Updates from Africa: Madagascar part 2, Tana to Toilara

Antananarivo (Tana for short), the capital city of Madagascar, straddles a dozen or so hills high on the central plateau. Colorful houses dot the hillside and antique Renaults serving as taxis clog up the narrow roads with noise and exhaust. The reconstructed Queen's palace (it was destroyed by an act of arson in 1995) sits high on a hill commanding absolute attention and overseeing all the activity. Comically obnoxious Hollywood-esque letters advertise the city's name on the steep slope side below. There are zebu-carts running down dirt roads and green rice paddies farmed by families who live on less than $2 a day. All this is within walking distance of luxurious hotels where well dressed businesspeople drink and enjoy fancy French cuisine.

Starting from Tana the well traveled and popular Route Nationale 7 starts heading south along the central plateau. It winds its way through the highlands eventually turning southwest and dropping down before ending in the coastal town of Toliara. The whole trip is 799 km one way without side trips. Jake and I made the roundtrip journey in a silver station wagon with a Malagasy man named Lalah behind the wheel.

Eight hours south of Tana, halfway down RN7, there's a turnoff that takes you east to a town and national park both named Ranomafana. As popular and well studied as the park is today you would think it was the reason for the town's existence, but it wasn't actually even created until 1991. Ranomafana means hot water in Malagasy and it was these waters that drew visitors to this area in the days of colonization. Today the park trumps the water thanks to many amazing and fairly recent discoveries.

Upon arrival in Ranomafana we were met by our guide to devise the program for our visit. There was some confusion as we thought we were meeting a man named Emile and Lalah was convinced our guide's name was Rajeri. Emile Rajeriarison (Rajeri for short) turned out to be one person and an incredibly knowledgable guide. He has worked with many international researchers in the park, including American primatologist Patricia Wright, who with the help of Emile discovered the golden bamboo lemur in 1986, and German herpetologist Miguel Vences, along with whom he discovered multiple new species of frog. He has a very impressive resume and a great sense of humor. We were lucky he was free and were happy to pay his hefty guide fee in order to experience the forest with a true local expert for a few days. First thing, he introduced us to a group of golden bamboo lemurs. This endangered lemur subsists mainly on leaves and shoots of giant bamboo. These shoots have such high levels of cyanide that if other mammals consumed similar amounts it would be lethal. Incredibly high levels of cyanide have been found in their feces, and there is actually a species of dung beetle that specifically forages on their ultra-toxic poo. It's this strange and specific diet that allows them to live sympatrically with two other species of bamboo lemurs at Ranomafana.

Emile showed us all three bamboo lemurs and five other lemurs without even breaking a sweat. Although his real interest and expertise showed when he would disappear momentarily, reappear with a closed fist, and plop a beautiful little frog down in front of us along with more natural history than we could swallow. Names and facts came whizzing at us like mosquitos after nightfall, only unlike mosquitos there were no itchy welts left as reminders. Luckily there is a book for all that (and Emile had a hand in its existence). We didn't have nearly as much luck with the birds in the rainforest but luckily the primates made up for it. It rained on us every day and night, on the plus side the leeches were not nearly as bad as expected.

After Ranomafana we made our way back to RN7 and continued south. We passed an enjoyable afternoon in the small community run Anja Park surrounded by meowing ring-tailed lemurs. We spent a day at Isalo National Park climbing up sacred sandstone formations, hiking into slot canyons covered with hanging gardens, and diving into cool picturesque pools with plunging waterfalls. We made a quick visit to the small fragmented Zombitse National Park where we had an up close and personal performance by a young Verreaux's sifaka and found a squat Zombitse sportive lemur who somehow shoved himself in a tree hole half his size. We passed villages with bright red houses made with bricks from the blood red earth. We got stuck behind herds of zebu cattle driven by young men on foot, making their way from the south to the east where they can get a better price for their product. We saw Malagasy women with loads of produce on their heads walking to sell their wares at market day, each with a clean colorful hat made of raffia in their hand for when they arrive. In the highlands there were people selling plums and grapes, near Ranomafana it was eels and crayfish, and in Fianarantsoa where we were hoping for vanilla someone tried to sell us a Pachypodium, a native plant the locals call elephant's foot. As RN7 turned westward enormous centuries old baobab trees sprung up like beacons from the unnaturally barren landscape. Much of the native spiny forest has been cleared away for charcoal and the accompanying Verreaux's sifakas hunted. Only the highly saturated baobab is left, its water content too high to be of any use as fuelwood.

