The baby monkey that peed on me in the Cuyabeno jungle (Ecuador)

Me and Pancho during our brief, glorious truce.

If you come to Ecuador’s Cuyabeno Wildlife Reserve, you may encounter a (fairly) domesticated baby monkey at your lodge. At least, my lodge had one.

OLD TRAVEL JOURNAL #4

The Place: Cuyabeno Wildlife Reserve, Samona Lodge

The Dates: Feb. 18-21, 2008

Journal Date: Feb. 25, 2008

“The best thing about Samona Lodge was Pancho, the resident baby monkey. His parents were killed, I think, the lodge took him in, and he was everybody’s favorite plaything. He was quick to climb on people, and incredibly slow to let go. The first night he was all over me, and it’s a weird thing to feel a monkey’s tail around your neck.

Then he peed on me, and everything changed. I didn’t handle it very well. I jumped up and tried to pull his tail from my neck, yelling, “Get him off me!” Two guides tried to pull him off, but Pancho hates to be forced off someone and only held on all the tighter. He started shrieking, so we were both making a ruckus, and finally someone got him off. I ran off to shower, but not before telling a skeptical Trine, when she asked if Pancho really peed on me, “Touch the monkey pee!”

Tom shows the proper way to act when a monkey pees on you: DON'T freak out.

The experience tainted me for Pancho. For the rest of the trip, save for one blessed, brief moment that I quickly cashed in on with a photo, he seemed to avoid me, even scorning my offers of food. Ouch. And later, when he peed on Tom and shat on Jen, they handled it with so much class, I couldn’t help but be ashamed.”