Finally, it was time to go see my monkeys. I showed up to the bus terminal ready to get my Rafiki on, and was blindsided by the news that the road to Santa Cruz was blocked due to protests and no one knew when it would be opening. Feeling deflated and intent on getting to Argentina by my birthday, I considered just getting the first ticket south to either Uyuni or Petosi and sadly leaving the monkeys behind. While I was pacing in debate, I saw a girl sitting on the stairs that looked like she spoke English so I asked her where she was heading, reaching out for some direction or sign to help make my decision. It turned out she was from Wisconsin and trying to head to the exact same little town I was and had bought an overnight ticket to Cochabamba where she hoped she could get a ticket to Santa Cruz the next day. I had my doubts if this was a wise move by her, but, still wrapped up in the spirit of success of my last spontaneous decision, I decided to jump on board with her plan. Luckily, we were able to catch a bus heading to Santa Cruz as soon as we got to Cochabamba. However, once on board we soon realized we were literally the only two non-locals on the entire bus and coupled with the janky seats and week old KFC smell I began to have inclinations that this was a going to turn out very badly. My suspicions worsened after the first two hours consisted of a strange man giving a painfully obnoxious sales pitch for some snail cream lotion in which he persistently gave each passenger a large dollop on the hand to prove it would really make you look “diez anos mas joven.” My seatmate, Allison, and I took bets on how many he would actually sell (in my optimistic state of mind I wagered 0) and we were shocked at how many people actually took him up on his offer.

Hours later, after looking at a map and seeing signs of towns out the window, we realized we would pass by Saimapata about 3 hours before arriving to Santa Cruz, so we asked the driver a few hours beforehand if he could drop us off there and he said yes. When I walked up to remind him with a little tip when we were 30 minutes out, I was surprised to find a completely different driver in the cockpit. I scratched my head, wondering momentarily where Houdini had escaped to, and delivered the message to the new driver who assured me “no hay problema,” a favorite phrase of theirs whenever you express any degree of concern, even if there actually is a problema. When we jumped off the bus and opened the bottom luggage compartment to grab our bags, we found the original driver fast asleep using them as pillows. Ballsy move by him seeing as though we had just finished 10 hours of hairpin cliff-side turns on a gravely dirt road. These are the types of fun surprises you discover when traveling through Bolivia.

Pumped that our gamble had paid off, we went for a nice dinner and stayed the night at a seemingly benign hostel. To my chagrin, when I went to brush my teeth in the morning I looked in the mirror and saw that my left eyelid was swollen shut and the only explanation I could come up with was that I was mauled in the night by some angry jungle bug. I popped a couple benadryl, threw on the blublockers and woozily walked my way to the animal refuge. Thankfully, one good eye was all that I needed that day. Within two minutes of walking into the refuge, one of my lifelong aspirations was fulfilled when I had a playful female howler monkey chillin’ on my shoulders with her tail curled around my neck.

Allison had a matching little youngin’ on her head and we spent the next few hours hanging on a jungle gym with those two and a couple others watching them play together and tangle themselves around us.

Mine loved a good tummy scratch and whenever I would take a break to grab my camera or swig some water she would immediately grab my hand and bring it back to her black belly. I’m sure our dogs would all do the same thing if it weren’t for the whole opposable thumb debacle. At one point, I put my iPod camera in reverse mode to try and snap a picture of her resting calmly in my lap and she saw what she had to think was either herself or another monkey and became intensely interested in it, popping up and grabbing the iPod strongly with both hands, staring right into her own eyes. It was fascinating. We saw the little one, who had just arrived to the refuge one week prior, grow up right before our eyes. He was initially a bit apprehensive, but as the morning continued on he began behaving increasingly like an annoying younger brother should, pestering the older and much bigger female, pushing his luck until she would eventually put him in his place and then proceed to clean him. By the end of our time he was swinging around everywhere, acting more like you would expect a young monkey to.

As silly as it all sounds, it really was a cool experience for me and worth all the crazy traveling and detours that had to occur to make it happen. Special thanks to Allison, had I not asked you where you were heading at the bus terminal I honestly wouldn’t have made it.