Eventually we reached the end of RN7 and were welcomed to the city of Toliara by high winds and sporadic downpours, the effects of a cyclone from the neighboring Mozambique Channel. We spent a few days in Toliara and the nearby coastal village of Mangily, 25 kilometers along a sandy road to the north. We visited a private protected patch of spiny forest and were presented with two more species of lemur, a magnificent long-tailed groundroller, a furtive subdesert mesite, and a timid little hedgehog tenrec. We didn't stay long at the beach as the cyclone mucked up the water and flung buckets of sand in our direction; nonetheless, Jake was quite pleased with the bonus seabirds that were blown in on the winds from the channel.

We are now back in Tana where we started. It took three long days retracing our steps on RN7 in that silver station wagon. Our memory cards are overloaded, our clothes are filthy, and our minds are spinning from all we experienced these past few weeks. In the end we tracked down about a quarter of the lemurs and 3/4 of the endemic birds of Madagascar. We couldn't check them all off this trip; we decided we'd better leave something for next time.

The lemur I longed to see the most, the aye-aye, truly is an elusive character and successfully eluded us this entire trip. Yesterday we made a visit to the zoo with hopes of finally catching a glimpse of one. The zoo houses six of these googly-eyed creatures of the night, but alas, the nocturnal lemur house is closed for repair for the next year. Aye aye aye, maybe next time.

Tomorrow we fly back to Nairobi and on Monday we are off to Istanbul. There we will meet up with my mother of the year to spend a week on the frigid shores of the Sea of Marmara. Luckily, she's bringing us both coats, I hear it's cold this time of year.

All the best from Antananarivo,
Corey & Jake

Updates from Africa: Madagascar part 1

Madagascar makes me tired. This place is an overload for the senses. Every crevice contains creatures beyond my imagination. Leaping lemurs, bizarre birds, peculiar plants, and the most colorful chameleons in every shape and size one could think up. It feels like we are in a world dreamt up by the likes of Dr. Seuss and Jim Henson. It is mind blowing and incredibly exhausting. We can't sleep at night for fear we'll miss something amazing!

Actually we spend most nights shining our flashlights into trees with hopes of finding eyes looking back at us. During the day diurnal lemurs feed and play, then after nightfall an entirely different group materializes from deep within tree holes and vine tangles to work the nightshift. The only chance you have at seeing these nocturnal lemurs is on their schedule. After searching the dark forest at night, we are usually up with the sun and spend the whole day out chasing birds and lemurs on the dayshift. It's not really your typical vacation, but with over 100 species and subspecies of lemur and 105 species of endemic birds on an island almost twice the size of Arizona, there's a lot of ground to cover and so much to see. Unfortunately, it's now the rainy season here. An already poor road system that becomes worse and completely impassible in places, plus insanely expensive domestic flights mean our options are limited. On the other hand it's the low tourist season and besides a handful of French out of season vacationers we have the parks, hotels, and restaurants all to ourselves. I guess it's a pretty good trade off.

Meaghan joined Jake and I on the first ten days of our Malagasy adventure. The three of us visited two popular and easily reachable (by Malagasy standards- no 4x4, boat, or plane required) national parks: Andasibe-Mantadia and Ankarafantsika.

