I Like Monkeys

We made it back from Spain this afternoon. What a great trip. Plenty of pics and stories to share. But I've gotta start with the funniest thing that happened.

Since our original plans of going down to Morocco got axed because of the terrorist bombings in North Africa, we figured we would just play it safe and go to check out Gibraltar for a day. We got up super early and grabbed a few pieces of fruit from the fruit basket left in our room. Sue had a kiwi, I had an apple, and we stashed a couple other things in my backpack for the trip. The night before it had rained a little, but this morning, the sky looked pretty clear. Still a bit chilly, especially in the darkness at 6am.



From Malaga, we took a bus down to a little town called La Linea. This was a small city that is right on the tip of Spain and separated from Gibraltar by an RAF airfield. (In case you didn't know, Gibraltar is still a UK territory) So once we were off the bus it was a quick 10 minute walk across the border. The Spanish customs guy wanted nothing to do with our passports... so much for getting a stamp... When we went to the UK side, we were able to get a stamp that said "Welcome to GIB", but it didn't say UK anywhere on it. Oh well...



We crossed the runway and hopped on a bus into town. A few people told me that Gibraltar is almost just like being in the UK. And they were right! Most people spoke English and spoke it with an English accent. A lot of people spoke Spanish too, but the overall feel of the place was nothing like the rest of Spain.



The architecture was different. There were Irish pubs everywhere (well Spain has lots of them too), all the street names were in English, and geez! Fish & Chips places everywhere!



After we hiked around the town a little and had a proper English breakfast of eggs, sausage, and toast, we decided to take the cable car up to the top of the rock and see the "Ape Den".

All the tourist brochures all were talking about this place. These apes, which actually look more like monkeys all live up on the top of the rock and have been there for years. It's their natural habitat and they just kind of hang out up there and you can go see them.

So we don't think too much about it. Why not? Let's go check out the monkeys. I like monkeys!

The guy on the cable car gives us a routine briefing about the area and the monkeys...

"The monkeys are not really aggressive, but they are always looking for food. They will try to take any food they can see and they have been known to fight for it. They bite. And they have learned to associate plastic bags with food, so please don't take any plastic bags up there".

Gotcha. No plastic bags. No food in site. We're all good.

So the cable car gets to the top and before we even get off the thing, a little monkey goes flying across the door. He hopped from a ledge on the landing up onto the top of the car and then disappeared. As we were looking for him, another one went running across in the opposite direction!





So... this is no zoo. There are no cages. These monkeys truly are just hanging out. Chillin, playing with each other and watching the people just as much as we were watching them.

The first two monkeys were young ones. Playful and energetic. The next one we saw must have been their momma. A little bigger, and not quite as eager to run around and jump for no particular reason. But she had no problem just sitting on a narrow rail watching the group of us come off the cable car and watching her kids play, or was she watching for plastic bags?

We walked past her and onto a lookout platform. The view of the rock was awesome. The weather turned out to be clear. Although it was warm down in the town, it was windy and cool up here at the top of the mountain.

There were monkeys all around. Probably about 4 or 5 on the platform. Some just sitting there, some walking around looking at all the people, some hopping around from rail to rail. We would cringe just a bit as they jumped around the railing, thinking foolishly that they might fall. Even though we knew there was little to no chance of that happening.

I noticed these two larger monkeys sitting in the middle of the platform. I started to walk over to them trying to position myself behind them so Sue could take a picture. One of the monkeys started eyeing me. Looking at me right in the eye. He started to walk towards me on all fours. I kept trying to circle behind him for the photo op but he had other ideas...

As soon as I realized he was up to something, he jumped up onto my back. He was hanging on my backpack. I spun around a couple times thinking he might jump off. Nope.

I heard Susan laughing, I heard other people yelling and saw them pointing. "Susan, take a picture!", I yelled.



He wasn't very heavy at all. But I couldn't figure out what he wanted or what he was thinking. Did he just like me or what? All of this happened within the span of 5-10 seconds.

The next sound I heard explained everything. I heard the monkey start to unzip one of the zippers on my backpack. Then everything all made sense. The fruit from the hotel room! We must have left some in there and forgot about it.

I decided to fling my backpack off my shoulders. Before it hit the ground, the monkey had opened the pocket, reached inside and grabbed the small plastic bag that contained what? Yep, a banana. Could we have come more prepared? What else is better for monkeys than a banana? After all the briefings and literature and signs that say "Don't bring food", "Don't feed the monkeys", what do we do? We bring them a freaking banana.

So stereotypical.

In less than 2 or 3 minutes, that little monkey spotted me from at least 10 feet away. Smelled the banana, figured out that it was in my backpack, and figured it out which pocket it was in... all while I was looking at him trying to determine how I was gonna pose for a picture.


Look at his friend monkey! He's laughing at me too!


As he sat there with the banana he just looked at me.

Everyone else was laughing. I was laughing too, it was freaking hilarious. There were napkins and papers still blowing around in the wind that came flying out of the open backpack when he grabbed the banana. Susan and I started picking it all up. Other tourists kept coming up to me laughing and showing me their pictures. A couple guys even got it on video. I'm waiting for them to send me the clips!

The monkey just sat there eating the banana looking at me. I'm picking up trash, he's eating our banana.



In the aftermath, we kept on walking around the area watching the monkeys play. I could watch monkeys all day.

Here's to you, monkey! Hope you enjoyed that banana.


A tour group of Italian kids came up onto the platform from the cable car. One of them bought a candy bar and ate half of it in the snack bar. He put the rest of it in his pocket as he headed back out onto the platform, not knowing his fate. But we knew. We knew what would happen...