Around the World 2023

We were awoken at5am by rustling around the house, no idea what it was. After breakfast we were putting our leech socks on and a troupe of red leaf monkeys came to the trees by the lodge. After watching them for a while we set off along the trails. Within 10 minutes we saw a mum and baby orangutan 🦧 🦧 in the trees across the river. We watched them for a while and then continued along the hornbill trail. There were quite a few hornbills so well named, but there were more mud and leeches!

We walked through the jungle for about an hour and a half and suddenly the cry came ‘ orangutan’ 🦧 🦧 🦧. Up in the tree there were three, mum, baby and child. Apparently this is unusual as mums only have 1 child at a time. We watched them eating the fruit and moving around the tree for ages.

We were just about at the road so it was a quick walk back to the lodge, where another female orangutan 🦧 was in the tree. We then went to the shoe wash station and cleaned and deleeched our shoes. Back in the room, after the leech check, Simon was hanging out some wet clothes and a neighbour said there was an orangutan 🦧 on the path outside the room. We went outside and there he was, shaking the bushes. Apparently he didn’t like the group watching as he charged them and they scarpered. We watched from afar as he made his way through the underbrush and then to a tree. 7 wild orangutans before lunch!

After a shower we went for lunch and then an afternoon to ourselves. After a little nap I sat on the deck and saw some samba deer 🦌 and a lesser fish eagle.

At 4.30pm we met the guide for our dusk walk. We went back along the muddy leech trail from yesterday and took a different turning, coming out at the canopy bridges. We climbed up to the first pylon and waited for dusk. Just before it went dark a giant red squirrel came out from a hole in the tree, climbed up and then leaped, gliding across to another tree.

We then walked back to the main road and slowly walked back to the lodge in the dark. We saw another Colugo, this time I saw it glide between trees.

Back at the lodge we demudded and it deleeched before a shower. I washed my hair for the third time today and it was needed!

Dinner at the lodge and bed, ready for an early start tomorrow.Read more