So much has happened, I have my journal with me here so I'll share some of it in present tense..
Before I begin
I feel like I left you all on a sour note with that last post from the airport. I apologise if you actually felt how uncomfortable I was sitting there thinking that my most important things were gone forever. I could care less about the clothes, souvenirs and toiletries, really! There's one thing in that bag that I would fly around the world to get back if I could and that's what really worried me. I have a pair of pants that I have worn since day one of travelling. They're beaten and a little dirty but they have sewn on them patches from nearly every cool place I've ever been. Not just the countries, or the cities, if someone sells a patch at a museum, I'll buy it and put it on the pants. I once bought a guys shirt in Togo, Africa because there was a patch on it that said Togo(I was desperate, there weren't any Togo patches to be found!) Anyway, All's well that ends well, I've had the most amazing week in the jungle- please allow me to share with you my experience. while I simultaneously upload photos to facebook.
After my experience at the airport, I caught the first bus (and the last one of the night) to Bukit Lawang where I hoped to explore the jungle there in search of our hairy red cousins. The bus ride to BL is an experience to remember. It's actually not really a bus at all, it was a decrepit, dilapidated, overcrowded minivan that someone hailed off the street for me. That thing felt like it was falling apart, No suspension, vibrating windows, shredded seats, no muffler and all the smells of an Asian summer. Did you know that you can fit 22 people in one of those.. remember, I'm talking about a Mini van! you can fit even more on top of it. I think that at one time we had 25 total on board.Body heat, breast feeding, coughing, chain smoking, farting and crying babies. I tell you about this bus now but you haven't lived until you take a "chicken" bus somewhere. I'm getting ahead of myself but I 'll tell you now that the chicken bus includes all the fore mentioned qualities multiplied by at least one hundred. I saw one drive by today that had about twenty five people on the top and was crowded the same inside! Back to the jungle- I have to write this down.
From the Journal-
I write this from a rock in the middle of a river in the middle of the jungle. I slept under tarp tent and stars last night, close to the earth. Somewhere close to me now in the morning sun Macaques are plotting to invade the privacy I'm enjoying on this perch while I write and sip river water coffee and listen to this magnificent water bubble and roll along.
It turns out that bukit lawang means "Door to the Jungle Hills"! These hills are no small feat to climb!
Yesterday, my jungle guide Firman and I had the greatest time hiking and climbing these very hills I'm enjoying the view of now. I wore vibram shoes for the hike so it was like walking bare foot through the jungle. My feet are sore now but it's worth it to feel that amazingly close to the earth (dave knows what I mean here!) Although my feet are a little sore, it sure beats the blisters and scrapes I've been getting from my Tevas!
The search for Orangutans was a huge success for me. In the morning even before the trek, I spotted a young male walking along the riverbed! Shortly after our hike began, Firman and I spotted another older male Orangutan swinging in the trees. I followed him for quite some time. About an hour later, We found our first mother with child. There's no doubt in my mind now that these animals have some very human qualities. The mother held her child and played with her while they moved effortlessly through the jungle trees. She even cautioned the little one when she came too close to me. Finally, later that day, we found another mother with child. This orangutan was special, they call her "Mena" Firman told me that mena was aggressive towards people but that we shouldn't have any problems so long as we had a few pieces of fruit. After I posed for pictures about 8 feet from her and her child I received the rest of the story. Mena has a very long, very bad history of attacking guides and trekkers alike. I now know that posing for pictures with her was borderline insane- she has bitten more than 50 people in the past and she doesn't just bite! she wrestles and fights and wont quit unless she knows that you're hurt. She doesn't feel pain apparently, sticks only make her more angry and one time... she attacked a guide who had a knife who (as a last resort to save himself from her beating) slashed her face. She's a bad ass! with a bad ass scar too! This day was no absolutely no exception from mena's tyrannical rule of the jungle. We didn't know it at the time but Mean Mena had just sent a guide to the hospital about a half hour before she spotted us in the jungle- she hunts tourists! She did seem to look quite content when I was standing an orangutans arms length from her.. Blood thirsty orange bitch! At lunch in the jungle later, Firman demonstrated how large she can open her mouth by showing me the scars mena gave him two yeas ago when she nearly bit through his knee puncturing his muscle and tendons in the shape of an orangutan mouth from the top and front of his leg to the back side- WOW! He told me also later that most of the guides had been bitten by her at some time and most of them try to avoid her but like I said, she hunts tourists for food! give her some passion fruit and she's as happy as can be. That is, until you run out!
The orangutans I saw in the jungle yesterday were great. Still, I keep thinking that I'm supposed to feel some sort of enlightenment after being so close to them. I don't. It is no doubt to me that we're certainly more closely related to them in the evolutionary chain of things than most other animals but in their faces I don't see peace and enlightenment. It's evident to me that we as humans created those things with our big minds, creative reasoning, will to succeed and the many abilities that we pioneer as the dominant race of this planet. Orangutans have been left behind to live in the trees and pick flees out of each others hair. In them, I see a wild animal, driven by instinct to survive. Smart enough to be greedy, capable of emotion and compelled by the law of the jungle which you may only ever grasp if you enter-
I am still a curiosity to ever closer and surrounding macaques!
Jungle night, River bed camp
Deep green water flows with persistent and gentle force with medium fizz and yawning style across a path carved by centuries of diligence in a bed now barely used but kind and welcoming enough to share it with myself and 5 others last night under starlight next to a campfire. The jungle and mountainous hills watch the water grow and shrink with the rainfall in seasons constantly eroding the shape of the accomodating canyon which holds it all. Life here is abundant, ever present and thriving- Gushing into existence with the river and the light from the sun in so many forms. It swings from the trees, it crawls from holes on hillsides, it hides under rocks, swims in the river, flutters, buzzes or glides overhead and it eats and savors the rain and blossoms in so many colors to rejoice its mere existence and for the simple sake of its being. Perfection in simple and pure form. I cannot help but to feel completely alive and in good company in the belly of this jungle. It did not choose me even though I now feel completely welcome. I sought out her mouth, eyes watching me the night before, green morning rose in my heart and I climbed vines down her throat and hiked hills and shared my sweat with a days muddy trek down trails, up trails around massive, sky scraping mahogany trees, through twine like parasitic root structures. Feet on bald rocks slipping past laughing and taunting monkeys and deep eyed orangutans that carry on with life here with babes in their arms stretching and swinging through nesty trees- their homes. Along the crest of this canyon mad my descent, holding ropes of roots and hands of branches, dropping stories to the river bed and finally to this massive rock in the belly of it all where jungle breeze and morning mist share with me tranquility.
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