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When you visit the Tlopi Tented Camp at Marakele National Park, you must ask yourself one question...

Does this like the face of a trouble maker ???



Now, you might have said "No" and "Aaaaaaa Sweet."... but looks are very deceiving and this is truly the face of a sneaky trouble maker in the making.

As we arrived at Marakele, we were warned by the staff to keep the tents and everything closed as the Monkeys are causing havoc once you leave your tent. After unpacking, we decided to go for quick drive through the park before sunset. With the words of the staff still freshly in our ears, we lock down the tent and move chairs in front of the tent door, so that the place looked like "Fort Knox".

During our trip we saw a lot of nice sightings, but "We saw no Monkeys... "

The next morning as we were about to leave for the "Lenong View Point", we saw the culprits.



They were sitting in the sun probably trying to look innocent and cute, but we were warned. They have lost the element of surprise. We started looking for the other trouble makers and located this one on top our tent.



He was probably nominated as the lookout to let the others know, once we left. These guys were organized....

We knew that we were surrounded and that some criminal deed was about to take place when we saw the this one at our neighbour's tent. Did he have the combination to the door ????



The bravest of our squad decided to spring to action and chase them away from the neigbour's tent. This was truly a heroic deed of him in action with self-sacrificing courage. (Or was this because our neigbours was two ladies from Europe...)

With our hero charging and monkeys running, we saw one of them who got away with some loot. As he settled down on top of the tent away from our fearless hero, he moved a little so that we could see his prise.

He got the "Marie Cookies" ...





We shouted at the monkey to drop the loot, but all we got was what looked like a grin on his face. For a moment I thought I saw him making the shape of an "L" on his forehead...

That is when "Karma" stepped in the packet of cookies fell from his dirty little paws. As he desperately tried to grab at the falling cookies, gravity took over and all the Marie's fell in the grass. That is when every monkey and his cousin made a dash for the loot now lying in the grass.

[Gravity 1 - Monkey 0]



It was like Cristmas and they all stuffed their faces with all the Marie's they could find.




After most of the monkeys left, we saw this one looking ...




... hoping ...





for one last Marie...

Our encounters with the monkeys was about two years ago at Marakele's Tlopi Tented Camp.

Animals like monkeys and baboons invade these camps because humans either feed them or leave food lying around. In the end this confrontation between man and animals will lead to only one thing...

The story is more about how clever these guys are, and that they actually figured out how to open "Cool Boxes" and cupboards to find food. If you try to chase the one away, six of them will go behind your back and steal the food you are trying to defend.

In fact there is not a lot the Marakele Staff can do, than to warn people. Maybe in fact educate people more in telling about what the end fate will be for these animals.