Cracked Pepper: Jungle Fever

(Note: These 3 Jungle Fever posts are best enjoyed when read in order)

Around 1:30pm, Jungle Dave announces it's time to begin our hike. We will be trekking approximately 7km. Since Jungle Dave guides by watching and listening to the wildlife, no two hikes are ever the same. We go where the animals go.

I pull on my Wellies, but would have preferred my Pumas. These boots are made of rubber and they are HOT. I'm not sure why I'll need something so protective for a stroll on the boardwalk.

Our team breaks away from camp. We walk in a line. It is Jungle Dave, Mr. Happy, me, Kim, Naffy, and Murel. Jungle Dave warns us we must be q-u-i-e-t, so as not to alert wildlife to our presence. I'm not the most sure footed person in the world, but Naffy and Murel sound like a pack of elephants tearing down the path. I start to worry we won't see any wildlife.

Just below camp, we must ford a stream. There's a (very narrow) fallen tree crossing the water. My last go on a balance beam was when I was seven, but I call on these skills to lead me to dry land. It's not easy, but I make it! When we get to the other side I notice another (very narrow) fallen tree mounted about three feet in the air. Then another...and another. This is the boardwalk? This is not a boardwalk. Jungle Dave has clearly never spent time on the Jersey shore.

Suddenly, what I expected to be a lazy ramble where I might befriend a group of handicap tourists out for their constitutional on the boardwalk, has turned into a death defying balancing act. There's not even a safe solid surface to grab hold of. The trees here are not like the friendly ones back home.

The "boardwalk" is a dangerously elevated stick path built by an Indonesian company contracted by a Brunei oil company. The oil company uses these temporary walkways to lay out dynamite in hopes of finding oil reserves deep in the forest floor. After several months the wooden walkways are supposed to decompose leaving behind nothing but thousands of four inch nails.

These paths were built six months ago. They are still standing but many of them are weak. "And you can relax," Jungle Dave tells me, "I am almost certain all of the dynamite was exploded."

These jungles used to be the hunting ground of local villagers. Nine years ago, Jungle Dave's conservation group approached the community leader and asked to make the land a reserve. In exchange for allowing tourists on to the grounds, the community would receive B$30/pax. But this meant the hunters would have to dismantle the traditional booby traps they used to capture their prey. The net traps were cut down. And, to avoid impaling touring hikers, the bamboo spike pits were covered up. Today, locals may still hunt. Now, they use poison blow darts and glue guns (don't ask). Jungle Dave's group forbids hunting during mating season and fruiting season when the new babies develop. This is necessary to sustain and promote the growth of the wildlife population. Jungle Dave also keeps a nursery at his home. There he nurtures indegenous plants, fruits, and trees and then replants them inside the forest. This helps to maintain the food supply for the animals and protects species like the egg fruit, which are in danger of becoming extinct (and they are in danger, did you ever hear of the egg fruit?)

I pick my way along the path, one foot in front of the other. I try desperately to walk quietly, walk quickly, and not break my neck. Every once in a while I see leeches scoping me out. I'm now very glad for my Wellies which are coated in mud from the moments I lost my balance.

(Note: All photos are taken at the WIDEST part of the boardwalk. I didn't get my camera out during the more dangerous parts!!)

Jungle Dave points out several more snakes. We can hear gibbons nearby. Twice we see movement up in the trees, but they don't show themselves. Two hours into the hike I am exhausted. My legs are shaking.

"Don't worry," Jungle Dave encourages, "We should be back at camp around 5:30."

That is two hours away.

Several minutes later we hear what has become a familiar crash.

"Ha ha," Jungle Dave laughs, "That is just like fireworks!"

It isn't fireworks. It's the boardwalk collapsing (yet again) under my husband's weight. He's ok, but muddy, and his boots (which are too big on his feet and too short on his legs) have filled with water.

We fail to see any monkeys or baboons (unfortunately) or any cobras or wildcats (fortunately). We fall into camp bone tired. I'm now too exhausted to get upset over the camp latrine which left me near tears earlier. But seriously, the camp has been here nine years, can't they install some sort of a sitting contraption? That's what we had at girl scout camp. Even Laura Ingalls had a sit down out house.