Last week in La bundo bundo flew by so fast. Maybe because it wasn’t a full week, but probably because it was minggu malas extended. I went out one day to do actual monkey-ing work, but after 8 hours of walking around up and down the limestone death hill, we finally found them at the bottom of the hill on their way back up, from where we came from. So that was a pain. And it actually ended up being one of the few days we had in this whole time where it didn’t rain at all, so we couldn’t blame it on the rain, or leave because of the rain.
I was then invited to join the overnight tree climbing/sleeping experience! It is just the same as the tree climbing I did with the crew before, but this time we head up at about 9pm and we spend the night 100ft up the tree in the hammock!! You still keep your harness on (but still quite scary I would imagine if you were a sleep walker), but take off your boots and helmet and attach them to the hammock. We set off from La bundo bundo about half 7 and on the way came across a reticulated python! It was a “small” one – about 3 m maybe, and not too thick around. However, it scurried off the road extremely quickly once we all jumped out of the van for a closer look! When we got to the tree, we had a little camp fire (or attempted one, which mainly consisted of pouring kerosene on the flames since the wood was all wet) and ate peanuts in attempt to try to dehydrate ourselves before heading up the tree and THEN had to pee. At around half 9 we were ready to climb and as soon as we put on our harnesses the rain began. And it did not stop. So we aborted mission and had to head back to La bundo. I was quite sad leaving but better the rain started when we were still on the ground rather than us already being up in the hammocks ready for bed.
I went for a final time to Kawelli, the village where the farm projects are done for the macaques, and did some GPS mapping of the farms there on the Sunday which turned out to be another beautiful day (except for the hour of rain in the middle of it!). We weren’t allowed on one of the farms any more for some reason, so weren’t able to GPS it, but Rudi, my guide, said he could do it and I never saw a better stealth mission than his. He didn’t go on their property, but walked around the outside of the fence to get the perimeter, but was so sneaky that I even kept losing his even though I was trying to watch him the whole time. I was meant to go along with Marc the following day to join the civet project but it ended up raining ALL night and was raining in the morning so I decided against it as I didn’t want to get my boots all wet before Wednesday and having to wear them all wet on the plane (Sorry marc!!). The day got eventually nicer but I ended up spending in the computer lab helping out with stats and gps stuff, when Christine, the Tarsier scientist, popped her head in and asked if I was still joining her, since they were meant to be leaving in 5 minutes. I had completely forgotten and to get down to my house from where we were and then back up would’ve been about 15 minutes. I only had my flip flops with me, but luckily I was able to find a pair of abandoned boots in the office that were mostly my size and threw those on. But I was wearing non-jungle clothes and didn’t have socks. Or water. Or a head torch – which is probably the most important thing if you are going out into the forest at night (but Tine had an extra one she nicely let me use). Once we got up to the tree, she said “ok stand here and watch to see if any come out of the holes in the tree” and I was just like “oh, it that one? And that one?” and saw 2 tarsiers within the first minute of being by the tree. I attribute it to the fact that I was wearing my “Nocturnal Primate Research Group” t-shirt, which seems to draw out the primate creatures of the night. They stuck around for about 25 minutes before heading off into the forest for the night.
My final day in La bundo bundo was low key – just computer stuff and an attempted bird walk that got rained out (surprise surprise!). However, there was a little staff party night that night which was really nice, getting a final hurrah before taking off – which included bintang for all, chicken for most and cake for the vegetarians!! (but we shared…hehe). However, but 11pm I figured I should probably go and pack, seeing as I was leaving at 0730am the following day!
My final adventure involved a motorbike and 2 heavy bags. I’m glad that adventure is over, but I have to admit, once I got over the terrifying bit of thinking I would fall off, I did quite enjoy it, but I would never want to go on a bike in a busier place than Bau Bau! And in line with Indonesian time, my flight leaving was over an hour late, but luckily I planned for that, so I made sure I had a couple hour wait between my flights.
Then I was in Malaysia! :)
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