The Amazon : The Monkey King

As I sit, riding in Tito's van, I am sipping on the perfect blend of chocolate coffee and rum. I am relaxed. I am happy. We just had a 4 day remote sabbatical in the rain forest, now we have a 12 hour journey back to the coast. At least my hope is that it will only be 12 uneventful hours. The journey here was much longer, and with event. Tito, Martin, and myself can never do anything halfway. We always expect the unexpected, without expecting anything. This time, the weather was our nemesis. It started raining as soon as we left Montanita. The further north we traveled, the harder the rain fell. We enter the mountains. Now the rain is combined with a heavy fog. Visibility is at a few percent at best. Each unpredictable turn on this fragile mountain highway seems like it could lead us off the edge of the earth. We head down the mountain, the fog dissipates, but the rain persists, The storm is getting much stronger. We are at the foot hills of the mountains when we abruptly have to stop due to traffic. The torrential rain fall has caused a colossal land slide. The mountain has now reclaimed it's territory and has taken over the freeway. We wait patiently and with uncertainty. Eventually, the appropriate machinery arrives to clear the road. A man walks along the roadside holding an upside-down ball cap. He is collecting money from each vehicle. The proceeds are suppose to go to the machine and efforts to clear the freeway. Nobody questions the man's legitimacy or motives. We are all just happy that we will be on our way soon. The road is now clear and we are off again. We pass many more land slides that have already been cleared. I never realized the damage that land slides can do. In many cases, the land slide would completely remove the road and push it down the hill. We were forced to take many detours on temporary dirt roads. Now we are completely out of the mountains and entering the jungle. The amount of rain that is still falling is amazing. We arrive in the town, Misahualli. This is the small town where we will be staying. As we enter the town, we see school children gathering around a gazebo, trying to protect themselves from the exterior elements. This is definitely a tropical storm. We enter the main center of town, the streets are becoming less clear. Everything is flooded. There is zero distinction between a river and the road. The storm is damaging our calm, as we slowly accept our possible fate; there is a real chance our van cannot weather this storm and we may be sleeping in the flooded streets. Without fear, we go forward. It was challenging, but we made it to higher ground. We made it to our lodging location!

Our cabin was perfect! It was beautiful and cozy. It was exactly everything I imagined a place on the Amazon would look like. The main house was large and white. It was built on stilts and has beautiful murals painted on the inside walls. There are giant sliding doors in the back of the home that open up to the Amazon river, which is only 30 feet away. The place reminded me of a tree house without the tree. It is a playground for adults. We stayed right next door in a little quaint brown cabin. The property was owned by the most wonderfully adorable elderly couple. I was especially drawn to the energy of the wife. She was so happy and enthusiastic about every aspect of life. She had the spirit and essence of a child, where every sensory seems new. She would take my hand and show me around the property. She was so proud. She would show me her fruit trees, with total excitement. She found a snake skin, she could not wait to show us that too! It reminded me of being a child where you find a hatched bird egg for the first time; it seemed so magical. It was so refreshing to see someone capture that feeling and never let it go. She did not speak a word of English, and I don't speak Spanish. But that language barrier did not stop her from telling me so many story's. After being social for a while we return to our cabin to get cleaned up for dinner.

The sun is setting and we are getting hungry. We head into town to eat. The town is very small. There are monkeys everywhere. The babies ride on the mother's back as the fathers follow behind them. We settle in at a restaurant. Tito knows the owner. As we are ordering our food and drinks, I see this monkey coming towards us, he is combining stealthiness with speed, I try and grab my camera to snap a picture, but I am too late. He was not heading towards us for a photo op; no, he had a calculated mission. He swings down and lands on our table. He grabs a lighter, and just as quickly as he came down, he was gone. We are sharing our table with our new Canadian friend, Mel. Mel has been here for a couple of days and is seasoned on the way of the monkey. She quickly grabs two straws and tells us she is going to make a trade to get our lighter back! So, I have several problems with this. My initial thought is, we should absolutely not be setting a precedent where we are negotiating with the monkey! It is a slippery slope. If we give into their demands, who knows what they will ask for next! Secondly, there is no way the monkey is going to trade an awesome lighter for two cheap used straws. Mel is confident. She tells me there is a good chance that the monkey will make the trade, because there are two straws compared to his one lighter. Also, the straws are longer than the lighter. It could be a good trade. However, we never find out if he would have been willing to trade. The monkey is long gone, with his new prized possession.

The next morning, we are having breakfast at our host's house. We are laughing and telling them about our night and the thieving monkey. Our story was not unique. The monkeys really like fire-starters. There was no way he would have traded that commodity for two mere straws. The monkeys know how to use the lighters. They raise their arms up and light them high, then lower them and light them low. They twirl around and light them in a spiral motion. Imagine that kind of power as a monkey. You are top dog. The other monkeys gather around in awe. You are the monkey king!! They also love to steal glasses. They hold them over their eyes. Now, I am not sure if the monkeys have inherently bad eye sight that they are attempting to correct, or if they are pretending to read books to one another. But one thing is certain, they know they look fancy with their new spectacles! We are told that if the monkey takes something of value, something that you really want back, you need to go to the market and buy an egg. After you purchase the egg, you go back into town and find the monkey. You show the monkey the egg. The monkey with throw you your stolen property, and then you roll the egg to the monkey. Transaction completed.

The monkey life must be a good life. They play all day. They can steal whatever they like with zero consequences. At the end of the day, the worst case scenario for the monkey, they get to eat a free egg.