Goa Kreo is about 430 kilometers due east of Jakarta, in Central Java. Last week I was lucky enough to make a visit to the site, and see the hundreds of wild long tailed macaques that call Goa Kreo home.
The site is known as a place of reverence, with a 500-year history.
Goa Kreo attracts visitors daily. Onsite food stalls sell bananas and peanuts to give to the monkeys.
I'll be honest. With 400 macaques running around and dozens of people visiting the area, I expected pandemonium.
Instead, I witnessed a fairly calm scene. People gave fruit and nuts to the monkeys, which caused the macaques to gather near the people. Still, there was mostly serene orderly provisioning and very few outburst of aggression between monkeys.
Goa Kreo is on a hilltop, surrounded by healthy forest and bordered on one side by a undeveloped freshwater lake. So, in addition to human provisioning, the site is lush with natural food resources. There is an abundance of everything, actually, and no real predators to speak of.
For the macaques it seems an idyllic life.
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