July 11th, 2016

Day 103: South Africa – Monkeyland!

When we woke up, the sun was just starting to rise over the vast and rugged African landscape. We had a 4hr layover in Johannesburg where we went through immigration and picked up some of the local currency before hopping a commuter flight to George – a small seaside town on the famous Garden Route scenic driveway. We collected our rental car and headed to Plettenberg Bay. While we had booked a normal rental, we were unfortunately upgraded to a shiny new Mercedes Benz, since we are the only idiots in South Africa who don’t know how to drive a stick-shift. Normally an upgrade would be a good thing, but in South Africa this seems like a giant, “Rob Me!” sign. We are not allowed to drive in Africa in the dark (both because of wild animal activity on the road, and safety from carjackers), but we had just enough time for one sight-seeing activity before sundown: Monkeyland!

Y’all know our love of any animal activity – Monkeyland is a huge animal sanctuary where rescued primates can live in a free-roaming, 30-acre property. All the animals are rescued from captivity as either pets or research labs, so none of them can be released into the wild, but in this sanctuary they get to live as close to the wild as possible. Most of the species are actually native to South America – the only African monkeys we saw in the park were the lemurs from Madagascar. Now, there are plenty of wild baboons *outside* the park, but they are carefully kept out as they can be aggressive to other monkeys and humans.

6AM wake-up call as we begin our descent into SOUTH AFRICA

Sending postcards and grabbing a second breakfast in the Executive Lounge in the Johannesburg International Airport

Third and final leg of the journey is over, and we are in George – a bit tired, but the next adventure can’t wait!

There’s a place called MONKEYLAND. Did anyone think we would pass this up? Especially since selfie sticks are banned – hallelujah!

A squirrel monkey, walking by on the path

Our guide, Dwayne, takes our small group through the park, showing us the feeding stations, identifying the different species, and telling us about the sanctuary’s conservation program

King Julien? Sorry – I thought you were a different Ringtail Lemur

Lindsay says hello to a group of Ringtail Lemurs, having dinner

Ringtail Lemurs, chowing down on fruit

The Spider Monkeys were the most mischievous – especially once we reached the swing bridge. Our guide warned us this was “Thieves Alley”, as the Spider Monkeys will often ambush tourists and steal anything they can – earrings, sunglasses, etc. Even though our group had secured all valuables, a gang of monkeys still jumped on the little girl in our group, scaring the poor thing so much she started to cry!

Atlas, the male White-haired Gibbon. Poor guy is small, with underdeveloped arm muscles due to living in a cage during his adolescence.

Siam, the female White-haired Gibbon. She hangs out with Atlas, but they are “just friends” (much to the park management’s disappointment – they were hoping for a romance)

Igor says hello to the Gibbons, having dinner

Gibbons enjoying a fruit spread in Monkeyland

A Black & White Ruffed Lemur – the second specie of lemur that lives in Madagascar, in addition to the Ring-tailed King Julien

We left Monkeyland right around sunset, and hurried to our beachfront hotel. Maybe we just have lower standards after Southeast Asia, but we were IN LOVE with our new digs! Everything was so cozy and so CLEAN! We got so used to stains on bedsheets in the last few months – we felt like were staying the lap of luxury! It only got better when we went to dinner at the restaurant on the beach – USD goes *really* far in South Africa (1 Rand = $0.07). Also, South African wine is super affordable. We kept checking the exchange rate because we thought we must be calculating it wrong – how could a *bottle* of method champenoise only cost USD $13.00, and a by-the-glass only cost USD $3.50?

Oh, we are going to *love* South Africa.