Our visit to Andasibe-Mantadia was the perfect introduction to Madagascar. The rainforest effortlessly produced eight species of diurnal ad nocturnal lemur, including the diademed sifaka, one of the most beautiful, and the indri, the largest of all living lemurs. The indri is an absurd looking animal with big bug eyes, a stub for a tail, and huge muscular thighs used for literally leaping like a frog up to 10 meters from trunk to trunk. We saw multiple species of groundrollers and vangas, two bird families found only in Madagascar, and they politely posed for our pictures. Thanks to the rain flashy frogs, chameleons, and snakes were all abundant on the park's many trails. Each night we fell asleep with images of captivating creatures seen that day running through our minds and we dreamt about unobtainable rare species like the elusive aye-aye. In the morning we awoke to the distinctive call of the indri in the forest behind our bungalow, hungry for breakfast and more of Madagascar.

Our four day visit to Parc National d'Ankarafantsika was full of new and amazing animals but was exceptionally hot and sticky. Relief only came when it rained, which thankfully was a daily occurrence. This park protects one of the last remaining large tracts of tropical deciduous forest in Madagascar and is home to many rare species. A pair of Madagascar fish eagles, a species of which less than 200 remain, frequents the nearby lake. The ripe mango trees in the Ampijaroa forest station attract bright white Coquerel's sifakas and rare mongoose lemurs, providing excellent viewing opportunities. White-breasted mesite and Madagascar crested ibis, two large and strange looking birds, dart in and out of the undergrowth along the flat sandy trails.

The Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust, founded by the late naturalist and author Gerald Durrell, runs a research center and captive breeding program in the park. All of Madagascar's tortoise and turtle species are critically endangered due to the pet trade and poaching. The Durrell group is working hard to ensure their survival through education, surveys, breeding programs, and reintroduction. Our visit overlapped with a visit by the Durrell staff and some of their partners from the Turtle Conservancy. We heard firsthand about the work being done to save these endangered species and caught a glimpse at some of the tortoises including the mighty ploughshare and the stunning radiated tortoise.

After our visit to Ankarafantsika we made our way back to the capital city, Antananarivo or Tana for short, for Meaghan's flight. As she started the long journey home, Jake and I took a day off from lemur and bird watching and caught a taxi-brousse into the city center to meet up with one of his childhood friends. Jake's friend Brian first came to Madagascar with the PeaceCorps in 2005 and has been living and working for a conservation organization here since then. Jake and Brian caught up over Malagasy food and beer while people pedaled souvenirs, vegetables, and phone cards at the market across the street. We got a few pointers and phone numbers from Brian and promised to meet up again before we set off. The following morning Jake and I started the long journey southwest along one of the best roads in the country, National Route 7, in search of more Malagasy treasures.

There's much more to come from Madagascar.
Cheers from the 8th continent,
Corey & Jake

Updates from Africa: Tanzania

The perfect climate for growing a plethora of spices ensures that eating on the coast of East Africa will be a mouthwatering adventure. After a week of fried potatoes, beef and hardboiled eggs in the highlands of Rwanda I was more than ready for some coastal flavor. Stonetown in Zanzibar did not disappoint. Readily available spices are added to everything. Lifeless rice is transformed into a masterpiece of flavor with cloves and cardamom. Ginger, curry, hot peppers, and coconut milk smother fresh seafood and vegetables burning the lips while tastebuds dance and sing for more. Freshly squeezed juices and homemade jam with local vanilla refresh, rejuvenate, and are served with every breakfast. Tasty tandoori chicken, spicy fried mashed potato balls, and grilled lobster on a stick can be purchased on nearly every street corner. The spices aren't just for eating either, spas have massages with lemongrass oil, clove body scrubs and much more on their menus. It's a fantastic, delicious paradise. 

We spent a few days wandering through the narrow windy streets of Stonetown eating, shopping, and people watching. No matter where we started, we always ended up at the nightly food market where hundreds of Zanzibarians gather each night to eat and meet their friends. The market is a maze of tables offering seafood, nyama choma, fried bananas, and fresh squeezed ginger and sugar cane juice served by men in white chef hats. The waves crash down on the rocky shore as people chat and chow down on the flavorful local specialties at this must see (and taste!) nightly event.

