bond over a nice hike. but he was physcally closer and trying to hold our hands so we could feel the leathery palms and the leathery feet and te leathery tail grip - really, holding onto the tip of his tail was much like holding onto a tennis racket. very odd, very cool. alex says that if he could have any animal part, it would be a tail, and with such a grip, i couldnt disagree, although i had said that i wouldnt mind a baboon ass... but i digress.

anna wanted not to be around the monkey and plus the sun was comig out, so she went down to the pool to swim for a while. during this time, the monkey made his tru intentions clear as he hopped up onto my lap without me being able to protest. i didnt know what to do. should i treat him like a cat? jumping onto laps is distinctly cat like... should i throw him off in fear that he would give me lice and outbreak? many are the movies and theories advertising the terror of such an encounter. should i try to talk to him? michael jackson has a monkey, or is it a chimp? should i do scientific things, like hold his hands more and remark about how similar he and i really are - the temptation was large. really, monkeys are a lot like humans. its true. while i decided, the monkey took the initiative again and began making himself very comfortable while in my lap - that is - utilizing the fact that he has hands that grip, just like us. he stopped soon thereafter and i was all prepared to pass it off as though he were just scratching, until he showed off his other monkey skill, utilizing his ultra-flexible back and neck bones and muscles. soon, the true extent to which he liked me became readily evident, and as it did, i thrust the monkey off my lap, perhaps just in time to have avoided... who knows... a messy situation.