One Big Cat's Diary: First encounters of the baboon kind

There are a lot of baboons at the Naankuse Wildlife Sanctuary. Most of them have come in as babies, orphaned when their mothers were shot. They are divided into three separate enclosures: babies (up to 12 months old); senior babies (1-2 years old); and adults. After one week at Naankuse, we did reflect that this might also have been a useful way of separating the volunteers too.

Each day the baby baboons and the senior babies are taken out for a walk - to encourage them to forage naturally, allow them to explore new territory and basically let rip. The different groups of volunteers took it in turns to take them out, first making sure that they had "baboon-proofed" themselves by removing all hats, sunglasses, cameras etc and were wearing long trousers. But even your choice of clothing can cause problems. We were told of a previous volunteer who wore loose tracksuit bottoms with a stretchy waist. The baboons apparently pulled them down and pulled off her top, so she was forced to walk back in just her underwear.

On my second full day at the sanctuary, I just happened to be passing near the baboon enclosures when another group of volunteers were returning from their walk. The babies and senior babies were still running loose before being put back inside. As I was wearing all the things that they would want to get their hands on - hat, sunglasses, camera, necklace - I naively thought I could hide behind a bush and not draw attention to myself. I thought I had succeeded until one baboon wandered further away from the pack, spied me and came running over. Within seconds, he was pulling on the back of my sock as I tried to walk along while clutching tightly onto my hat, camera and sunglasses. Thwarted in his attempt to get his hands on my booty (as in belongings), he called all his mates over.

I'm not sure how many baboons were climbing up me or clinging on as I endeavoured to keep moving, but I was mightily relieved when a member of staff came running towards me to beat them off. It was during this episode that I learned how hard baboons can bite. I actually watched one of the little bastards pinch a piece of skin on the back of my calf - yes, I was wearing shorts too - and then proceed to sink his teeth into it. And he looked me right in the eye as he did so. Any fledging aspirations I might have had to become The Baboon Whisperer disappeared then and there. And I am still sporting the scars from those bites today.

When they promised me a "hands-on" experience with animals, I had assumed it would be me getting my hands on the animals. Not the other way round.