There are a few small islands immediately off the coast of Zanzibar that can be reached by boat in about 30 minutes. We snorkeled off the coast of Dawa Island for a couple hours one afternoon. The breeze on the boat and the cool blue water were a perfect break from the stifling heat that radiates off the stone streets of Stonetown. Unfortunately, the break was only temporary and immediately upon disembarking we were soaked with sweat again. The next day we made a trip to another nearby island, Changuu Island. Changuu is home to a population of Aldabra giant tortoises with an interesting history. The Aldabra tortoise is not native to Zanzibar but endemic to the Aldabra Atoll of the Seychelles. In 1919, four tortoises were given to the British resident in Zanzibar by the government of the Seychelles in exchange for a few plant specimens. Frequent theft of their offspring prompted their move from Zanzibar to Changuu Island in the 1920's, where the thefts apparently continued. Now they are protected in a sanctuary and there are well over a hundred individuals living on the island.

The tortoises may not be endemic but Zanzibar does have its share of endemic flora and fauna including the Zanzibar red colobus monkey. Not surprisingly, these primates were high on my list of things to experience. A quick trip to Jozani National Park proved successful and we were able to hang out with a habituated group for a while. A few females nursed their infants, some juveniles played and bounced above our heads, while the rest of the group noisily gnawed on unripe guava fruits.

From Zanzibar we took the ferry to mainland Tanzania and traveled to Selous National Park for another safari. Selous, a park greater in size than the countries of Rwanda and Burundi combined, is the largest national park in all of Africa. Our lodge, Selous Water Lodge was perched high on the banks of the Rufiji River providing great views of fish eagles, hippos, and an impressive sunset. Right behind our tent was a waterhole where four days earlier a fresh lion print was found. We saw multiple lions in the park but didn't have any feline sightings at the lodge.  Our only visitors were bushbabys in the trees around our tent. Every night as the sun goes down these nocturnal primates crawl out of tree holes and start calling. Bushbabys, also called galagos, are closely related to the lemurs of Madagascar and as the name suggests are pretty adorable. 

After the Selous safari our group split up. While everyone else made their way home Jake and I reached the halfway point of our adventure. From Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania we flew southeast to Antananarivo, Madagascar. We will spend the next month exploring the world's fourth largest island; a place incredibly rich with species diversity and endemism yet one of the poorest countries in the world.

Lots of love from the land of the lemurs,
Corey & Jake

Updates from Africa: Rwanda

As of 2010, there were estimated to be 800 mountain gorillas remaining worldwide. These charismatic heavyweight vegetarians are completely contained within the mountainous regions of three African nations: Uganda, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda. Rwanda, a country the size of the state of Maryland, houses one-third of the world's remaining mountain gorillas in its highly frequented, high-altitude, Parc National des Volcans. These 200 some gorillas are the poster child for Rwandan tourism and generate nearly 90% of the small country's revenue for that industry. There are seven habituated family groups available for public viewing and others that are strictly scientific study groups. Each day eight permits are available per group for a total of 56 possible permits with the potential to bring in $28,000 per day in permit fees alone.

We were assigned to the Amahura group and the day after Christmas we trekked up into the misty Virunga range to meet 16 of Rwanda's famous mountain dwelling apes. We ducked and dove through a bamboo forest, made our way up a muddy trail and traversed a nettle infested mountainside for four hours before finding our group at a rest spot. Before we knew it we were in the center of the group and there were gorillas in every direction. With mud stained clothing, nettle stung skin and racing heartbeats from the high elevation hike and excitement, we watched them. And they watched us back with little concern, intense brown eyes and dark black faces, all the while rolling through the nettles and chewing on wild celery stalks. A six month old baby bored with his food rolled on his back with his feet in the air. Perhaps on purpose, a silverback turned his back to us as we took pictures. A
juvenile reached out and touched one of the trackers. A blackback awoke from his nap in the sun and yawned in our faces. It was amazing and so surreal that I'm still not convinced it wasn't just a dream.

