Tangkoko National Park, Sulawesi

A post about Indonesia would mean nothing if I didn't mention the food....so why not start with the food? This was my lunch on our way to Tangkoko National Park, above, eggplant with a yellow curry cononut sauce on top. Possibly the best thing I've ever eaten in my life?

 Jay had Manadonese-style chicken

After a very entertaining drive with a guide we hired - named Wendel - we arrived at Dove Villas just outside Tangkoko National Park. Wendel was entertaining because he was a well-educated Indonesian who spoke English fairly well and was quite obsessed with American action movies and really, really, interested in getting to America. Did I already talk about this? He asked lots of questions like "how much does it cost to eat in America"? Indonesians can grab a cheap dinner from a food cart for less than a US dollar, so Wendel was pretty surprised when we told him our food prices. But we also had to explain to him that most Americans don't eat out every day and food carts are not all over the place. In other words, we told him that Americans cook (or at least attempt to).

Upon our arrival in the Tangkoko NP area, we thought we would head straight out for a dusk walk in the park with a ranger. But the ranger came over and explained to us that it was pouring too hard to go for a walk. We were disappointed; it is a rainforest after all and we were prepared for the downpour. We think the ranger wasn't really in the mood to deal with the rainy season and so he got out of dealing with us. We decided to go for a walk down the "road" by our cottage instead. I took this photo of someone's home and all the coconuts on the ground during the walk.

 Mt. Tangkoko (volcano) in the background

Back at our cottage we had a dinner, not the best food but we were in the middle of nowhere and the people were so sweet we didn't care. Prior to dinner Jay discovered a dead bird in a closet in our room, not too surprising as many of these villas are open air (our bathroom had an open roof and the shower was right out in the open with just a wall around the shower head). Thankfully Jay spared me the details of how the bird looked....ugh. We decided to tell the family running the villas about the bird. One problem - they spoke no English and we spoke no Indonesian (aside from saying "thank you" and "hello"). And there were no other guests to help out. So during our dinner we found an Indonesian/English dictionary and the words for dead bird (we had our own dictionary but it was too simple to have "dead bird" in it). Jay told the family and they were clearly upset about it and followed us to our room. Jay showed them the bird and they quickly offered us another room. But it was late and we had our crap all over the place, so we declined and assumed that he would come and get rid of the dead bird. Nope. They left and never came back. Ha! So we went to sleep in the company of our dear dead bird and woke up at 3:30am to catch a ride to the park for the dawn walk in the rainforest. Ahhhh Indonesia.

We wanted to go to Tangkoko National Park to see these critters, tarsiers. Tarsiers (small monkey) are only found in the Philippines, Sulawesi, Borneo, and Sumatra. Not a common critter to see.... and something we really were hoping to see, which we obviously did. Tarsiers live in groups in old-growth trees, a clear example of the importance of preserving old-growth rainforests in these amazing countries.

Tarsiers make a high-pitched whistle which you can hear in this video (there is no video, only a dark rainforest, but the audio is fantastic). You can hear the short whistles of the tarsiers, but you can also hear eagles and our guides talking to each other.

Here is a tarsier leaping from a tree. Our guide put a grasshopper on the tree to get the tarsier out for us to see. I was just about to ask our guide not to do that when another group arrived and they thought feeding animals in a national park was just fine. Damn it. We could see the tarsiers on the tree without having to feed them, but alas, it was show and tell.

Another real treat was seeing this fluffy animal in the rainforest canopy called a cus-cus. It is a marsupial and I swear it looked like a cross between a raccoon, monkey, and bear. It moved very slowly and spent a lot of time looking at us. This was a boy - can't you tell?

 I needed a new dress for my walk in the rainforest

We came upon a huge group of Celebes crested macaques, or the crested black macaque (see the crest?). These are critically endangered species, only found in this park and on some outlying islands around Sulawesi. Their meat is a bit too popular with locals and their habitat is so limited - I worry about their chance for survival.

I love this photo for numerous reasons.... our guide looked over at what was going on behind the leaves and announced to us "they make a the sex" while another macaque hooted its approval. Need I say more?

 Jay and our guide inside a huge old-growth tree

There used to be a big tree in here until a strangler fig surrounded the original tree, strangled it, and killed it. Now the strangler fig remains and it is hollow inside from the dead tree.

Tangkoko also extends to the beach and looks out toward Lembeh Strait, where we would be diving after leaving the park.

More photos and stories will come from the Lembeh dives.... next post!