Ever since we decided to come to Roatan, Pam has wanted to go to Gumbalimba Park. It’s an animal sanctuary, filled with monkeys, iguanas, parrots, macaws, and especially hummingbirds!
It’s near the West End, in a lovely setting on fifteen acres of lush jungle with ocean frontage, a swimming pool, restaurant and tons of trails to explore. To start your tour, there’s a “pirate cave” to explore, with bats hanging around.
But, the monkeys are the main draw of course, and they just love to interact with people. They are very curious, and cute, and silly and well, they are little monkeys!
As soon as the golf cart arrives, the monkeys sneak on and steal anything not tied down, including water and pop bottles. They’ll take the keys right out of your pocket!
They come around and sit on your shoulder, wrap their tail around your neck and settle down for a snack – or until another monkey figures he deserves the seat. Not sure what startled Pam and this monkey, but pretty cute shot.
I was quite surprised how soft their feet and hands were. I expected they had some sort of claw, or nail to help grip, but they are so soft and gentle. It was really a lot of fun to hang around with them.
There were some of the largest parrots and macaws we’ve ever seen. Oh my – so colorful! They are essentially free in the park, although they have large cages for their protection during the night. While we were making silly with the monkeys a couple of big beauties just sat on a branch and watched us.
The big emerald macaw loves to sit on your shoulder, and patiently lets you take as many pictures or movies as you like. BUT watch out for your buttons! He loves ’em! And he ate the top bottom off my golf shirt.
We saw lots of different lizards, geckos and iguanas. They have close to twenty different types. One that was quite startling was four or five feet long, but in the color of a tiger! Quite the unique beast.
We finished our little tour with the hummingbirds. We’ve seen them around our resort, and had trouble getting a picture or movie of them. Well, that all changed today. Who knew there were this many hummingbirds in the world, let alone one place!
The beach is nice, but needed to be cleaned from the storms of the last couple of days. The water is quite churned up, and it has been tossing lots of seaweed on the shores. Still, Gumbalimba Park is a great way to spend a day with some silly monkeys!
Coming home, we saw a family out for a drive. On a scooter. All three of them. Yep, three of ’em! Not too many rules and regulations on these roads! hehe