We’ve been travelling around the world for the past 6 months now, and not a single time have we felt unsafe, lost money, or had anything stolen from us. That all changed once we arrived in Kenya.

We flew into Nairobi and spent a couple of days in the capital before heading out on our 12-day safari. We were even lucky enough to have my mom join us as well as a friend named MaryBeth. Our first stop on the safari was Lake Nakuru, once famous for its enormous flocks of flamingos (over a million of the birds used to feed there), but now mostly known as one of the last places in Kenya where you can see white Rhinos.

We arrived at our lodge in the park in the early afternoon after spending about 3 hours getting our teeth shaken out of our skulls on the ridiculously rough Kenyan roads. It was a beautiful lodge, situated on a bluff overlooking the park, with Lake Nakuru in the background. Herds of zebra roamed past the lodge as warthogs and cape buffaloes drank from the nearby watering hole.

We had a game drive through the park scheduled for late afternoon so all 4 of us decided to hang out on the balcony of Mom and MaryBeth’s room. As we were chatting with each other and admiring the scenery, a troup of baboons came out of the bush and marched up towards us, munching on grass and leaves along the way. It was our first day on safari, so all of us were excited to see some animals up close.

However, it quickly became apparent that the baboons weren’t bothered by our presence at all, and continued to move closer and closer, straight towards the balcony of the room Kathy and I had. Two big males jumped up onto our balcony and then disappeared from view behind the wall separating our two balconies.

Mom: “Did you guys close your balcony door?”

Kathy: “Yes, I closed the door, they won’t be able to get in.”

However, we didn’t see the baboons come back so we decided to investigate. As I poked my head around the wall to look onto our balcony I saw the sliding door into our room wide open. I stepped over onto our balcony and as i did so, a large baboon sprinted out of our room on his hind legs while he carried an entire pack of rice cakes in his two arms. He quickly shimmied up a support post of the balcony and disappeared onto the roof overhead. I thought this was the end of our baboon encounter, but as I began to close the sliding door I heard some ruckous from inside our room.

I stepped inside, and sure enough, there was another baboon bandit searching for valuables. He was carrying a package of corn cakes (Kathy loves her corn and rice cakes!) that he had already been eating. This baboon clearly wasn’t as smart as the previous one who had immediately fled with his stolen valuables. The moron allowed himself to be caught red-handed at the crimescene eating the things he was trying to steal.

My sudden appearance in the room only agitated this little rascal though. He began to growl, bark, and bare his teeth at me as he scurried about the room. I was yelling at him and trying to give him space to escape but he was having none of it. He eventually holed himself up in our bathroom as he continued to shove corncakes down his gullet. He wasn’t terribly happy when I approached the bathroom door and yelled at him from a few feet away. He barked and lunged at me several times as if to tell me that the bathroom was his space and I should leave him in peace while he finished his lunch.

Even though it was bit scary to be so close to an agitated baboon (which have quite large teeth by the way), I kept pestering him until I was able to get him out of the bathroom. He moved into the main room where he immediately jumped up onto our bed (great, I’ve always wanted to sleep in a bed that smells like a pissed-off baboon). I continued my verbal assault of this pesky intruder until he jumped off the bed and down onto the floor. He continued to bark and growl at me but finally, after about 1-2 tense minutes, he decided to sprint out the door, but not before he left us a generous gift to remind us of who the real boss was.

Our new adversary wasn’t completely finished, however. After leaving our room, he proceeded to sit on our balcony and stare back at us through the glass while leaving several more foul-smelling baboon gifts. He sat there for several minutes while his baboon family hung around the grass behind him munching on Kathy’s snacks. It was as if he wanted to show off to his family by proving to them that he had enough courage to steal from people and then poop on their deck!

We found out later from some of the lodge staff that the baboons were able to open our sliding door because we hadn’t physically locked it, only closed it. These creatures were extraordinarly clever. They had seen Kathy and I leave our balcony and go to Mom and MaryBeth’s balcony. This is why they made a bee-line straight to our room, hoping that we were ignorant tourists who didn’t lock their door (and they were right!) We also learned that baboons aren’t afraid of white people, but are quite afraid of black africans. This is due to the fact that white people think it’s great to see baboons up close and just take pictures of them (which we did), but the africans see the baboons for the clever bandits that they are and carry clubs and slingshots to keep them away. Baboons aren’t stupid, they know exactly who they can take advantage of!