Sumatra - from berastagi to the jungle

8/7 breakfast at 7.30: pancake with banana and coconut and some (sour) homemade bread. Take very old minivan with Smiley and dog Dodo into volcano area. Hike up via very easy path, via campsite with the usual mess of people 'from Medan' according to Smiley. Heard 'blackybird' on the way (turned out he meant black gibbons). Near volcano crater many geysers, spewing sulfur with a lot of noise. We could also see the big volcano that had erupted 2 weeks ago and could see still quite some smoke coming from the top. Also a path of destruction through the jungle from the 2013 eruption. We take the same way down and take the old van to a rosd that is clearly meant for 4wheel drives ... Somehow we get to the hot springs anyway. They are several small swimming pools with hot sulfur water (a bit too warm for my taste). Smiley brings us rice and chicken, whch is clearly not enouh for 2, while he gets twice the amount for himself. After he brings us to the local market, which is the first place where Im actuallyhappy to have a guide. Its enormous with all types of fruits, locked-up chickens and cramped smelly fish in even more smelly streets. We look for a second-hand big backpack but dont find any. Then we buy fruits for our route to Ketambe and something local Smiley calls pancake. We order one with hagelslag and one with cheesse (which both turn out to be extremely sweet). After a quick shower and a too-expensive bill from Smiley, we take off with our personal driver direction Ketambe. Luckily there's a bit less traffic then yesterday and the ride goes relatively smooth. At some point our driver stops (who hasn't talked all trip) and asks for fuel-money, which was not really part of the deal. The remaining trip is therefore a bit awkward and it starts raining big time, so Im extremely glad to arrive in 1 piece after 5h. At the guesthouse another bad surprise as Joseph, the owner, says the price we agreed was only incl 2 nights jungle trekking,, not 3. After some negotiation, we pay a bit more than expected, have our meal and finally can go to sleep.

9/7 Pancake with fresh fruit breakfast. Then we pack our bags with dry clothes for rafting. At 9 we join our guide to his house, which is just the neighbour. He proposes us to take his scooter for the 1min walk, we nicely deny. There we waite another 30min for a car (local bus = small jeep with roof and open on the sides) to cme and bring us to start. Picked up food t local restaurant on the way. Started rafting on the wide river with some rapids, not much paddling needed. Firt bit through jungle, then more and more houses and even bridges. Lunch near a bridge, very tasty fish for me :) We jumped off the bridge, hoping that the guides were right about deepest bit of water to jump in. Landed nicely on the ass, probably with a new bruise. Got 2 more difficult rapids but survived, then got out, carried boat to road and waited another 30min for the car (local bus) to pick us up. There was No more space to sit, so with the boat and guides we sat down on the roof. Amazing view, but Matthieu looses his hat in 2sec. Stop again and continue. Back at the guesthouse, laundry time, while spotting monkeys playing in the trees across the river. Walked a little in Ketambe and found a paved road going into the hills, we follow it to wooden house. Nobody there, but a dog according to Matthieu. Then I spot mean, tailless monkey on other side, so time to go back. Enjoyed beautiful view of foggy mountains on our way down. Food time at guesthouse, amazing sweet potatoe soup, while we were being watched by many young cats and a huge cricket. Bedtime was less nice, since Matthieu woke up from 'something on his leg'.After a long search, we find 3 big insect legs in the bed, but no insect. In the bathroom we find a huge cockroach and when we go back to bed releived to have found it, we find 3 more IN our bed that somehow got past the mosquito net. The rest of our night was therefore a bit restless.

