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Published: April 23rd 2012
Raf made sure I was set for my next stop at Tangkoko Nature Reserve. I was reluctant to leave the warmth of great conversation and laughter at Cha Cha Resort (
Bunaken: Storytellers and Salp), but there always arrives a time to leave when you suffer the incurable pull of wanderlust. Raf and Reiko joined me in some comedic camera poses (I've kept my promise not to post them online), and soon I was waving goodbye from the boat.
When the very kind driver picked me up, we talked about how my parents could handle me traveling as an only child and solo female traveler. He had an only daughter of his own whom he was obviously proud of and couldn't imagine letting her do such things. I explained that this was one subject where my parents, though probably worried to death on occasion, were very supportive. My mother has an equally adventurous spirit while my dad has never reigned in my curiosity.
When we arrived at the nature reserve, there was another solo female traveler. I thought we would go as a group, but we split soon after entering. Her guide took her in one direction while I was taken in another.
I later learned that this was to avoid scaring the animals off with large groups of people.
Deadly Silk and a Red Moon
My guide, Eto (if I'm to read my scribbled writing), warned me to watch out for spider webs, sharing a tale of retired guides who had worked in the jungle for years only to go blind from the webs contacting their eyes. The blindness sets in many decades after the initial contact, he explained. He swung a broken tree limb to clear the air of any deadly silk, and I imitated him, shaking my hand in front of my face.
At the same time, I opened my eyes wide to avoid thin trees with sharp thorns approximately 1-2 inches long. O
ne of those in the eye would lead to instant blindness, I couldn't help but think.
We moved fast as Eto confidently trekked across the unmarked terrain. His familiarity with the jungle was the only thing guiding us, and no other human sound could be heard.
At random intervals he slowed down or stopped. Placing an index finger to his mouth, he would look up at the towering trees as if alerted
by a sound or movement beyond my senses. At one point, he motioned me to ready the camera hanging around my neck. I nodded. He pointed.
I couldn't see anything. What was it? I squinted, then opened my eyes wide.
He pointed again.
Again, I couldn't see anything until some leave began shaking. A furry black arm wrapped around a tree shimmied up until the black crested macaque mooned its red butt at us.
"Hehe! It's grabbing the fruit," Eto said and whispered for me to step where he stepped. Where he stepped without sound, I stepped with crackling alarm.
So much for ninja prowess. Eto laughed silently, but with stomach-aching hilarity, and put a hand to his forehead, possibly in disbelief that I'd survived childhood without cracking my head open.
He looked around to see if he could spot anymore macaques, then shrugged and joked that the rest of them must have gone to Manado to party.
We moved on and a loud whooshing sound echoed through the air with shocking volume.
"That one, you can hear, yah?" he laughed. He flapped his arms in imitation and motioned me to follow. We
Black Crested Macaque
aka Celebes Crested Macaque, Sulawesi Crested Macaque or Black Apemoved faster than before and stopped.
Then again, like a flurry of strong winds, the whooshing sound swept through the jungle. We moved until he stopped and he pointed up to the sky.
"Hornbill," he said. This time he adjusted my position and line-of-sight until I could see the colorful creature. It was still quite a distance, but through the camera I could see the blue framing its red and yellow hornbill. I was incredibly impressed with Eto's ability to spot all of these animals. We hung around appreciating the hornbill for a while until Eto asked, "Tarsiers?"
I nodded my head, very excited at the prospect of seeing the primate.
Looking for the World's Smallest Primate
We walked past gigantic fig trees whose giant roots grew like layered walls partitioning jungle floor. Eto slowed down when we approached one particularly fat fig tree that, from the hazy recollection of my memory, was intertwined with itself. However, I don't remember it well because I was focused on trying to spot one of the many tarsiers that supposedly lived inside.
Eto took out a small container with crickets and pulled one out with a mischievous
Black Crested Macaque
You can see a little bit of its red butt. smile and a cocked eyebrow. "Some people get angry because they think the tarsiers become lazy when we feed them. We think they're already lazy, but we cannot feed them too much." He places the cricket on the branch. "Tarsiers are very fast." A sound whisks between his lips, "Very fast."
Before I know it, something jumps out at the cricket and both are gone before I register what's happened.
Very fast. My mouth must have been hanging open.
Some branches could be heard cracking under heavy footsteps and young voices piped in the air. The woman who I saw in the beginning and a family of four with several guides emerged and gathered around the tree.
There was still some light remaining, but as the sunset faded and the darkness grew, the guides told us not to use any camera flash because it was bad for the nocturnal tarsiers' eyes. Instead, the guides used dimly lit flashlights so we could still see the nest of primates as they moved around. When they moved, they were so fast they seemed to pop out of existence.
I used my video settings and captured a funny clip of
Red-Knobbed Hornbill
aka Sulawesi Wrinkled Hornbill one particular tarsier twitching its head whenever it heard a sound. It looked up at one point then directed its bulging round eyes back out at us with what looked like a playful smile. Even its head movements were rapid.
Their cuteness is lethal. I coudln't help but associate the purring song Gizmo sings in the movie "Gremlins." I would share the video with you, possibly set it to the purring song if, when I backed up my footage, I didn't save all the videos in .jpg format. Ouch. Maybe next time.
As for tarsiers being the smallest primate, I was mistaken, but knew a lot of people who thought the same. I had to research and confirm the statement because I'm a geek. Sadly, it is not fact. The cute tarsiers (whether from Sulawesi or from the Philippines) are NOT the smallest primates on earth--this recognition goes to Madame Berthe's mouse lemur (aka Berthe's mouse lemur) found in Madagascar. The confusion may be, I suspect, because Berthe's mouse lemur wasn't distinguished as a species until the year 2000. So, I apologize if you feel mislead by the title, but I really did enter this jungle looking for
Hungry Tarsier
Eto stages a cricket. the world's smallest primate. One fact remains true and that is that the Celebes Tarsier Spectral is a very special animal to see, smallest or not.
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Brett Myers
non-member comment
Beautiful photos
Hi Michelle, awesome photos Michelle! Good luck with your next adventure!