We all went down to
the Garden Inn restaurant at around 7.15am this morning. Zoe had some
breakfast with me and then Sinar and I headed down the path to get
Julie and Tony. Together we crossed the bridge, but this time we
headed left. As we walked, Sinar handed around a bottle of 'brown
sugar' – what I think was fresh palm juice, a lovely, sweet,
slightly nutty drink. We headed up a small set of stairs where a
couple of young locals pointed out another small juvenile viper, this
one a bit bigger than the one that has set up camp opposite Green
Hill. Sinar told us that the locals call these month snakes because
once they've found a spot they like, they'll often stay there for a
month.
We passed by the
under-renovation restaurant at the eco-lodge and through a rubber
plantation and then into the jungle. The gradient was significantly
less brutal than it had been when I went out with the others a few
days ago. I was very slightly nervous about the whole orangutan
situation – having all but promised Tony and Julie that they would
see some, and recommended Sinar to them, I was now a bit concerned
that things wouldn't turn out. But of course I needn't have worried,
as we came across our first orangutan (with attendant baby) pretty
early on. There was a troop of macaques hanging around, too, and
several of them bared their teeth at me as I moved around trying to
find good angles from which to photograph the two apes.
The day then went
much the same as my previous day out. We saw some white-handed
gibbons, lots of leaf monkeys, a great argus, a tortoise and a total of nine orangutans.
Thankfully we didn't see Mina, but what we did see was a guide
hurrying down the path with a bandage around his leg – and
apparently a few Mina-inflicted puncture wounds underneath it. We
also saw a lovely little tree shrew with a big bushy auburn tail. It
had obviously found something very appetising right beside the trail
and kept darting over to dig it up, then losing its nerve and
bouncing away, before returning to have another go. Sadly, despite
waiting around for several iterations of this nervous dance, I never
managed to get a decent photo of it.
As the afternoon
wore on, Sinar offered us the same two options for returning to Bukit
Lawang – the quick way across the river or the slow way back
through the forest. This time we opted for the former and soon found
ourselves tackling a very steep descent to the river. When we finally
got there, Sinar led us to a slightly rickety contraption beside the
river – essentially a wooden seat hanging from a rope and pulley
system set up between two wooden platforms, one on either river bank.
Julie, Tony and I took turns being hauled across the river on the
little seat and then Sinar and his assistant put their bags on their
shoulders and forded the river. It had begun to rain as we began to
make our crossing and by the time the guides made theirs it was
properly pouring. Up in the platform, Sinar pulled a couple of
plastic bags from his rucksack and double-bagged all of our daypacks
inside them. He then handed the load to his assistant and we all set
off downriver, very quickly going from sweat-damp to completely
rain-drenched.
When we got back to
the Garden Inn I spotted Kate and Sarah up on the lovely dry balcony.
I grabbed my daypack, said goodbye to the others and then went up to
the bungalow, where we shared animal stories. They'd had another run
in with the macaques, which had got into the room again and scattered
our bag of spare plastic bags all over the place. When Kate and the
girls had returned to the house, there was a group of monkeys on the
stairs outside that had stood their ground and hissed at them. Zoe
was so distressed that she ran back down the stairs, sat in the
restaurant and refused to come back out until I got back.
I got changed out of
my sodden clothes and we went down to the Garden Inn's restaurant for
some beer and chips, before walking up to the Jungle Inn for dinner.
While we ate, it started to rain again - really, really heavily
again. Every time it seemed to be easing off, and we started to think
about going out into it, it would suddenly regain its strength and we
would settle back in to wait. The staff took this as a perfect excuse
to pull out the guitar and start massacring a few more bad songs,
right at the end of our table. Eventually, I couldn't bear it any
longer and headed out into the downpour to get our umbrellas, which
we had of course left back at the bungalow. I got as far as Sam's and
noticed a large umbrella hanging up at the entrance to the
restaurant. I grabbed it and asked if it was okay if I borrowed it
and then returned to the bungalow to get ours – and then we all
finally made it back to our beds.
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