Monkey Mountain, Trip 2.

For this trip we brought along three friends and started out much earlier in the day. We were hoping to beat the heat but it was already close to 90 degrees at 8:00 in the morning. But this is a three-day weekend so there were a lot of people out for a hike. We had promised our companions that we would find monkeys so the pressure was on.

But, not to worry, we saw plenty of monkeys. The highlight of the trip, however, was the invitation to tea. People will hike up with all the trappings for a tea party - kettles and cups, propane heaters, snacks and fruit. We stopped at a spot with some picnic tables and a group of friends from the city started to gather and insisted we join them.

Their friends kept arriving, each with something to add to the party. One man had hauled a watermelon up the mountain! They said they try to get up there every day. They all tried out their English, some better than others and seemed genuinely pleased to be able to share their food and camaraderie with us.

They were not so pleased to share with the monkeys however. The monkeys get really aggressive when there's food around to steal so one of the men brought along his pellet gun to scare them off.

Later on at the top of the mountain there was a larger group of people, tables and tea and one monkey jumped into the crowd and made off with a bag of chips. Another monkey had apparently stolen someone's wallet and was slowly checking everything out before dropping the credit cards and cash out of the tree. The man who owned the wallet didn't look as amused as we felt.

Here we are with our new friends.

 Part of the path was pretty steep. It was nice to have some stairs and a railing but everything was pretty damp and the stairs were a bit slippery. 

The monkeys were just as cool this time as they were the first time.