Bush Baby Monkey Sanctuary / April 17

Today Dawn, Piper, Donald and I went to the Bush Babies and Monkey Sanctuary.  Paul had to work so it was just the 4 of us.  It was supposed to be about an hour drive but we went through downtown Pretoria and as you can see it was a little crowded on the road.

Downtown is nothing like the area around Dawn's house.  You can see here it is quite dirty and with a lot of people.  I guess it's the same no matter where you go on this earth..... there's the good part of town and the not so good part.

Most of the roads are two lanes yet there are usually 3 or 4 cars across the lanes at once. They drive on the edge of the road and cars pass in the same lane at the same time.  It's pretty scary.  So after about an hour going 5 miles in this traffic you can see how thrilled I was to see this beautiful site in the near distance!  Yay! So we stopped for a quick snack (it was past lunch time and you know how I like my food on schedule) and then Dawn headed back a few miles and took another route since it looked like the traffic didn't let up as far as we could see.

Finally we arrived at the monkeys.

                     

These signs were posted...

Looks like the monkeys might not be very nice!

I hope we don't run into the guy with the angry face.

All the monkeys in the sanctuary have been rescued.  Most were raised in homes and then when they got too big or a nuisance and they were no longer wanted they came here.  They are trying to make it as close to the wild for them as possible.

This little guy really wanted to find something in Donald's pockets.

When he didn't find anything he made that really angry face!

So we saw a mixture of different kinds of monkeys.  I know these are Lemurs but don't remember the names of all the others.

I liked this guy because he sucked his thumb.

We didn't really see any Bush Babies.  They are the ones with the great big eyes.  They had a couple but they were still in quarantine getting used to this sanctuary.

Then our guide took us way to the top of the mountain.  We had to go across some suspension bridges and some bamboo trails.  

I know no one would believe it without a picture so.... YES.  I went across it too!

It really was quite a view! This is on the Magaliesburg Mt. Range.  It is the oldest mountain range on earth.

On the way out we had to stop so Piper could have her picture taken sitting in the hand of the big ape... no, not Donald, the other one.   :)

We had a great visit with the monkeys and hiking up the mountain.  

Then there is one more picture of my favorite monkey going to her swimming lessons.

I know all you ladies from The Point wanted to see her in her TuTu swim suit that Gramma got for her .... here she is!