A Day Off in Sumatra
August 12, 2008
Last week the group I traveled with had
one free (or no coffee) day. We decided to go to Bukit Lawang, an area of
Gunung Leuser National Park. We started out about 9 am with a 3 hour drive
to get to the park. An hour of it was just getting through the city of
Medan with traffic.
We stopped for lunch in the city just before our destination. I have to say the worst part about traveling is eating in a very poor area and having no selection. When we walked up to the restaurant (and this is very common here), the restaurant has food in a small cart with open-air cases. The usual food on display is whole fried fish, a few types of rice, and an assortment of other traditional Sumatran food of which I have not idea what they were because I didn’t eat any of them. When away from the better places to eat it is always better to side with caution rather than hunger. Two of the guys that were traveling with me got food poisoning at a similar place the week earlier and one of them has just started to feel better. So I ordered noodles and bottled water.
After lunch it
was about a 15 minute drive to the park. We had no idea what we were in
for when we decided to do this. We arrive at the what we though was a
park entrance but instead it is a hotel parking lot. We notice while
driving in there was a bunch of local people followed us on motorcycles.
When we got out of the car we were approach by some guy who started to
question us about staying overnight and did we need a room or how about a
guide? It kind of made me a little nervous because our driver and guide
weren’t doing anything to stop it. After about 10 minutes we figured
out what the deal was.
We crossed a bridge and arrived at a hotel on the edge of the park where we had to buy a permit and hire a guide to go into the forest. This hotel is near the edge of the park and is used as kind of a starting point and is extremely convenient for tourists.
Once we started I knew I was in for a long day. It was supposed to be a 2 hour hike and an hour at a feeding area where the Orangutans live. Thank god it was cloudy this day but the humidity was 100% and it was still 85 degrees in the shade.
We started up
the mountain to hike about 1000 feet. About an hour into the hike I was
completely drenched with sweat and really struggling. Our guide was
trying to track the Orangutan and was not having success. After another
half hour he told us to wait and he would go ahead and try to find them on
different trails so we waited. About 15 minutes later he came back with
bad news- none to be found. So we decided to start to head toward the
feeding area where we know we would see some.
We couldn’t have walked 5 minutes and when out of nowhere branches started falling and the guide yelled, “Orang!” There was a family of 5 or 6, four big ones and two babies. The forest was so dark it was impossible to get great photos at this point.
I took about 500
photos but didn’t get one really good photo. This one and a few
other are ok. We spent about a half hour trying to get into position to
get a photo but it never worked out. As we were waiting to see if the
orangutans would move this small group of tourists from New York came up
and started to talk to us. As we were talking the male Orangutan in the
group decided to go pee on one of the female tourist’s head.
Everyone started laughing and the guide pointed out that it is good luck
and a sign of fertility that she was showered with “Jungle
Juice”.
The Organ Hutan, as called by the people of Sumatra, means people of the forest. They can live in the wild between 30 and 40 years old. They breed slowly and have few young. Females start having babies at age 10 and usually have babies only every six years. The babies are raised by the mother only until they reach maturity.
The guide then
decided in order to make it to the feeding area he would have to take us
the quick way through the jungle. By this time I was beat and had
borderline heat exhaustion but proceeded anyway. The trail he took us on
was ridiculous. We had to use vines from the trees to repel down some
areas and use them as ropes to climb up hills. When we got to the area
everyone in the other tourist group was looking at us like ‘where
did you come from?’ My arm was bleeding and I lost about a gallon
of sweat; this German guy said, “You look like you are going to pass
out.” I told him do not go that way, as it would kill him. As soon
as I said that I turned around and was looking at an orangutan close up
and coming right at me.
This feeding
area is in the national park about an hour hike from the hotel where we
staying. They feed them because a few of these animals were raised
illegally by humans and then released into the forest. Until they are
taken in by a group of other orangutan they need to be feed. Eventually
they will not come to the feeding are and go deeper into the forest.
This big one is a wild Orangutan that was trying to mate with a domesticated one. The domesticated one came really close to us. I sat down from exhaustion and Adam Pesce took this series of pictures.
When you get to the point of seeing animals like this in the wild, like our Gorilla trip to Rwanda in February, you forget about the pain and focus on the short time you have with them. I am still amazed that we can’t take care of these animals like we should. Their habitat is getting destroyed every day from farmers planting rubber trees and palm trees for palm oil. Life is too short, take the time to see and help save these wonderful creatures.
