The weather was quite good, and due to light holiday traffic, there was less smog. The Monkey made his way through the narrow, hilly streets of La Candelaría, the core of Spanish colonial—and modern political and cultural—Bogotá, stopping for a number of photos along the way. During the course of the day, the Monkey posed at various other sites including the Moneda (Mint) Museum, the Botero Museum (displaying countless works by the Colombian painter), the Avianca skyscraper, the 16th Century church of San Francisco, and the Plaza de Bolívar, seat of Bogotá’s Cathedral, the national Congress, and the Palace of Justice.

After many hours of walking around high-altitude Bogotá, the Monkey and his photographer were pretty worn out by the mid-afternoon. They decided to return to their hotel in the Candelaría district and relax before dinner. Along the way, they passed through the area around the scenic Chorro de Quevedo, a little plaza surrounded by a warren of alley-like streets. Having spotted the Monkey posing by a particularly interesting old house, a young Colombian chap approached the Monkey and his photographer to inquire about what the Monkey was up to. As the boy and the photographer struck up a conversation and walked along, the Monkey climbed into the photographer's camera case to rest his legs. Just as the boy was showing off the wounds he had received from an unfortunate run-in with a knife-wielding thug, loud footsteps and yelling from behind the trio signaled another assault was imminent.

Two fellows dressed in black and masks grabbed hold of the Monkey’s photographer yelling to give up the money. They flashed a handgun and began struggling, one in front and one behind the photographer, to tear away his camera equipment. The photographer resisted as best he could, knowing his friend the Monkey was resting in the camera case. But with one, TWO, THREE whacks on the head with the pistol, and one more on the arm for good measure, the photographer was beaten. The thieves ran up the street with the Monkey and the equipment, and the photographer chased them imploring them to leave the Monkey, who was, after all, quite innocent in the whole affair. A few heroic bystanders did their best to thwart the thieves: one young couple swerved their car at the pair, swinging their door open to belt one of them, while an old man walking his German Shepherd let the dog lash out at one of the thieves, startling him and causing him to drop the camera, which smashed on the cobblestone street. But the Monkey was gone, kidnapped, secuestrado.

The duo escaped in the maze of streets, and the photographer had to give up the chase, at which point he realized he was bleeding quite profusely from the head, where the pistol whips had landed. The young Colombian couple that had tried to disrupt the thieves gave the photographer a handkerchief to bandage the wound, then helped him call the police. When two cops arrived, the young couple helped describe the perpetrators, and they climbed into the police van with the Monkey’s photographer to help with the search. “We want you to know not all Colombians are like that,” the couple told the photographer. “I know, I see that,” he replied.

The two police officers, in their olive green uniforms, listened to the photographer’s and the couple’s accounts of the incident, and they quickly came to the same conclusion: “Oh, it’s Chuki and Tomasa. They do this all the time here.” The cops said that they knew where to find the two thugs’ accomplice, and a few hairpin turns at high speed later, the van pulled up by a small bakery where a group of people were gathered outside. The male cop, who looked all of 18, pointed out a blonde girl in the crowd outside the bakery and asked whether or not she had been at the crime scene. Neither the young couple nor the photographer were sure, but the police said the girl worked with the thieves and pulled the van up beside her to question her. She tearfully denied any involvement, as one would expect whether or not she had done anything. After the impromptu interrogation, the female cop, in her late 20s, said, “We know where they live. We’ll go by and see if they’re home.” This idea sounded silly—if the thieves are known in the neighborhood, why would they go home right after a crime and sit around for the cops to come?—but to the photographer it seemed better than doing nothing.

Of course, stopping by the purported home of the thieves turned up nothing. The young Colombian couple left at that point, and the police took the photographer to the local healthcare clinic for some stitches. After the clinic, the photographer met with a police lieutenant to officially report the incident into the police records. The Monkey’s photographer made it clear at that point that retrieving the Monkey was his primary concern—photographic equipment is replaceable, but there is only one Monkey.

That night the photographer returned to his hotel and washed the blood from his hair and clothes. The Monkey was elsewhere, held under duress by two armed thugs. It is impossible to say what he felt at that point. That night, unable to sleep, the photographer hatched a plan to recover the Monkey.

The Monkey in the cobblestone streets of Bogotá's Candelaria district.

Monkeyless photos just wouldn't be as cool.

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