| Orangutans! |
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| From Kumai, Kalimantan, Indonesia | |
| Friday, March 07, 2008 | |
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First took a hot, tiny bus for 4hrs down a bad road squeezed next to my self-appointed translator, a sweet but large guy who occupied most of my seat too & he had an annoying constant cough. When the road finally improved we changed buses. This one was large but freezing cold. While waiting for that next bus the only tourist I'd seen in days showed up... & funny, he gets off the bus & says "you're an American, headed to the orangutans & stayed at Hotel Mira, right?" Yeah, that's right...he'd heard about me from someone in the last town! We immediately agreed to see the orangutans together.
There were 3 orangutan camps... started at the most famous, Camp Leaky, where they take injured, orphaned & otherwise abandoned orangutans & reintroduce them into the wild. There we saw about 20, mostly babies & their mothers... they were beautiful... amazing... cute... spectacular! Something words just can't describe.
Also loved camping on the boat, despite it being a small boat, sharing it with 5 strange guys & the closest thing to privacy, a bathroom with walls 2ft too short! But falling asleep on top of the boat, under a zillion stars, listening to the sounds of monkeys & crocodiles catching fish & waking up to the sounds of gibbons & orangutans... fantastic!! Tags: Indonesia orangutans Borneo |
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The next day we went to a different camp where the orangutans are semi-wild... & you could tell... they were definitely weary of us. But they were still horny & we got to watch National Geographic's version of a porno! But even better, when we were leaving the camp the recently dethroned orangutan king, named Kusasi (there's a documentary about him) was blocking our exit, sitting on the raised boardwalk. He was magnificent but you could really see his sadness over his fight two months ago with the new king. Our guide tried calling the name of the new king to scare him away... while it got his attention, & scared him some; he was still too sullen to move. Luckily our guide carried bananas & threw the bananas into the jungle so we could get out.