Mark
We stopped for lunch in the city just before our destination. I have to say the worst part about traveling is eating in a very poor area and having no selection. When we walked up to the restaurant (and this is very common here), the restaurant has food in a small cart with open-air cases. The usual food on display is whole fried fish, a few types of rice, and an assortment of other traditional Sumatran food of which I have not idea what they were because I didn’t eat any of them. When away from the better places to eat it is always better to side with caution rather than hunger. Two of the guys that were traveling with me got food poisoning at a similar place the week earlier and one of them has just started to feel better. So I ordered noodles and bottled water.
After lunch it
was about a 15 minute drive to the park. We had no idea what we were in
for when we decided to do this. We arrive at the what we though was a
park entrance but instead it is a hotel parking lot. We notice while
driving in there was a bunch of local people followed us on motorcycles.
When we got out of the car we were approach by some guy who started to
question us about staying overnight and did we need a room or how about a
guide? It kind of made me a little nervous because our driver and guide
weren’t doing anything to stop it. After about 10 minutes we figured
out what the deal was. We crossed a bridge and arrived at a hotel on the edge of the park where we had to buy a permit and hire a guide to go into the forest. This hotel is near the edge of the park and is used as kind of a starting point and is extremely convenient for tourists.
Once we started I knew I was in for a long day. It was supposed to be a 2 hour hike and an hour at a feeding area where the Orangutans live. Thank god it was cloudy this day but the humidity was 100% and it was still 85 degrees in the shade.
We started up
the mountain to hike about 1000 feet. About an hour into the hike I was
completely drenched with sweat and really struggling. Our guide was
trying to track the Orangutan and was not having success. After another
half hour he told us to wait and he would go ahead and try to find them on
different trails so we waited. About 15 minutes later he came back with
bad news- none to be found. So we decided to start to head toward the
feeding area where we know we would see some. We couldn’t have walked 5 minutes and when out of nowhere branches started falling and the guide yelled, “Orang!” There was a family of 5 or 6, four big ones and two babies. The forest was so dark it was impossible to get great photos at this point.
I took about 500
photos but didn’t get one really good photo. This one and a few
other are ok. We spent about a half hour trying to get into position to
get a photo but it never worked out. As we were waiting to see if the
orangutans would move this small group of tourists from New York came up
and started to talk to us. As we were talking the male Orangutan in the
group decided to go pee on one of the female tourist’s head.
Everyone started laughing and the guide pointed out that it is good luck
and a sign of fertility that she was showered with “Jungle
Juice”.The Organ Hutan, as called by the people of Sumatra, means people of the forest. They can live in the wild between 30 and 40 years old. They breed slowly and have few young. Females start having babies at age 10 and usually have babies only every six years. The babies are raised by the mother only until they reach maturity.
The guide then
decided in order to make it to the feeding area he would have to take us
the quick way through the jungle. By this time I was beat and had
borderline heat exhaustion but proceeded anyway. The trail he took us on
was ridiculous. We had to use vines from the trees to repel down some
areas and use them as ropes to climb up hills. When we got to the area
everyone in the other tourist group was looking at us like ‘where
did you come from?’ My arm was bleeding and I lost about a gallon
of sweat; this German guy said, “You look like you are going to pass
out.” I told him do not go that way, as it would kill him. As soon
as I said that I turned around and was looking at an orangutan close up
and coming right at me. This feeding
area is in the national park about an hour hike from the hotel where we
staying. They feed them because a few of these animals were raised
illegally by humans and then released into the forest. Until they are
taken in by a group of other orangutan they need to be feed. Eventually
they will not come to the feeding are and go deeper into the forest. This big one is a wild Orangutan that was trying to mate with a domesticated one. The domesticated one came really close to us. I sat down from exhaustion and Adam Pesce took this series of pictures.
When you get to the point of seeing animals like this in the wild, like our Gorilla trip to Rwanda in February, you forget about the pain and focus on the short time you have with them. I am still amazed that we can’t take care of these animals like we should. Their habitat is getting destroyed every day from farmers planting rubber trees and palm trees for palm oil. Life is too short, take the time to see and help save these wonderful creatures.
Mark
