The Daytrip to the Jungle

   
Day 24 - February 3

We woke up late this morning. Seems we always do late when we should do early, oh well. We were still able to get ready and do breakfast and meet Anuar, out guide, by 7:30. So everything was fine. He made sure we had the things we needed before set out. Asking specifically about insect repellent and water. We had both. So away we did go.

Wagler's Pit Viper

Thomas' Leaf Monkey

Pig Tail Macaque

Before we were even on our journey Anuar showed us a snake that was next to his patio. It was a green snake with white and red markings that looked like dots. It was a young snake only about 6 inches long. I looked it up on the internet and found it supposedly was a Wagler’s Pit Viper. But I Rachael Bladow identified a much larger snake that looked very different at Wagler’s Pit Viper. I certainly guess the juvenile could look very different than the mature variety. So I sent another post on FB to Rachel. She’s a herpetologist so if she doesn’t know she will be able to find out.

About two hundred yards up the trail we were greeted by a couple of Thomas Leaf Monkeys. They are very pretty and very personable. We saw many more of these along the trail. We also say many long tail macaques as well. They seem to be all over the place including in the area of the hotel. We gave these guys some banana and we were off again. The guide did call them in so they had gotten hand outs before.

As we moved on out guide told us he hoped we would have luck finding some orangutans this morning. It turns out we were not very lucky this morning. We say leaf monkeys, many type of butterflies, ants on a trail to their nest, a couple of really large ants, they must have been a half inch long. We saw a pig tailed macaque, but the forest person eluded us.

At 11 AM or so we finally were able to see one. It was a young female, 7 or 8 years old. She was very friendly. I wouldn’t really classify her as wild. She was definitely accustomed to humans. We fed her bananas and carrots. She liked them both. We probably spent about a half hour maybe more with her. Our guide got a call that there was a female with a baby not too far away. We never did find her but we had a wonderful time in the forest. I guess I should say jungle but a jungle is just a tropical forest.

Interacting with an Orangutan

 Sometime around 1 PM we got down to the river. The river was our trip back to the hotel. But first lunch was in order. We had nasi goreng with tomatoes, cucumbers, and an egg. Was very tasty mostly I think because we were very hungry. Both Bonnie and I ate the whole thing. There was pineapple and oranges for dessert. The pineapple was sweet and tender. The oranges we had already sampled on the trail.

Sweet Young Lady

The next thing was to get all of the stuff we didn’t want to get wet in some waterproof bags. That was done and we were loaded up on the tubes. The tubes we floated were like backhoe tubes, very large. There were four all tied together. The first rapid was probably roiled more than the others and our guide go some pictures of us as we came down. He then put our camera in a bag and joined us on the tubes. The river is very rocky and my butt bumped the bottom a couple of times on the way down but it was a lot of fun and very cooling. The water was cool, probably in the 70s F (22 C). It felt great. We stopped just above the dam and walked back to the hotel.

Long Tail Macaque

Tubing the River

It was a great day to once again get away from the hustle and dirt of the city. We escape to Indonesia and had wonderful time. We also found out where the Bat Cave is. We will visit there tomorrow. Looks like it’s going to rain this evening. Hope it does and cools things off some.