Making Friends With A Monkey In Lagos, Nigeria, 2012

While we were in Nigeria, we visited the Lekki Conservation Centre. Though it's just outside of Lagos, our driver Rasheed had never heard of it before and ended up driving us about an hour outside of the city. We didn't mind, though, because it gave us the chance to see some of Nigeria's smaller towns and countryside. We finally made to the center in the late afternoon. It was hot as hell and humid to boot, but I didn't care -- we were off to see monkeys! If you've read any portion of this blog, you should know by now that I get a little crazy when it comes to animals. I find them fascinating, especially when I get to see wild animals that I would never see at home. The Lekki Conservation Centre is basically a patch of protected jungle. It's not a zoo and not even a sanctuary, really, as the animals have complete free reign. There's a small hut with some photos of animals inside, a little cafeteria and then a well-maintained trail that circles about a couple of miles through jungles and swamps. As we walked the trail, we didn't see too much. The swamps were pretty dried out as we were there at the very start of the rainy season, so the birds and crocodiles were nowhere to be seen. We then heard a rustling in the trees: Monkeys! I hurried over to the trees and caught some glimpses of their tails, but couldn't really see anything. I even tried to reason with them, calling, "Come here, babies," but they didn't acknowledge me. Later, though, I finally had my monkey encounter. As we were heading past the hut, toward the parking lot, we heard a noise above us ... and there were about a dozen monkeys climbing the trees. We stopped to watch them and take some photos and videos. The one who was sitting directly above me was a mama monkey who had an adorable baby clinging to her. I knew that what I was about to do was a little dangerous, but I grabbed my Flip video camera and slowly approached her. There was no way I was missing this! I held it up to film -- and the mama promptly pelted me with berries. Oof! I stepped back a bit and did get to film her for a minute before she hurried into another tree. Jon had better luck with his monkeys as none of them attacked him. Here are some of his shots:

I've seen plenty of monkeys in zoos, but it was very different seeing them in a more natural environment. I realize that in some countries monkeys are like squirrels to us -- they're all over the place so seeing them isn't that big of a deal -- but for us, it was one of the highlights of our trip.