After our great ape encounter we headed southwest to Parc National de Nyungwe for a few days. Nyungwe is home to 13 species of primates, including another great ape, our closest living relative, the chimpanzee. Unfortunately, the forest is so dense and vast that we only encountered four: blue monkeys, L'Hoest's monkeys, vervets, and olive baboons. Nonetheless, it was great to get out and hike after days of sitting in safari vehicles, planes and buses. And hike we did. Nyungwe, one of the oldest remaining intact African forests, is a montane rainforest so there are no flat trails, only hills to climb. Walking sticks are a necessity for successfully descending and then ascending the steep slippery slopes.

Rwanda, like many other countries in the region, has a dark past. The genocide in 1994 touched everyone and every person has an incredible and horrifying story to tell. As a whole, Rwanda has healed amazingly well and the outlook for the future is very optimistic. We met the most genuine, helpful people everywhere we went and were very impressed by Rwanda in general. Our visit was too short and went by too fast. I cannot wait to return to the land of 1000 hills again and climb a few more.

Yesterday afternoon we were treated to an amazing view of Mount Kilimanjaro. As I watched it pass by my plane window in a matter of seconds I had flashbacks of the seven day excursion my mom and I made up it's slopes over two years ago.

Last night Jake and I arrived in Zanzibar and were greeted with a wave of hot muggy air followed by a salty breeze off the Indian Ocean. Here we will reconvene with 6 friends, all making their way from Rwanda on different flights at different times. Right off the coast of mainland Tanzania we will ring in the New Year with spices, Swahili culture, and snorkeling.

Happy New Year's from Zanzibar,
Corey & Jake

Updates from Africa: Kenya

It's amazing how after a period of time you easily forget the negative and only the positive remains. I was so excited to return that I forgot just how long and arduous the journey is to Kakamega. Unknown to us, Jake, Meaghan and myself arrived in Kenya just in time for a long holiday weekend and we weren't the only ones trying to spend it in Western Kenya. All of the direct buses were booked for days so our best option was to take a "direct matatu" to Kisumu and transfer from there. I told Jake and Meaghan they needed to experience a terrible mini-van matatu ride in order for their Kenyan adventure to be complete. We were able to check that off the list right away. A sleepy driver trying to keep herself awake by chatting on her cell phone, shoveling crisps into her face and chucking her trash out the window, a multitude of wrong turns, an off-roading adventure, and a river fording experience completed that requirement.

Approximately 12 hours after leaving our hotel in Nairobi we arrived in the calm inviting shade of the Kakamega Forest. It didn't hit me until just then, when we drove down Station Road and I spotted Erick, one of the field assistants, that I was back. How I can feel so completely at home in the middle of a foreign country so different from my own, where clearly I am an outsider is hard to explain to anyone who hasn't experienced it for themselves. The sounds of tinkerbirds and hornbills, the smells of wet earth fresh from the rain and cooking fires used for preparing chapati, plus the sights of familiar blue monkeys crashing through the trees brought me right right back to where I left off in August of 2009. Even though I only spent 15 months of my life here, it seems I left a lasting impression. I may have physically left the forest but something of myself remained here; before leaving my neighbor and his wife welcomed a baby boy into their lives and named him after me. As we arrived I could hear my own name being shouted through the village as they called baby Corey home.

Between the two of us, Jake and I carried over 80 pounds of donations for the Little Prinz Orphanage. Sabina and staff were overwhelmed and so grateful for the shoes, clothing, and toothbrushes, plus the $700 we deposited into their account. Thank-you to everyone for your support and donations. They are off to a great start and will do amazing things to help the communities around them. I have many pictures to share.

