Kovas vs Big Huge Hairy Male Babboon

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(Kovas writing) On the last day of our Kenyan trip, we spent the last of our money and food having a picnic at Hell’s Gate National Park. This park is fascinating because you can walk among the wild African animals like giraffes, zebras, warthogs, gazelles, impala, and baboons. Our driver, Milton, warned us to be careful of the baboons, but we had encountered baboons in other places and were confident that we could scare them away with loud noises. How wrong we were!

We sat at the picnic table and hungrily unpacked the sandwiches, oranges, chips, and juice. Right before we unpacked the sandwiches, Rytas yelled ‘Babboon!’ In slow motion as we turned towards the baboon, it leaped over my mom’s head onto the picnic table. This male baboon was as big as eleven year old Lukas and weighing around twice as much. It was huge!

Seeing the baboon five inches from their face, Vasara and Rytas screamed. Lukas sat there looking stunned, while my dad and Vidas waved their arms trying to scare it away. At the same time my mom unsuccessfully threatened it with her walking cane. Always thinking of food, I ‘outsmarted’ the baboon by grabbing all the sandwiches in a football hold. Ignoring our threats, the baboon looked over our food and assessed what to take. Spying my sandwiches, he slammed into me knocking me off the picnic table onto my back. Grabbing the sandwiches he scrambled over my face and bounded back into the forest. The whole encounter lasted about 3 seconds. Dad ran after the baboon waving mom’s walking cane, shouting “Thief” in Amharic (yes, we were in Kenya where they speak Swahili, but anyway...).I lay on the ground dazed, with a pounding head. Ouch.

With our sandwiches gone we only had two oranges, a small bag of chips, and very little juice because the baboon knocked over the bottle. Although we were disappointed that we had very little food, we laughed at the baboon’s good fortune.

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