Wo-Man of the Forest
What makes driving 7hrs, taking a motor canoe down a river when it’s pouring with rain.
Sleeping in a wooden cabin in the middle of the forest on a thin mattress worthwhile?
Seeing wild Orangutans. Our first trek in the forest was a couple of hours before dusk. We’d walked some 4km, were soaking wet from the humidity and seen very little. A few big wood louse and millipedes in the under growth.
Some beautiful scenes of sun through the forest of the Taman Kutai Timor National Park.
But not signs of Orangutans. Then our ranger guide stops again, tilts his head and points. Up high is an Orangutan with it’s baby. This was the oldest in the area we were told at 40+yrs old and the baby was 4yrs old.
As we watched, the behavior that we call ‘human’ played out. Baby played and ate - moving through the tree tops. Mother followed. Not too close, but always close enough. Then they stopped and Mum made a nest. Breaking & twisting branches. They make a new nest, the same way, every night. As Mum made a nest, baby played, now not going to far from Mum. Once the work was done and the nest finished the baby came home to Mum.
Sound familiar? We walked on and there was another Mother & Baby pair. This time a little lower in the trees, but more obscured by the leaves. They moved between the branches - reaching out with the long arms and curved hands effortlessly ‘walking & swinging’ through the tree top. They disappear off - baby going, mother following. Soon they will build a nest for the night. We head back to our hut - known as Prevab Camp, built originally for a group of Japanese scientists. It’s basic, but all you need.
A simple dinner to the sounds of the forest. Crickets, frogs, squeaks from something unknown. Loud but somehow calming.
We retire early as it’s a bright start tomorrow - back in th forest by 6:30am. On the hunt for more Orangutans.
Off into the forest we set. Thankfully less hot & humid than the evening before.
We startle a large Monitor lizard and it dives into the stream for safety. There are Macaques scuttling through the tree tops. These are easy to see, tree tops move a lot & they make noises to communicate within the troop. Orangutans are much harder to spot - they move much slower most of the time so you don’t get as much sound to find then by. They do make noise, but not frequently. Our luck is in - another Mother & Baby pairing. Different to the day before. This is the daughter to 1st Orangutan we saw. About 27yrs old with a baby less than 2yrs old. They are moving through the branches - about 15m above us. Eating, then moving. The baby stops and watches us. Head leaning on a branch. She seems as lazy as my children at that time of the morning. Mum is more industrious getting food & passing it to the little one.
We move on only a few more meters and there is a third Orangutan. This one is more of a youth - about 8yrs old. We are told it now builds its own nest as it learns to fend for itself. But its nest and the youth never goes too far from Mum. An amazing experience watching them in the wild - completely unaffected by humans. This National Forest is protected - but as we travelled too & from it, the pressure of Palm Oil and Mining was clear to see.
