Monkey fun in Tafi Atome

The ride out from Mountain Paradise was not nearly as spine-jarring as the ride in, and our first stop proved only a short distance away. We arrived to find the guides lolling beneath a sprawling, leafy tree. It was quiet. Not a lot of monkey watchers today, it seemed. We paid our fee, secured a cluster of bananas and then without much fanfare set off for the nearby jungle.

At a shady spot on the dirt trail, our guide, Kofi, offered up the story of the sanctuary’s history. It was, he told us, the project of a Canadian named John Mason, who, upon learning that the forest’s rapid disappearance could take the resident Mona monkeys with it, worked with local authorities, communities and conservation groups to establish the small refuge. Today it is home to about 500 Mona monkeys, while providing some much-needed additional income to local residents.

At a bend in the trail Kofi called into the dense foliage and in moments it was a monkey party in the trees over our heads. Out of nowhere they appeared, bounding from branch to branch, achieving in their reckless enthusiasm a passing resemblance to our annual party in college we called “50 Ways to Lose Your Liver.”

Kofi showed how if you held out a banana, making sure to grip it tightly, a monkey would approach and then very fastidiously unpeel it, remove a piece with its small, delicate fingers and eat. We did this until the entire bunch was gone. It was thrilling to be so close and to have made this connection, separated only by a single banana. I could’ve repeated the process all day and was sorry when we were empty handed.

Unsure if these larger, walking brothers could produce more, the monkeys stuck close until we tossed the last peel into the forest and carried on down the trail. A short walk through sunlight-dappled jungle brought us finally back to the car.

(Picture: One of the littlest, and most coquettish, of Tafi Atome's residents)