Capturing the Moment

   Built of the banks of the Burguret River, below Mount Kenya, the Trout Tree Restaurant is a wonderful lunch stopover as your driving from Aberdare to Samburu. The restaurant is built around a huge fig tree, giving you the experience of eating in a treehouse. Down below the round pools of the trout farm teem with fish. And up above black and white colobus monkeys jump from branch to branch.  We had seen one of these rare monkeys the day before on our drive through Aberdare Mountain national park. But now was our chance to get up close and personal to the fluffy, skunk-colored monkeys. We were able to feed a few of the braver monkeys, including one with an all white, week old baby. The baby clutched defiantely to its mom's stomach, although it did cram its next around to check all of us out.    Erica got to show off her amazing trout preparing skills. She shocked everyone by deftly reaching in to her trout and cleanly pulling out all of the bone...

  We kept hearing about the monkey forest in Ubud, Indonesia. Apparently it is a temple complex where monkeys are safe and fed. It is about a ten minute walk from the city center of Ubud. I was a bit skeptical at first because of my encounters with these same species of monkeys, called crab-eating macaques, at another temple down south in Uluwatu. At that temple the macaques will jump on you and steal your sunglasses as well as picking your pockets. Sometimes they give the glasses back in exchange for food, other times they are lost to the Balinese monkey gods.   As usual my curiosity got the better of me so Heidi and I found ourselves paying the $3 entry fee to enter to the fabled monkey forest. Our instincts paid off as these monkeys have yet to learn the art of thievery and are just going about their own thing. Lots of adorable baby monkeys watched us with their little eyes as they clutched to their mothers. At one point a monkey gathering happened in the center circl...

Those are my sun glasses! Myles and Jack on the precipice    A nice trip to get some Balinese culture turned into a wild treasure hunt when one of the temple monkeys took a swipe at my eyes, snatching my sunglasses right off my face, and bolting into the thorny bush side. We finally got them back after the monkey dropped them and we doubled our caution around these little thieving pickpockets. Cliff hanging temple at Uluwatu Cute face, Cunning Thief   The temple at Uluwatu ( Pura Uluwatu ) was built in the 11th century. While not as big or majestic as some other temples in Bali, the location, atop a huge sea cliff, is a sight to behold. Upon entering we had to don purple sarongs so we would be properly dressed. We quickly found out that the temple is overrun with monkeys. Since they are considered descendants of the famous monkey god they are protected and fed here at the temple. However behind the cute face lies a cunning thief. They have learned to pi...