Lolo was brought to the Hotel a little more than a month ago by a Nicaraguan woman and her teenage son. When they told me they had a baby monkey with them, I thought that surely I was misunderstanding with my poor Spanish. You can imagine my surprise when she reached into her bag and lifted out an actual baby monkey. She told us that he was only four months old.
The monkey, named Lolo, is a white-faced capuchin – the same monkeys that danced beside organ grinders once upon a time. The Hotel’s owner told me that Lolo’s mother had been killed and he felt sorry for him when he saw him being sold on the side of a highway. The staff at the Hotel quickly fell in love with Lolo as did the guests, but we knew that a Hotel wasn’t really the place for a baby monkey. Luckily, Monica walked into the Hotel one day.
Monica has studied and worked extensively with monkeys in various places including Africa. We’re lucky she heard about Lolo being at the Hotel and came by to see what she could do to help. She began working with Lolo to teach him monkey skills like foraging and she sought out a rescue center that can rehabilitate Lolo and return him to the wild.
About a week ago, Monica left the Hotel with Lolo and brought him to a rescue center in Managua. She’s begun a blog chronicling Lolo’s ordeal from his perspective and also providing useful information on the Primates as Pets trade. In bringing Lolo to the rescue center in Managua, Monica discovered that the center is desperately underfunded. She’s created a page to help raise funds for the center. Money raised will improve conditions for all the animals that receive rehabilitation from the only center of it’s kind here in Nicaragua.