Ok, so after quite a late finish at Traders for an old geyser like
me, who had been on the road for the last three days, we began the next
day with a nice early start ... The plan was for the Simeulue crew
(Steph, Jon, Nam and myself) to drive to Bukit Lawang and do a bit of
jungle trekking, hoping to catch a glimpse of the orangutans of Gunung
Leuser National Park. I must have been totally shagged as I slept
through my alarm, so we didn’t leave til around 7… anyway we jumped in
our little hire van and cruised along the bumpy, potholed road for a
couple of hours. Nam’s suggestion of hair of the dog wasn’t really to
our taste, but he’d brought his own supplies and it worked for him! I
attempted to sleep to no avail :(
We met up with Anna,
the fifth Simeuluenian on the tour, at the EcoLodge in Bukit Lawang, and
then proceeded to our all-day trek. I don’t know if it was the best
idea considering how knackered I was and how little sleep I’d had! But
it was certainly a good way to get the blood flowing and I soon found
myself feeling wide awake and enjoying the trek through the humid but
cool forest.
Gunung Leuser NP is beautiful, and it
wasn’t long before we had left behind all traces of human impact on the
forest. We were tailed by quite a lot of inquisitive brown monkeys
throughout the journey. Our guides knew how to call to the orangutans,
and after a couple of hours of walking we came across a large one that
was obsessed with throwing a plank of wood around the place. A bit later
we found a small group of them, including a couple of young ones and a
baby, and later on another group. In all I think we saw about ten for
the day. All the adults were female, and were semi-wild; they were all
once inhabitants of the Bohorok Rehabilitation Centre, which is now
closed. Although it was initially set up with good intentions, over time
it began to practice unsustainable methods of reintroducing orangutans
into the wild, preferring to continue feeding them enough to keep them
around, thus bringing in the tourist dollar. Very sad, and thank
goodness it is no longer practiced. However, there is still a feeding
platform at the site of the old centre, which is open to view feeding
twice a day, and continues to bring in the orangutans (who could resist
handfuls of pineapples and bananas?) – not to mention the tourists. In
addition, whenever the orangutans approached, our guides had plenty of
fruit to give them as a reward; plus tourists were encouraged to
interact with them. This doesn’t really encourage them to assimilate
back into the forest! As we were walking towards our little destination
where we would take lunch, they were following us with the intention of
scoring more food… so we had to get outta there in order to eat in
peace!
Orangutans are amazing creatures; extremely
strong but agile in the trees. As you’d expect! What surprised me most
was that they had incredibly long arms, but quite short legs. I know
they need long arms for swinging through the trees but I expected their
legs to be longer. Their feet, which look more like hands, are also very
adept at grasping trees and vines. They are fantastic to watch as they
cruise around the forest. I also didn’t know that they are territorial,
with a large range that they move within, and that they make ‘nests’.
These are simple platforms in the trees, lined with leaves, which they
use to sleep in each night. The nests are only used for a single night
at a time, and then they move on to a different part of the forest.
Later
on in the trek we came across my namesake: an orangutan called Jacqui.
Hehe…! Gold! This orangutan was obsessed with following trekkers and
hugging everyone (like me when I’m drunk), so we had to be on our toes!
And then we met my favourite little critters: Thomas’ Leaf Monkeys.
These guys are the rock stars of the monkey world, with awesome black
and white striped mohawks, long tails, and beautiful long fingers and
toes to curl around branches. They are very inquisitive and always
leaping around the place.
In fact all the monkeys were
quite amusing when they launched themselves off trees, because they
always landed with a huge crash, and it can sometimes scare the hell out
of you, especially if you happen to be standing under the tree at the
time… :)
Once we’d finished off our trek and had
returned to the Eco Lodge, almost immediately the heavens let loose and
it began to absolutely piss down. In some ways I was glad that we
weren’t doing an overnight trek, and had elected to start out early! We
had met a few other trekkers along the way who were doing just that…
they would have got drenched.
We moved camp the next
day because there were no rooms left at the EcoLodge, and found what I
thought was much nicer accommodation further up the river, and further
away from all the touristy crap. We had monkeys on our roof in the
morning (beats an alarm clock any day – although it sounded like someone
throwing large rocks on the roof!) The rest of the time spent at Bukit
Lawang was just cruising around the river, relaxing, reading books and
enjoying a few beers with fellow travellers. Not to mention the best
fruit salad I have ever seen in my life. It looked like something that
should adorn someone’s head at the Carnivale in Rio. :)
So
back to Medan, enjoying a small dose of reality, stocking up on
essential foods and DVDs, and back to Simeulue. Blah. I do love this
place, but already I want another holiday!
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