Jungle trekking day 1

After a slightly broken nights sleep, up at 8 to leave for the trek at 9. Turns out I am with two other Americans, a girl called Alexis and a guy called Jon- both work for US international development so Alexis is currently based in Jakarta at the embassy and Jon has just quit but was in Colombia. Very interesting! We also have two guides, who both have been working in the jungle for more than 5 years so we feel in good hands!

The plan today is to walk for 6-7 hours until we get to the camp, then stay there overnight. The chances of seeing orang-utans is pretty high but not guaranteed. There used to be a rehabilitation centre for orangutans in Bukit Lawang so they call the orang-utans ‘semi wild’. They live in the jungle and most are born in the jungle but they have learned behaviour to not be scared of humans and will come very close to you.

We were very lucky! It was a lovely sunny day and after all the rain yesterday we think they must want to come out because we saw our first two after about 10 minutes and saw 16 in total, including lots of babies and one male (who was huge!). Some came quite close and one tried to get our lunch! I have so many pictures!!! We also saw peacocks, Thomas leaf monkeys, pig tailed macaques and some woodpeckers so it was amazing.

The walking was tough at times, we obviously stopped a lot to watch the orang-utans, but there was a lot of very steep up and down and it was quite wet after yesterday’s rain. But the guides were really good and we went quite slow and had stops for water and fruit which was delicious. The hardest part was the final descent into camp (next to the river) which was about 45 of almost vertical descent a lot of which was scrambling! Thank God for the vines and tree roots to hold onto because it was tough. And very sweaty- it’s warm but so so so humid. We finally arrived at the river which we were very happy about and after a quick wade across we were at camp about 4.30. The camp is very basic- we sleep on thin mattresses in a sort of tarpaulin shelter, but it does the job!

We had a swim in the river- mainly to wash off all the sweat and cool down! It is lovely and clear and not too cold so that was perfect. Then later had a delicious dinner and some card games before bed.Read more