Biting Monkeys

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PARQUE MACHIA

So today we took a Tourist Day in Villa Tunari. We had a friend visiting with his Mom, he has been quite influential on our study and has been an unbelievable contact so we had a parillada last night and took some time to visit Parque Machia (National Park and Refuge for monkeys, birds, pumas, jaguars, and ocelots) We did not encounter any big cats and the birds were all in cages but the monkeys were a different story.

First off, they have various monkey species: spider, capuchin, and howler. On your way in you are reminded by everyone that the monkeys here are little thieves, describing them as curious and cheeky. So they recommend you remove all jewellery, remove anything from your pockets and if you bring in a camera hold onto it very very tight. Numerous tourists have their cameras stolen by the monkeys on a regular basis only to never be seen again. For example, some guy from Australia had his U$400.00 digital camera stolen about an hour before we entered the park.

The monkeys are super accustomed to people and will allow you to pet them, hold them and they’ll even crawl all over you. It’s amazing to be so close and able to examine their human-like traits: from their eyes, ears, fingers and even fingernails. I’ve seen monkeys on my past travels but never up close and personal like this. I sat down on a bench and reached my arm out to one monkey to crawl onto me. Seemed like a good idea at the time. He crawled right onto me and sat on my shoulders. While there he proceeded to pick and lick at my hair, cleaning me up I guess? But, once there he was not about to leave- one guy tried to pick him off and he bit him, even drawing blood. After about 15 minutes I was ready to get up. So with some help from some friends we tried to coax him down but the little thing bit my ear and then my finger. Luckily he didn’t draw blood and my ear is still in tact. I nonetheless screamed out when in pain, it did sting a bit and also fear that I was going to have a chunk of ear missing to remind me of that un-fateful encounter with the monkey. Despite the bite it was an amazing experience and I would go back in a second to play with the monkeys some more. I’ll just avoid that particular one. So if you are ever in Bolivia, near Villa Tunari, I definitely recommend visiting Machia for some close encounters with some very cheeky monkeys.

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Comments

[danny]

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Thanks for the advice! It seems really interesting...