10/07-12/07
Our long-expected jungle trecking finally starts! After breakfast, we pack our stuff and leave our suitcase at the guesthouse (and all our laundry from the day before that clearly didn't dry overnight, which they promise to dry for us... considering their smell when we get back, they didnt quite do as promised, but it dried xD). With light bags, incl 1 change of clothes, some water, swimming gear and our thin sleeping sheets (No, it wouldn't be cold, no real sleeping bags are needed... aka the guessthouse didn't have anymore). Warmest day so far with bright sun, we start our climb into the jungle. Our guide, called Udin, seems a bit chubby and indeed he tells us to slow down. a little. Once in the jungle, he stops at regular intervals and carefully studies the tree tops. At some point he even asks us to wait, so he takes off to check for monkeys (while smokinga sigaret). You can imagine me getting a bit suspicious whether this was really gonna be a treck... Luckily I wasn't feeling great either. At the next break, I find a leech attached to my ankle, through my sock! 2 more managed to get inside my sock and I get advised to wear my socks over my pants and tshirt inside (very fashionable). After about 2.5h like this (and seeing 1 giant squirl), we end up at the campsite: flat pieces of sand close to a noisy river and a coupple of other tents hidden between the trees. Our 'porter' (guy that brought food etc) already arrived via a much faster route and gave us tea and noodles. After 2h of food and a refreshing dive for Matthieu, our guide sets of the tent: 2 wooden pillars and 1 as a roof, with plastic draped down and plastic on the floor: the lightest tent to carry I've seen so far I think :). We set of for the jungle again with much smAaller bags and find some Thomas leaf monkeys (the most common ones), but no Orangutan, even though Udin claims to smell him and see recent traces. Back at camp, Matthieu and. Udin try fishing with a homemade harpoon while several long tail makaak monkeys try to cross the river throuh our camp. Diner is quite nice and then it stats raining, so we all decide to play cards in the tent with candle light. When the rain stops, we find a big centipede outside our tent that is supposedly very painful when it bites. Luckily our tent is closed off well on the floor and we have quite a good night of sleep with the view on fireflies passing by (apart from the cold due to lacking sleeping bags and the not so confortable floor). After pancake-breakfast next day, whose preparation takes extremely long on campfire and a non-teflon wok, we take off with small bags into the jungle. This time Udin finally proves he knows what he's doing and we find a young female orangutan and follow it for a while. its quite active and ends up putting its hand in a bees nest to eat honey after which it even catches the bees to eat them. On our way. back to camp, we hear King Louis, the big alpha male orangutan. Now Udin is extremely fast at once and leads us straightto him. Since Louis breaks down half the forest when he moves from tree to tree due to his weight, he disturbs a night lemur. This is a pretty rar sight and looks a bit like a blind flying squirl with the same colors as the trees. After lunch at camp, we find king Louis again and observe him eating a lot (and breaking down more forest). After fishing, diner, playing cards and looking at Udins magic trick, its time to sleep. this night we sleep less well, because our bodies are already bruised from sleeping on the floor yesterday and it's still cold. In the morning we take off to the hot springs (1h walk according to Udin, turns out 20min if you walk at normal speed). He told us we may see whitehanded Gibbons on the way and makes weird monkey noises to make them respond (yeah right...). Completely unexpected it actually replies when we are next to its tree and we observe it a while with our binoculars. The hot springs themselves are very nice, with a mix of hot, sulfur-smeling and cold, normal water. Many beautiful butterflies seem to enjoy the smell/taste, while we bathe. On the way back, we spot the Gibbon again with some Thomas leaf monkeys playing in the same tree. Back at camp, its time to pack up and go to the main road, because Udin expects a mama and baby orangutan to be there. Luckily we hear king Louis again and pass by to say bye, today he seems much more calm and eats closer to the ground. Then we go back to the guesthouse (no mama and baby orangutan on the way unfortunately) and arrive nicely before a storm and a huge power outing. We get the same room agaain and even though its supposedly well-cleaned, we find a cockroach in the bed and decide to check for other guesthouses for the next night. None seem as nice as this one though and after a night with cockroach-nightmares by Matthieu, we ask for another room.

13/07
One more day near/in the Sumatra jungle. We decided to rent a scooter and ride to Blangkjeren, a village 70km further (don't ask me how to pronounce that so Indonesian can also understand it). The way there as quite straight forward, with many people waving at us and yelling hello. We had lunch in one of many wooden huts with amazing views, like many locals do as well. Luckily the restaurant that seved our lunch had an English speaking guy and we got a very complete meal for a very good price (even too much food!). On the way to the village the scenery changed clearly from jungle to pine tree forests and then rice paddies and maize plantations. Somehow the village itself was extremely warm and after 1h walk through the crowded center, we stopped for some coconut water. With hand and feet we explained what we wanted and got a newly opened coconut with a straw. Unfortunately it was by far not as good as those I remembrr from a lon time ago, but still nice to refresh a bit. Time for the way back, where we took many more breaks. Went to a view point with a tower that turned out to be lower than the roa we came from ;). Heard some monkeys, birds and a male Orangutan. Further on the road we found a concrete path leading into the mountains near a small stream. it led into a coffee plantation spread over several parts of the mountain with several wooden huts. Several guys were working there and invited us for coffee (as far as we could understand). On te way back down they convinced us, even though we dont drink coffee. We tried to indicate that we would gladly try a little bit, which they clearly misunderstood when they invited us in a wooden hut, poured 1/3 of a cup with coffee powder each and filled the rest with boiling water. Luckily with ome added sugar, it was sort of drinkable and with hands and feet we understood it was from their plantation and that the boss and his wife slept in the same wooden hut, while the others slept somewhere higher in the mountain. Luckily we could kindly leave the last bit of coffee, since it was only powder and after afew group pictures we descended back to our scooter to continue the journey with renewed energy. We passed by a police station when it was already getting dark, and tried to avoid being noticed and pay because we are white. Unfortunately our scooter had only a weak front light (and only 1 break as well), and so Matthieu misjudged a big bump to slow us down. For the second big bump, he decided to go around it instead and ended up slipping (text edit: slipped in the sand... otherwise Matthieu is too embarrassed). Luckily I somehow managed to remain on my feet and catch Matthieu above the ground in the process, but we made so much noise that everbody came to check if we were allright. Luckily even the police was just worried about our safety, so even though we clearly didn't pass unnoticed, we didn't have to pay. We made it home through quite heavy rain and even more little flies pouring down on us, luckily just before real darkness fell and a real storm started. We had a great night in another room at the thousand hills guesthouse, since we asked for no cockroaches in our bed for once :)