One of the highlights of our time in Kakamega was the neighbor we had and the work he was doing. Hans is a professor of ornithology at a university in Germany working on a long term study of the bird species in the forest. While we were there he was mist netting, catching and banding birds. Six, sometimes eight times a day Hans and his field assistant, Evans, would return from the forest with small pillow cases stuffed with birds to process and band on their front porch. Jake said it was like Christmas every time they came back with presents of new and exotic birds for him to admire.

While Jake and Meaghan were getting their bird fix I was putting in my time with the monkeys. Many of the monkeys I once knew are gone but many more remain. I recognized the majority of them and was greeted by many of my favorites and old friends like Dude, Quack, Buai, and Desdemona. It was nice just to hang out, drink coffee on the porch with monkeys in the yard, take a tour with Wilberforce, undoubtably the best guide in the forest, and hike the trails around the forest station at my leisure. I never had the free time when I was there last time.

We spent nine fantastic refreshing days in Kakamega visiting with old friends, both human and non-human primates, and making new ones. It was hard to leave Kakamega a second time but I can almost hear my name radiating through the village right now as someone calls Baby Corey home for Christmas dinner. 

Post Kakamega we met up with four friends from Tucson in Kisumu. They had spent the previous week exploring Uganda. We left the following morning to meet 30 other familiar faces in the Masai Mara for what would be the most beautiful and memorable wedding any of us may ever experience. Our dear friends from Tucson, Mich and Kate, were married amongst family, friends, lions and elephants overlooking the Mara River. The first to pronounce them husband and wife was in fact a hippo as he let out a loud grunt during the service. 

And the wedding activities aren't over yet. Last night a group of 20 wedding attendees arrived in Kigali, Rwanda. We awoke this Christmas morning in the land of 1000 hills and will travel to Parc des Volcans this afternoon. Tomorrow morning we will embark on an adventure I have dreamed about my entire life, as many of you likely have as well. We will come face to face with the mighty mystical mountain gorilla on the anniversary of Dian Fossey's death, the women who died trying to ensure their existence.

Merry Christmas from Rwanda,
Corey and Jake

Travels in Borneo

July 17, 2011

According to the rain gauge, there has been more than a meter and a half of rain in the last 12 hours. It rained off and on all night. When the deafening sounds of the rainstorm on the tile roof quieted they were replaced by frogs bleating like sheep in surround sound. It sounded like they were tucked away in every corner of the house. We were supposed to be on the boat by 5:30 this morning but the rain has kept us indoors. It’s been raining off and on for the past four days and this is supposed to be the dry season!

Jake and I are visiting my friend Katie in Indonesian Borneo(or Kalimantan Barat) for a few weeks.  Katie has been here since last October and has learned the local language, Bahasa Indonesian, quite quickly, which is necessary because not many people speak English. (We made sure to bring gifts of cheese and chocolate to pay for her translator fees…) She’s here studying the proboscis monkeys – orange pot-bellied monkeys with protruding noses that are endemic to Borneo’s riverine systems. Not much is known about the species in general, much less about the population here in Kalimantan Barat. Katie lives with a local family in the small coastal town of Tolak. It’s not the easiest of places to reach from the Southwestern US. We took four flights spread out over a day and a half to reach Jakarta, Indonesia’s capital located on the island of Java. From there we flew to the island of Borneo, spent the night Pontianak (Kalimantan Barat’s largest city), took an hour long flight to Ketapang, and finally jumped on a bus for an hour before arriving at the house three days after we left our own back in Tucson. From here camp is still another 18 km up the Sungai Tolak (Sungai means river in Bahasa) by long boat.

“Camp Katie” is not much more than a small cleared area on the river that Katie and her two local assistants claimed for themselves. There are no permanent structures other than a wooden table, bench and a swing. There is a lot of logging traffic on the river and multiple small encampments perched along its banks. It has been disheartening and hard to escape the constant sounds of chainsaws creating destruction in the surrounding forest. We spent our first four days up at “Camp Katie” and were treated to some of Borneo’s many treasures as well as hot and dry weather. We had some great views of many of the river’s primate species, including an acrobatic water show starring a rather large group of proboscis monkeys. We stopped to watch a group along the river and quickly realized there were monkeys on both sides of the water. Not before long a few daring monkeys started diving out of trees into the river below and swimming to the other side. The most timid of the group slunk in at the shore and soon there was a steady stream of monkeys with their long noses above the water, swimming in a line to the other side. It was amazing!

