DAY SEVEN: Borneo, part 2

We woke up some time after dawn--I didn't bother looking at my watch for a while. Considering our latitude, though (about 2 degrees south of the equator), and only being one month removed from an equinox, sunrise couldn't have been much later than twelve hours after sunset. For breakfast, we had omelets, toast with butter and jelly, and bananas. We then headed up the river a little more, to another feeding area.

This one had the same type of platform, but had no fencing or seating area laid out for tourists. That was fine with me; we just stood. To try to ward off mosquitoes, I had brought a thin track suit I found for $20 on Tsushima. Knowing absolutely nothing about the outdoors, I chose black, which Anang told me attracts mosquitoes. He was right--though the repellent kept me from being bitten, they swarmed around my legs the whole time.

The worker put out the bananas, and began calling the orangutans. This went on for about fifteen minutes, with first Anang and then me joining in the calling. It wasn't anything fancy: just a simple "ey!" yell. Anang explained that they had put these bananas out earlier than the usual time. He said that they do this to try and break the rehabilitated orangutans' dependence on the provided meals. Eventually, we could hear rustling in the distance. After a few minutes, the local male emerged.

He was almost as big as Tom, and seeing him in motion made him more impressive. He made his way to the platform, alternately swinging and climbing across the trees. He moved deftly, but hurried no more than anyone does for breakfast. Once on the platform, he held on to a nearby branch and enjoyed his breakfast.

After about ten minutes, two females appeared. One, holding a baby, was identified as Anang as wild. This means she was born and raised in the park, with no interaction with the workers. This explained her markedly different behavior: she approached the platform much more slowly than any others we'd seen, clearly wary of us. She began making the kinds of mouth noises you see chimps make on funny videos--the lips-together, flatulent-sounding noise everyone makes as kids (and that some of us still make). The other solitary female, apparently a rehabilitated one, joined in making the noises. Anang explained that they were trying to scare us off. After a few minutes of this, obviously not succeeding, the smell of the bananas must have overwhelmed their fear of us, and they joined the male for breakfast. Anang had me line up for this picture.

Eventually the male let go of the branch, but kept standing upright. While the mother didn't seem too concerned with the male, the solitary one kept her distance. Sure enough, the male made advances at her each time she came in for some bananas. He began grunting at her, and eventually she headed off. He then began pursuing the mother, despite her baby clinging to her--Anang explained that doesn't make a difference to the males. She avoided him, though, and eventually headed off. The male stuck around for a few more minutes, serenading us with some post-breakfast gas, then excused himself.

In the aftermath, we sat around talking. Anang and the worker talked about various things, and I listened to the sounds of the forest in the early morning. Not long after the orangutans left, several butterflies descended on the platform to pick up the leftovers. There wasn't much left--the orangutans devour the fruit, then slowly chew on the peel--but the small tidbits count as a free meal too. I got some pictures of the butterflies (here and, more impressively, here), and stood next to the platform and watched the scene unfold.

As the butterflies nibbled on the platform, there were ants scurrying around the bits on the ground. I also noticed some faintly-familiar beetles scurrying around, though I couldn't place them at first. A few seconds later, though, I figured it out: they were dung beetles, and I recognized them from all those Discovery Channel specials about the rainforest. Just like I'd seen on TV, they were rolling the bits of orangutan poo into balls. I saw two of them around the same ball, which, based on what I've read, indicates one was trying to steal the ball from the other, or they were mates preparing a nest for their babies. Either way, it was amazing to watch. In fifteen minutes, there was nothing left that resembled either banana or poo.

While I was watching all this, I noticed a strong smell. It seemed familiar, but it wasn't urine, which I would have expected from a feeding ground. After a few minutes, I realized it smelled like vinegar, which must have been from bits of rotting banana.

The three of us headed back, and Anang told me about the other wildlife in the park. There are plenty of reptiles, like snakes and monitor lizards, which was the main reason I didn't want to sleep in the lodge: I figured snakes would have a harder time getting onto a boat than they would getting into a house.

Oh, and those crocodiles Anang told me about? He also told me that a few years back a tourist was eaten by one while he was swimming in the river. Turns out he wasn't lying.

On the way back we passed a sandy clearing full of huge flies just buzzing around. We found a lot of them swarming around what looked like a big ball of flies. We also stopped at an old wooden house set up as a museum for the park. I walked through it, reading about the different flora and fauna of the park, signed the guestbook, and met one of the locals beating the heat.

We had to start heading back to Kumai, since the big boat would take about twice as long to make the trip as the speedboat had. On the trip back, I snapped a picture of what Anang said were proboscis monkeys, but I still can't find any. That's the closest I came to seeing any of them.

I dozed on the way back, noticing the change in water as we rejoined the Sekonyer. The weather was just as sunny and gorgeous as it had been since we got to Bali. The highs all week had been up around 95, though we had spent most of our time in different forms of shade. Out in the full sun on the river, though, it was scorching. We slowly puttered our way back to the dock, where we waited a few minutes for our ride back to the airport.

Back in Pangkalan Bun, Nanang met us. He had my plane ticket, and the refund. Thanks to all the booking and cancelling of flights he had to do the day before, the refund came out to about $20 for each of the three of us. I found that a little hard to believe at first, but he had itemized all the expenses in a receipt for me. I still don't know whether he blew the numbers out of proportion, but I figure that, after all the headaches we caused him, he can have the extra. I thanked him again and again, telling him how much I loved the tour. Before they left, he let me use his phone to call Mutia in Jakarta to arrange picking me up.

That done, we said goodbye, and I headed into the airport. As I waited for the plane, which wound up being twenty minutes late, I noticed that Pangkalan Bun's airport is named Iskandar. That makes it my new favorite airport, despite all the trouble I had getting there.