Pangandaran Adventures

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My plane landed safely in Cijulang on a tiny runway carved out of the jungle. I had nothing planned except to survive the flight and figured I would be able to find my way to Pangandaran from there (about an hour drive away). So I asked the guys who worked there about a cab or a local bus and they just said no and laughed. Lucky for me though, they let me ride along in the van that belonged to the airline that was taking packages and the pilots on to Pangandaran for a small fee. Score!

The guy driving the van dropped me off at this awesome beach bar - I had a beer and chatted with the owner who also owned a guest house (hostel). I took a room there and dropped off my laundry then went out to explore the town. The beach was quite nice and I took a short walk right as the sun was setting - and then the skies opened up and there was torrential downpour. I ran back to the bar and had some beers and dinner with a Dutch couple (there a zillion Dutch travelling here for some reason).

As I was leaving the bar there was a tourist centre open so I went in to see about getting out to see the Green Canyon and the Green Valley. They had a car taking two Dutch girls the next day so I signed up to go with them as it would be cheaper. I had an earlyish night and slept another 10 hours.

I hadn't free (and delicious) banana pancake breakfast at the guest house before heading out with the two girls (also Dutch) who were actually staying at the same hostel. We first went to a small group of homes where they made coconut palm sugar. They make it the same way as maple sugar for the most part but they collect the nectar of the palm flowers before boiling it down. It's really flavourful but very much like brown maple sugar. The local giant fruit bats like to eat the nectar so they are constantly having to fend off the bats. They adopted a baby fruit bat that fell from its mom one night and brought it out to show us. Admittedly I wanted to hold it bad but I just don't trust that I wouldn't get rabies!

We then carried on to the Green Canyon. We loaded onto a boat with an older Dutch couple (so many of them...) and rode up this beautiful River to where the river goes into a high gorge/cavern. It was a bit touristy and if you wanted to swim you had to fork out $10 CAD which wasn't that appealing to me. It was still really cool to see so I don't regret going. Our driver then took us to this crazy suspension bridge made entirely of bamboo. It wasn't the rickety-est bridge I had been on, but this one had two-way motorbike traffic which freaked me out a bit.

We then took off to go to the Green valley, on the way we stopped into a turtle sanctuary. They gather turtle eggs from the beach and allow them to hatch and grow a bit in safety before releasing them. They also take in injured turtles or those caught in fishing nets and rehabilitate them before releasing them.

We arrived at the Green Valley (Citimang) to have a quick lunch before swimming. Our lunch at the Green Valley was great, some true Indonesian food. We sat on the ground and ate with our hands. It was so spicy and delicious I was in heaven.

From there we walked through the jungle a ways along a river - beyond the area where most off e tourists stop and go into the river - and then spent a lot of time climbing the rocks, jumping off, sliding down waterfalls, swimming into caves, swinging off rope swings and just generally having an awesome time. It was so nice to be swimming in a beautiful jungle river with nobody around after such a hot and humid several days. Except for the one moment when I saw a big branch hanging over the river with what looked like small pomegranates so one of the Dutch girls and I went to investigate. I had my hand on the branch and was looking at the fruit when she yelled 'snake'! So I jumped back and looked up higher on the branch and saw a fairly large Python coiled up in the branch right above where I had grabbed the tree! I'm glad she saw it, and even more glad that I didn't pull on the branch too hard and startle it! I was very careful of every branch I swam under after that.

After about 2 hours of cruising the river, we had a quick ride back to Pangandaran that got us back kind of late so I went and grabbed a quick dinner before collecting my lovely clean laundry and retiring for the night.

Today I decided to book a night bus from Pangandaran to Yogyakarta, so I have the whole day to relax before my night bus. It was storming a bit in the morning so I went and got a massage until the rain was over and am going to try and go to the beach soon to get some sun before my night bus!

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Comments

[Gerry Lush]

You're still our favorite water baby!
Loved your blog, Jode. You sure pack a lot into a day! Keep on keep in' on.