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Published: November 2nd 2016
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Tangkoko National Park
Tarsier in his its hole during the day It’s not often that I write a blog about one specific place, it’s not my style you could argue. I like my tale to encompass a larger geographical range, if possible. Not to get your hopes up, this one isn’t any different. But the pictures are of one spot only and that spot is called Tangkoko National Park, well the official name is longer, but I think Tangkoko will suffice. Why just one spot? Because, I didn’t do anything that was worth taking a photo of until I got here, which incidentally doesn't mean that there wasn't anything worth taking a photo of (a better person than yours truly would have found ample opportunity to use the camera, no doubt presenting you with a mesmerising glimpse of everyday life along the lesser travelled roads of Sulawesi). And why didn’t I do anything worth taking a photo of before I got here you might wonder? Because it was mostly spent on various very long bus rides, eating up my remaining time, but not adding much in the way of photographic entertainment, even if the long roads I took weren’t all that bad scenically speaking. It was eye candy for me, but not
Tangkoko National Park
Cuscus looking down at us for you. I have the photo's in my mind. Sorry folks, you will have to make due with the birds and the bees, or rather the birds and monkeys, tarsiers and the odd cuscus of Tangkoko.
Now long bus rides seem so to have been the theme of Central and Northern Sulawesi for me this month. It’s not even that the distances are particularly large, it is just that the going is slow. A five hundred kilometer journey can easily take up to sixteen hours. You start in the morning, and end up arriving the next morning at one or two, tired, slightly wobbly and cross-eyed. One day gone. The next day you rest, like God did on the seventh day. Another day gone. And then you move on again without properly seeing the place you rested at, because your time is limited and you decide it is better spent on another long bus ride. Who would have thought right?
Honestly what I am describing here is the ride from Palu to Gorontalo, and Gorontalo itself respectively. My actual plan involved spotting whale sharks off the coast of Gorontalo, but the beasts had moved on. So as a
Tangkoko National Park
Juvenile Sulawesi Hawk Eagle replacement I did nothing. I was slightly groggy from that long ride, and I knew I had another one ahead of me to get to Manado. And while there are more things to see and do in, and especially around Gorontalo, my fatigue got the better of me and I let them be.
So, instead I took another long journey, just to shake things up a bit. And when I arrived in Manado I realised my first 30 days were almost up, and I had four days before I had to leave Indonesia temporarily in order to get my second free 30 day entrance stamp. Four days and about a zillion places to see. My brain cramped up. How was I going to fit in everything I wanted to see in four measly days, including getting in a dive or two. My conclusion was… I couldn’t. Taking into account transport times and the fact that there has to be a certain buffer period between diving and flying I decided to forgo my diving.
You see the dude doesn’t do fast paced travel, the dude takes it easy. Perhaps I could have worked it out, and fitted it all
in one way or another. Other travellers I meet seem to be able to. I am always amazed at the amount of things they have managed to see. Mostly they have travelled further, seen more, and done about twice as much as I have, in less time. And, to return to my dismal picture record, they will have taken much better and many more photo's than the likes of me. They are clearly super-efficient and full of energy. The reason, however, for this burst of hyper activity is invariably that they only have a few weeks or at most a month to get things done, before having to return home to their jobs. All that pent up energy is released on the road in a frenzy of non-stop sightseeing, hiking, diving, tasting, snorkeling, and even relaxing. I suspect they relax much more efficiently then I do. When they lay in a hammock it swings more languorously than when I lay in one. I am sure of it.
All this efficiency passes me by. It is beyond my capabilities. I would be stressed out if I had to travel like this. I can’t do arriving in the morning, diving in
the afternoon, perhaps another dive the next morning, before moving on and hiking up a mountain the same evening to see a sunset, followed by a nigh-bus to my next destination and trekking in the jungle an hour after arriving, with perhaps a stop at some interesting animal market squeezed in somewhere in-between, not to forget the planned hammock break to get in the much craved hour of relaxation.
So, instead I opted to spend my last four days in Tangkoko, in a state of perfect tranquility. Hiking into the park spotting all kinds of wonderful wildlife, sitting on the back porch of my homestay listening to the wind blow through the trees, ambling down to the black sandy beach, snorkeling a bit, relishing the homely meals, and simply feeling happy in the knowledge there was nowhere I had to rush to and my next date was with a plane in four days’ time. In other words, I was very inefficient once again.
It’s the advantage of knowing I will be back in two weeks. My dives aren’t lost, they are simply postponed. For now I will depart from Indonesia as required, to visit a good friend. A
Tangkoko National Park
Knobbed Hornbill, the best shot I could get, the bastard kept flying behind branches or leaves or trees! very good friend. It isn’t a bad way to break up my travels through Indonesia. I’ll be back in two weeks, my ticket says so, and we all know tickets never lie!
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Kuan Yin
Karen Johnson
Here's to slow travel
So many people rush to see all the sights the books say they should see, while missing so much more. I value the time I spent sitting on the floor in a small Buddhist temple on a side street in a little town in Thailand, or the conversation I had with a lady while waiting for shop to open in Indonesia. I'm happy you took the time to watch the cuscuses.