Dr. Galdikas Comes to Visit

Dr. Birute Galdikas is one of the most renowned primatologists in the world. She is the Jane Goodall of orangutans. She runs numerous projects around the world, including the care center here and the famous Camp Leakey. She was here visiting for about 2 weeks. She is an incredible woman with lots of stories and information to share. It is such an amazing thing to spend time with her so casually, a woman I have admired since I was a child. On Sunday she invited all the volunteers to go see a patch of forest that she owns to look at a possible release site. We left early in the morning and drove for about an hour to a town on the Java Sea. We loaded into some small speedboats that would take us into the jungle. We took about a half hour speedboat ride across the open Java Sea until we reached a river going into the forest. We then cruised up this for another hour. The scenery was spectacular, exactly what you’d imagine a river cruise through the jungle would be. We reached a point on the river where we wanted to go into the forest to look at the area. This mean jumping out of the speedboats and wading waste deep through some swampy river till we reached dry land. Dr. Galdikas showed us where she wanted to set up a release site with feeding platforms. After looking around the forest for a half hour, we waded back to our boats. After lunch we set out to cruise back to the mainland. However, on the way back we got caught in a vicious rain storm and got absolutely soaked. We docked our boat to wait out the storm at this random solitary platform off the coast. We waiting out the storm there for another half an hour before heading back to the forest. Dr. Galdikas organized an impromptu stop at a resort/camp in Tanjung Puting National Park to see an orangutan feeding. A few times a day they set out food on platforms for the orangutans to come and eat so the tourists staying at the camp can see some up close. What a nice surprise for those visitors to get an appearance by Dr. G! We followed a large wild male into the forest where we then watched him and three females come and eat bananas, sugar cane, and drink milk. It was incredible.  My first sighting of wild orangutans. We waited out some more rain at the camp and then headed back down the river where we watched the most beautiful sunset.