My Mate Primate

My Mate Primate
Tangkoko Nature Reserve, Indonesia

Tangkoko Nature Reserve, Indonesia

Sulawesi had been a journey of highs and lows and thankfully with Tangkoko we saved the best until last. Tangkoko Reserve is somewhere that I had never heard of until we looked at visiting Sulawesi and it turned out to be one of the most amazing places we have ever experienced. North of Manado this nature reserve which has struggled to overcome poachers is just a little piece of jungle paradise.

We had booked a guide that included a transfer to and from Manado and a night in a little lodge on the outskirts of the reserve. Sadly our guide who was a ranger in the park was sick so he sent a colleague to look after us, luckily for us Ateng was the best guide that we could have hoped for!

A tour into the Tangkoko Reserve basically includes 2 visits, one at sunset to see the Tarsier Monkeys come out of their sleeping tree and one at sunrise to see the Black macaque monkeys wake up for the day and begin their trek through the forest.

We arrived mid-afternoon at our rustic little lodge and set up camp in our mosquito nets, like most places in Sulawesi the accommodation included meals and boy did this family feed us well. They literally prepared food for about 10 people and there were only the two of us staying there. The clever thing that this village has done is to agree that the homestays won’t sell drinks or snacks so that you have to go out in the village and support the other small businesses, which is a fantastic and forward thinking idea. The other noticeable difference about Tangkoko is that the guides would pick up any piece of rubbish that they saw to keep the jungle immaculate. Whilst most of us will have never heard of Tangkoko the chances are that you have seen footage of it on the TV as the BBC have made numerous documentaries both about the Tarsiers and Black Macaques within the reserve.

As most of you will know Tim and I are not big hikers or early risers, however the exception to that rule is where animals are involved. If we can see any cool wild animal in its natural environment we will almost definitely go out of our way to walk, swim or get up early to see it, which is a good thing as there is a lot of walking and a very early start in the reserve!! Our first trek at dusk to the Tarsiers was pretty gruelling to start with as it was still over 30 degrees, the walk was pretty flat but in all must have been about an hour and a half through the jungle. We got to a broken rotten looking tree and there were 3 other tourists and their guides sat on the floor waiting. Our guide did a quick loop of the tree and immediately called us over to show us 2 adorable little Tarsiers just sitting in a hole looking out. The Tarsiers make their homes inside the rotten tree trunks, sleep all day and hunt after dark. They pop out of the tree at dusk to wake up and for their eyes to adjust ready for hunting. The two other guides eventually realised that there were tarsiers out and so their tourists had a quick look and before it had even gone dark they left after spending no more than 10 minutes with the Tarsiers. Not that I am complaining as it meant that we had the whole tree to ourselves to just watch these incredible little monkeys wake up and more and more of them just kept appearing. All in all I think that there were 7 living in this tree and we just sat and watched them as they came out, sat looking around and slowly started to jump around ready for a night out. Just to put into perspective how small and adorable these little furries are, they are approximately the size of an orange, just tiny, perfect little big eyed fur balls. At the height of the season there would probably be over 30 people pushing and shoving to get at the tarsiers so we were incredibly lucky to have this experience all to ourselves. The downside to the trek was that the journey home through snake infested jungle would be in the pitch black, hmmmm! Thankfully we survived the trek and arrived just in time for our host family to have prepared yet another meal consisting of at least 6 different plates over flowing with food. We just managed to finish eating before there was a power cut and the owners spent a good 30 minutes getting the generator running, we headed to bed and tried to get some sleep ready for a 5am start for round two in the morning.

Our second trek was a little less arduous as the sun hadn’t yet risen, we walked back the same route to the jungle in search of the Black macaque monkeys. Sadly the Black Macaques have been hunted almost to extinction in the reserve but thankfully with the help of overseas funding there are a group of rangers who every day walk with the monkeys from dawn until dusk to protect and monitor them. Thankfully for us this also means that our guide knows approximately where they are so we get to walk amongst them, literally.

Our first stop in the trek was to see some Hornbills, these magnificent birds with their huge colourful bills were just sat in the canopy of the jungle. Next up was a bright green and highly poisonous pit viper fast asleep in a small bush totally camouflaged digesting a huge meal which we really hoped was a rat and not a tarsier! Finally our guide led us to the main attraction the huge pack of beautiful Macaques just walking through the forest. We were a little uneasy at first but our guide encouraged us to just walk amongst them. They are so used to the rangers they are not threatened or concerned by us, so we just walked and followed them as they went about their day. We must have followed them for about 45 minutes with not another tourist in sight as the cheaper guides were not in communication with the rangers and didn’t know where to find them. Their loss, our gain.

On our way back out of the jungle we were treated with two more amazing animal encounters, first up an adorable Cuscus Bear, which is a bit of a cross between a cat and a bear, it was just rummaging around in the tree tops, a little too high for a good photo, but amazing to see none the less. Finally a smaller but no less awesome creature, a flying lizard! Yup, this tiny little guy looks just like he popped out of Jurassic park, with his bright orange wings which allow him to fly from tree to tree.

Our time was over way too fast, I would have loved to do the whole two days over and over again as this was just such an amazing experience and definitely somewhere that I would recommend to anyone.

If anyone is headed to Sulawesi, be sure to look up our guide Ateng Ganta (gyulisman@yahoo.com or +681356038113) as he was just fantastic.

Thank you Ateng and the animals of Tangkoko for an experience of a lifetime!

Just a quick hop back to Manado before we head onwards to Singapore….