We’ve been looking forward to a glimpse of Asia’s only great ape, the orangutan. Appropriately enough, orangutan means man of the forest in Bahasa. Katie doesn’t see them on a regular basis but she has, and they are here so we have been continuously scanning the trees for a large orange man of the forest. Our third day on the river we parked the boat and went for a walk on a logging trail in the forest. We lost track of Jake early on because he was busily snapping photos of every bird he came across. Katie and I decided to stop and wait for him to catch up. Not far from where we were standing something fell from the tree tops. Then something else fell in the same place. It wasn’t a group of monkeys; they make more noise and shake the foliage when they jump around. This thing wasn’t moving much but there was definitely something up there. We looked at each other without saying anything, I’m sure we were both thinking the same thing, and scrambled around the undergrowth for a better vantage point. And there he was, a giant flanged male orangutan high in a tree feeding on stinky durian fruit. Jake caught up with us and we all watched the orangutan feed for quite some time. Orangutans have no natural predators so it wasn’t surprising that he didn’t seem bothered by our presence in the least.

Jake has been hard at work identifying and recording every species of bird he can and has come up with a sizeable list for Katie’s site. I’ve been busy pointing out and counting monkeys as we cruise down the river in the long boat. We are hoping Katie hires us in the future as assistants…

 Katie took a break from work and we went north to Gunung Palung National Park for a three day expedition. We saw three more orangutans from our camp, a bunch of singing gibbons, radiant red-leaf monkeys, huge hornbills, glowing mushrooms, pygmy squirrels you could put in a coin purse, blood loving leaches, and monstrous insects. Camp was not what we were lead to believe it would be, Jake ended up sleeping on the floor by the French tourists, Katie and I shared a plywood platform, and the hike in and out was a little crazy with our packs. We are still kicking ourselves for not bringing the sleeping pads but really glad we had mosquito nets. Regardless, for what we saw, it was worth it. We spent our last night of Katie’s vacation down in Ketapang running errands, most importantly finding some cash as we nearly ran out of money and couldn’t find a working ATM near the park. Plus we wanted to eat extravagant foods like ice cream and burgers washed down with beer, a welcome break from the rice, veggies, and tempe we’ve been eating three times a day for the past couple weeks.

We are going to spend four more days in the field with Katie…if it ever stops raining. Then we are headed to Lombok and Bali to experience a very different side of Indonesia.

All the best from Borneo,

Corey and Jake

Kenya-one year

The days around here seem to drag on but the weeks and months come and go quickly. More than twelve months have passed since I arrived in Kenya, I have been living in the forest for over a year. At one point my stint in Kenya seemed endless, never-ending. And now my time here is almost up, just three more weeks to go.

At the end of May I made the long journey to Nairobi to work out my visa renewal. I found a way to extend my trip a few days in order to visit the southern coast and timed it all out so I could meet up with my replacements, Barry and Cerian, as they arrived from the UK and escort them back to the forest.

The trip starts out smoothly as my friend Sabina and I leave Kakamega on the night bus at seven and finally arrive in downtown Nairobi around 4:30 the next morning. After sleeping as long as we can in the uncomfortable upright seats we finally hit the streets of Nairobi at 6:30 am in search of coffee and breakfast. Luckily, Sabina is quite familiar with downtown Nairobi as she spent a couple months volunteering there. I can bushwhack my way from the tea fields, through all the “M” trails, and up and down the “Pac” trails but I am completely lost in the city. Not to mention overwhelmed by the noise, smells, traffic, and people everywhere. After a shockingly expensive – by forest standards anyway – but delicious breakfast and the meeting about my visa we make our way by matatu over to the National Museum and meet up with a friend from the ornithology department. Onesmis was in Kakamega earlier this year working with a German graduate student and I came to know him over many visits and birthday parties – including my own – at their camp in the northern part of the forest. After a behind the scenes tour of the museum and a peek into the room that holds over 30,000 bird specimens we say goodbye and make our way towards the Nairobi railway station.

