communing with furry cousins in jigokudani

have you heard of the term age of fishes? how about age of amphibians? age of reptiles? ... or specifically, age of dinosaurs? i am sure you have heard of that. yes, i am talking about geologic timescales. those were nicknames given to the devonian, and carboniferous periods, and the mesozoic era which were all older than 66 million years ago. the current era, the cenozoic, is often nicknamed as the age of mammals. when the non-avian dinosaurs died the mammals took over the ecological niches left behind. (i said non-avian because there are evidences and debates which suggest that birds evolved from dinosaurs.) us humans are also part of this class mammalia and we surely did dominate not only in one niche but probably even in those which we are supposedly not part of. before the humans came to be though, the old world monkeys branched off also in the cenozoic era. deep in the valleys of yamanochi in nagano lies a unique park where you can visit your lineage cousins. welcome to jigokudani snow monkey park!

that intro felt like an eternity, i got over-excited to nerd off some prehistory. so here is me, a human, pondering ~~what to eat for breakfast~~ life choices on this third installation of the great nagano winter trip. we all started here at the temple then cleansed ourselves in warm waters. now we visit our cousins.

breakfast is the most important meal of the day, we started grand! here is a glimpse of what to expect in jigokudani right on this mug. we had to eat first, we couldn't take in food in the park. we were told by the locals that we should not show food to the monkeys probably for safety reasons for both us and the monkeys.

the trail started off on quite an uphill icy path, it was incredibly slippery and scary to be frank. this picture above is an off-road which is of the same slope but still with powdery snow since it was not taken by the throes of tourists eager to visit the monkeys. i initially thought that it would be a silent stroll, but it turned out to be a hike. and it was so easy to slip on the trail, we were walking on ice. i got outbalanced and got a jolt a couple of times.

we finally came upon this resting hut along the trail which had some information about the monkeys, japanese macaques to be specific. these are old world monkeys: old world in the sense that the afro-eurasia supercontinent was once called "old world" in contrast to the newly discovered lands of the americas or the "new world". in this poster i learned that the mothers take care of their young, typical of any mammal, while the fathers are basically absent in child-rearing. they do not even know whether their consummation produced a child. some humans act like this too. we can probably call them monkeys as well.

we finally arrived at this clearing. it is a sign that we are nearing the monkeys. a few more meters along this path, then turn right up the stairs, then a couple more meters till we reach the entrance to the park. i expected a stroll but i wasn't expecting a hike at all. see those houses on the right, those were actually public bath houses were you could dip in the hot waters in the hopes that monkeys would join you. of course you can do this at a fee. we passed by the area and i was surprised to see people in the nude bathing in the waters but i couldn't see any monkey. and this was supposed to be mixed genders' bath so i wasn't expecting people to go nude, but here we could see about three men fully exposed to the public. japanese locals were even talking among themselves about this unexpected meat exposure. we were here to see monkeys bathing, not homo sapiens in the nude.

we finally saw the real monkeys at last! they were everywhere actually. and they roam freely. it even feels like we, humans, were invading their space to be honest. they were just there bathing in the warm waters of this hot spring pool. some were there digging the snow in search of food. others were just there resting, the young ones were busy playing. i'm sure the newborns have wondered at first why humans were gathering around them. they might have even communicated among themselves of how odd we looked. they might have educated their youngs to mind their own business and ignore their fellow primates in the area who were busy taking pictures of them and selfies with them. looking at how these monkeys interact, it really seems like they are a tribe, a community of japanese macaques which happens to enjoy these hot springs which are akin to humans who belong in a local spa community. so peaceful while they swim, they probably fight once they go home too.

we went back the same path and ended back at the same restaurant we had breakfast at. this experience got my feet planted firmly to the ground. early humans must have had lived in similar ways to these monkeys. they hunted food when hungry, they were free to roam the land, and they had time to relax and enjoy and socialize as well. they had simple lives with simple joys and simple goals. when monkeys kept this same lifestyle, we humans got so advanced and got materialistic in the process. i suppose we humans can adopt a little bit of this simplicity back. probably this will teach us not to envy what others have and what others have achieved. and hopefully this will lead to a more happy and contented lives.

hope you enjoy this little clip of this once in a lifetime trip.