Hi WRMW,
There are no dead ends in this game, but there are lots of different ways of doing things, which is what makes the game such fun.

Is this the monkey who is guarding the rear passage to the cave dwelling? He might like a gift of a cake if you can bake him one.
Another way of getting rid of the monkey at the bridge was to scare him with the snake, so you could also try this with cave monkey. Have you already captured the snake?

, let us know if you still have problems.