The train to Mombasa is scheduled to leave at 7 pm so we arrive early and expectant but end up waiting in the crowded station restaurant for hours and watch with jealousy as other passengers board the train heading in the opposite direction bound for Kisumu. It is nearly nine before our own train arrives and we are allowed to board the “Jambo Kenya Deluxe” with service to Mombasa. We settle in, eat dinner with the other second- and first-class passengers, and pass out with exhaustion from the previous 24 hours worth of travel.

In the morning we wake up somewhere in the middle of Tsavo East, one of the largest national parks in Kenya. As Sabina and I watch the sunrise over the arid landscape our train comes to a quick stop. Being the third car from last we have absolutely no idea what is happening at the front. The train is stopped for sometime before I finally decide to head up to the dining car and investigate. Five cars up from our sleeper, the trip through the narrow hallways was annoying to make when the train was in motion but a bit easier with the train at a standstill. As soon as I poke my head in the car I am greeted by one of the servers from the night before, “good morning Miss, our train hit an elephant.” Excuse me? That caught me completely off guard. I had read in the guidebook that the train is commonly delayed by elephants on the tracks and had kind of chuckled at the thought; I didn’t realize trains actually hit them!

Clearly, my speechlessness convinces him I am skeptical of the previous statement. “Go out and have a look for yourself,” and with that he gestures towards the open door beyond the kitchen and my eyes suspiciously follow. There appears to be tons of people milling around out there. So I step out. And sure enough, there is an elephant-sized object lodged between the embankment and one of the train cars. From afar is could be something as simple as a giant boulder but under closer inspection it is an elephant, tusks and all. I don’t know what to think. People are using the body as a stepping-stone to get in and out of the train car. The whole situation is too absurd and ridiculous to comprehend at 7 o’clock in the morning. It definitely helps that the animal is in an unrecognizable state; it is rolled up into a ball, thankfully with the head on the inside.

We spend the next few hours waiting around for Kenya Wildlife Service to arrive. In the meantime even more people manage to arrive by bike, on foot, or by lorry to our seemingly isolated location. And they are all armed with machetes and plastic bags: everyone wants to take home an elephant steak. When KWS finally shows they give the go ahead and the dismembering begins. It doesn’t take long and after much carnage, lots of arguing over who gets what cut, and a few unsuccessful attempts the train finally starts moving and we are on our way to the coast once again.

Our blood-spattered train finally pulls into the station at Mombassa around 6 pm, eight hours later than scheduled. Our short vacation to the beach is now even shorter than planned and we rush out of Mombasa towards Diani Beach via the ferry. After couple days on the white expansive beaches of Diani we head further south and spend a night on Wasini Island. Then back up to Mombasa in search of some good Swahili food, a view of the famous tusks, a visit to Fort Jesus and our trip to the coast is over.

Back in the forest, life is completely different. While I was away at the coast the field site was taken over by graduate students from New York. Then I came back with my two replacements in tow and now there are seven of us. It is nice to have company and even nicer that I don’t have to cook for myself every night but my space has been completely invaded. I got booted out of the bedroom and now sleep in the kitchen/office/communal living area. And next week my boss returns for the first time since last year. My final few weeks in the forest will be hectic ones training and turning things over to my replacements as well as going over a year’s worth of details and monkey gossip with my boss. When my time is up I will be sad to leave to this place I have called home for the last year and it will be hard to say goodbye to the monkeys I have spent so much time with but I will be ready. The other day we were out in the field and I said, more as a statement than an actual question, “why am I so exhausted?” And one of the students simply replied, “um, probably because you have been running the monkey project for a year.”