A travelling monkey reaches his 40th country

When I was three years old on a road trip to Massachusetts’s Cape Cod (with my family of course, driving at three years old is illegal), my brother and I bought beanie babies: Bongo the monkey for me and Congo the gorilla for my brother. For whatever reason, we ended up deciding to bring these beanie babies to every new country we went to. I was fortunate to do a fair bit of travelling when I was younger, primarily around Canada and the United States, but I also visited a few European countries, Mexico, and in the Caribbean and Atlantic.

Eventually, my brother dropped off on bringing Congo with him to new places, but I just kept bringing Bongo. And I definitely kept on travelling. Bongo came with me on my first solitary trip when I was eighteen to China and India, and that was when I also began the practice of taking a picture of Bongo in the countries that he came with me to. Ecuador came next, then Thailand, Myanmar, Nepal, Jordan, Morocco, Costa Rica… and on and on.

This year, as I was packing for my summer of diving in Greece, I was really tight on space in my bag. Do I really need to bring Bongo on this trip? Is it a bit silly to keep bringing this stuffed animal with me, who by now was 25 years old? I had also already been to Greece three times and had no plans to go anywhere else, although I knew there was a chance I would end up going to a country I had never been to. I decided to leave Bongo behind. A new chapter lay ahead!

Month after month I was diving in the Mediterranean and all was well. I had heard enough people talk about how amazing the diving was in Egypt’s Red Sea that eventually I thought that maybe I should head over there. After all, it was just a few hundred kilometres south of me in Crete. When else would I be so close to Egypt and ready to dive? The problem was that I had never been to Egypt before, and didn’t have Bongo with me.

I hatched a solution. My friend from back home in Canada was going to be visiting me in Greece for a little while. But he wasn’t living in my Canadian hometown where my mother (and Bongo) lived, and my mother was in Hawaii at the time! I asked my mother to put Bongo outside somewhere, where he would have to live in the cold for almost a week and be at the mercy of bugs and birds. My friend was eventually going to be nearby and could pick him up.

I have to admit, it was a strange request to ask of this friend, but alas, he did so. Oh, and I made sure that Bongo would be in his carry-on baggage and not checked. Couldn’t be losing Bongo at this stage.

Eventually, my friend and I met in Athens, and spent ten days travelling around Greece, including the medieval monasteries at Meteora and the ancient oracular site of Delphi. We then parted ways, and I packed Bongo in my bag (my carry-on bag again, of course) and came to Egypt.

Egypt, my fortieth country. Egypt, Bongo’s fortieth country.

Here he is, in all his glory, in front of the ancient pyramids of Giza.

Oh well, I guess I haven’t grown out of any stage yet. I can’t wait to take Bongo on my next adventure.

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