Dubbed as the Planet of the Apes, I traveled to the secretive “Monkey Island” in the Liberian jungle, but the hunt to find them wasn’t easy!

How To Find This Place?

I had talked a bit to my Dutch friend Bart about this place, but to be honest I had absolutely no clue how to get there at first. I just heard about the “Monkey Island”, and was a bit fascinated by the story of these aggressive laboratory monkeys living it up on the Liberian island.

What is said to be infected apes with a reputation for attacking invaders are apparently on their own private island in Africa. Going there sounds like something from a horror movie, right?! Anyway it sounded too cool for me to resist, and I always prefer to see animals in the wild and not in a circus or in most zoo’s, where they don’t belong.

Win-win situation!

No Tourist Attraction At All

I quickly found out this place wasn’t a tourist attraction and many people didn’t know the place I was asking for, but I took a shared taxi for around 1 hour south of Monrovia to a small city called Marshall and from there I jumped on a motorbike with a man and his wife. The man was complaining that I was moving too much in the 45 min motorbike drive, but I had his wife’s steel plate and fruits in my back, which caused a lot of pain!

Anyway, the pain shouldn’t stop me from making my way to the chimpanzees!

Corrupt Police Security Point

It’s incredible how much stuff can be on a small African motorbike, right?! I checked my phone and could see we were now close to the place, where the motorbike driver told me I could find a boat to the chimpanzees and right when I looked up from my phone a guy yelled: “HEY!” loudly.

I could see it was a security point and the 4 cops looked really sketchy.

I was sure they would try to get some money out of me. But I met them with a smile and a positive attitude, because I knew all my documents, vaccinations and visas were in order. After a little talk outside, I was taking into Officer Kanneh’s office and he asked me: “What are you doing here?”

I knew if I said I was going to look for the chimpanzees he would probably mention a fee for entrance, so I just said I was going to see the village here and walk around.

He said: “Ok I see. You didn’t know there were chimpanzees here?” I said: “No, are there really?” and looked very surprised.

Officer Kanneh said: “Yes. I can call a guy named Wacki, he know the chimpanzees and he can take you there for free.” I knew it wasn’t going to be free, but I just agreed and Officer Kanneh and his big security guard took me to the lake.

The Two Police Officers And Me Off On Motorbikes

We arrived to the place and it started to rain like crazy. We tried to call Wacki, but he didn’t take the phone. Out of a sudden someone found Wacki in the village and Wacki was very happy to see me and said he wanted to take me to the chimpanzees. But he said he would just go and change his outfit.

We waited for 20 minutes and Wacki didn’t come back.

Where Is Wacki?

Now it was finally dry, so one of the guys said that we should go now to the “Monkey Island.”

I was sure the guy had coordinated it with Wacki, but I was a bit surprised, when I asked him 5 times about where Wacki was and I didn’t get any respond.

Officer Kanneh was there with us and said Wacki wasn’t here right now, but I could pay 15 dollars and then go with Mr. Mojo’s old fisher boat, instead of Wacki’s kayak.

I knew time was short, because it was raining heavily (it really does here in rain season), so I said let me talk to Mr. Mojo. First of all I told Mr. Mojo that I wanted Wacki to come with me, because he was the expert in the area. Mr. Mojo said it was impossible, because we couldn’t find Wacki. I could tell Mr. Mojo just wanted to benefit from the situation, instead of Wacki, and to be fair I could see this Mr. Mojo was focusing more on the money, whereas Wacki seemed like a really nice person with a big heart.

The Oral Agreement

I looked Mr. Mojo deep in the eyes before the ‘Chimpanzee Hunt’ and said: “I don’t want a boat tour. I want to see chimpanzees. When I’ve seen chimpanzees, I’ll pay you 15 dollars. Not before.”

It was a cheap price indeed, but it’s a lot of money for Liberian people and fuel prices are super cheap here.

He said: “Yes, that’s a deal” and we shaked each other hands. Everybody around us saw it.

From my experience when traveling Africa, it’s always super important to make clear agreements before you do something, otherwise there can sometimes be problems afterwards and you will have to cash out!

It turned out there were big problems here too later! Anyway..

