Chapter Four: Indonesian Bubba, Extreme Trekking and a "Compliment," with a cherry on top!

There are hardly words to adequately describe the trekking experience. It was kind of like extreme hiking, steep slopes, slippery rocks, huge trees, twisting vines, enormously large ants, orangutans swinging in from all places, waterfalls, flowers, not to mention the interesting men who were our guides and the humidity that truly took our breath away. I have never sweat more in my whole life, Lordy it was hot! For the scenery and the experience though, it was worth it. I took some pretty nice falls and got pretty dirty and gross, I felt like a true Jungle Trekker, and sort of even looked the part (Abby you would be proud).

The nine of us were in the hands of three jungle men. The lead guy, whose name none of us could remember, had long black hair, a gotee, and a cigarrette in hand at all times. He wore a shirt with the sleeves cut off, cut-off shorts and flip flops. Fortunately he knew English, so he was able to tell us about the orangutans as well as the different plants and other animals in the forest. Quite the knowledgable fellow. I would say he is the Sumatran equivalent of Bubba, the maintenance man at the Sea Scape Resort. At the end of our journey, the most perilous section, I was bringing up the rear along with Jungle Man. I forgot until we hit the steep slope heading down to the river that I have a slight fear of heights, ok, a pretty significant fear of heights. Which apparently can make the fear of slipping and falling to a painful death a little more scary. During the 45 minutes we spent repeling down the mountain with nothing to really hold on to but roots and vines, my heart was pounding and the pressure to find the right footholds was made greater with Jungle Man telling me the whole time "Slow is best, ya? You go down backwards, ya?" Nonetheless, after eight hours of intense hiking, good stories, friendly visits from the orangutans, and indescribable views, we had successfully reached the river that would take us back to the Jungle Inn.

Never before have I wanted to go swimming so much, what a refreshing end to such a long journey. After a couple spills on the rocks, some splashing around and nearly getting swept downstream by the strong current, we got into the rafts that turned out to be inner tubes tied together. Funny story: I was aware, prior to my arrival in this country, that I was going to stick out. Not just because of the white skin, but because I would tower over 3/4 the population. Up until the moment we took our places in the raft, I hadn't faced too much discrimination, some stares, yes, but no blatant comments. I had planned to ride in the two person raft with Jennie. As I began to jump on, one of our guides ran over and said, "No, you go in the other one. You too big." It didn't end there. I got up and moved to the other raft and began to get in behind Emma, and once again the same guide said, "No, no. You sit here, you have special figure, must sit here." How does one respond to that, especially with the language barrier it was clear he wasn't meaning to hurt my feelings or anything. He wasn't aware of what he was saying, which allowed me to maintain a laid back attitude and respond with a "Well, I'm gonna take that as a compliment...praise God I have a 'special figure.'"

Finally, after we were all situated in the rafts, we headed down the river hoping to beat the storm cloud that had began to form as soon as we got out of the jungle. The rapids were true white water rapids. The ride was amazing! Definitely my favorite part of the day. It was about thirty minutes before we were back where we started earlier that morning. To top it all off, at the entrance to the reserve was a mother orangutan with her baby. That was one thing I was hoping to see before the day was done, and it was a perfect ending to an amazing day.