I made sure all the other 20 Liberian guys who were circling around me heard it too, in case Mr. Mojo suddenly ran away from our oral agreement. I wanted to see chimpanzees and after I would pay.

We went out in the old fisher boat, which went from side to side. I’m glad I have Faroese fisherman blood, and even one of the Liberian guys went puking after 30 minutes. That boat was absolutely terrible! I thought it was going to tip over at times, but the water luckily got more quiet. But the weather didn’t.

We started to search for the chimpanzees in two nearby islands, but they were hiding. They had food in the morning, so a guy told us we should come back, when they were hungry again and then suddenly a crazy rainstorm hit us! We had to go back! No chimpanzees!

1.st Attempt – FAIL!

When I came back I could see Mr. Mojo was looking at us and we jumped up of the shaky boat, soaking wet and disappointed and went inside a small stone house. The 5 Liberian guys told Mr. Mojo we didn’t see any chimpanzees and Mr. Mojo then said:

“Ok. But I want my money now.”

I was shocked. 15 dollars is not a problem for me, but to change an agreement is a problem. We made an agreement 1,5 hours before in front of everybody and now Mr. Mojo changed his mind. Waow!

When I’m traveling in Africa I’m a man of principles and I stick to my agreements here, which is one of the reasons I rarely get scammed in Africa. so I reminded Mr. Mojo in a kind way about the agreement we made earlier about the fact that I would pay when I had seen chimpanzees.

Mr. Mojo Got Aggressive

Mr. Mojo went straight to my face and started to yell that he wanted his money now, and he started coming with several racist remark about me, calling me f*cking stupid white man and several other things I don’t want to wrtie, but I kept my calm and didn’t move one step, even though he was right up in my face and I just told him in a polite way.

“How can I be the stupid one? We had a deal?”

I wasn’t scared, because I knew I was right and I knew if he hit me one time, he wouldn’t stand a chance against me.  The other guys took him away and told him to calm down, because they all heard the agreement we made. A guy in a yellow shirt came into the circle and that was THE GAME CHANGER!

Wacki And His Friend Were Back!

Wacki came back and he got really pissed off at Mr. Mojo.

Wacki told Mr. Mojo, he shouldn’t take me on his boat, while he was changing his outfit. Wacki apparently lived a little away from the village, and Wacki told Mr. Mojo he knew nothing about finding chimpanzees. Everybody loved Wacki in the little village, and Wacki told me: “Don’t worry my man, my friend will show you chimpanzees.”

After 30 min. of crazy discussions between Mr. Mojo and Wacki, Wacki convinced Mr. Mojo about his plans. I would pay the 15 dollars, when I had seen the chimpanzees and Wacki promised Mr. Mojo I would see them now at the 2. attempt with huge confidence. Wacki told me to go with his friend!

My man!

2. Attempt! Now Or Never

We left the village in the old fisher boat again for a 2. try! Wacki’s friend was really confident, he was actually dancing on the boat and started to say all the names of the monkeys and said he had a great personal relationship with them. I couldn’t help but to smile a bit after some rough hours of discussions.

Would We Finally Find The Chimpanzees?

Wacki’s friend was shocked about where the guys had taken me at first, and it turned out Wacki’s friend was right.
Right when we went out to the first place on this boat trip, 3 Chimpanzees came out, when Wacki’s friend started yelling their names. Such a clever animal, no wonder why it’s the most human like animal in the World.

We found them!

The water was shallow at the beach, so we couldn’t really get close, because the chimps could get aggressive with me as a new person they didn’t know, but we went to the other side of the island and got pretty close, where the chimpanzees were in the trees and on the seashore. Wauw, this was it!

We were all very happy to see the chimpanzees, and even Wacki’s friend’s friend was amazed and was sneaking out his phone and took some nice photos!

I couldn’t thank Wacki and Wacki’s friend enough and I gave them a solid well-deserved tip for saving my ‘Chimpanzee Trip’ and then I gave the man his 15 dollars when I came back of course. Even though I was a little mad about his racist remarks and aggressiveness towards me, but I could understand his frustrations too. I just can’t help sticking to the agreements I make. That’s just natural for me.

A hectic, but amazing chimpanzee hunt! Would you do have done the same like me?

Gustav

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