More Orangutans Part 3

Close encounters
In the previous post, I started describing my trip in Bukit Lawang in Northern Sumatra , but got a bit carried away with the other money and ape species. There are still, however, two interesting stories which I need to share.
Baby
Well, in my last post I started talking about the sighting with the young orangutan. Back to that story. The guides do put out bits of food for the orangutans. Normally, I would not be too happy with this, but considering that there was a rehabilitation centre in the area where the orangutans were fed regularly, I guess that getting a bit of extra food from the guides is not a train smash. In any case, the guides were very subtle with the feeding. I guess that many of the tourists would not have noticed that the guides were putting out bits of food. So, here we were. Quite a large group of tourists (many different groups) all looking at the youngster. At that stage I had taken most of the photos I wanted, so I was just sitting back enjoying the sighting. One of the guides must have noticed that I was a bit more interested in the youngster then the bulk of the other tourists.
So he quietly came to me, winked and put a bit of banana on the brench quite close to me. Immediately the young orangutan noticed and started to make his (or her) way down towards the banana. Now the little one had a bit of a problem. I was too close for comfort, but the banana was just there. The youngster plucked up the courage to come closer, but was very nervous. So what does a nervous young orangutan do? Pucker up the lips and makes kissing noises! As much as to say - look I am kissing you, so lets be friends! Very, very interesting.
Making a "kissy face"
So towards lunch time, we were just missing the big male orangutan. I had seen a few sub-adult males, but not the fully grown male. We did find him. He was massive. The guides also gave him a very wide berth. Apparently he has the reputation for being quite aggressive. There is also a very aggressive female in the area, but luckily, we did not get to see her.

Lunch time
He was not invited
After we had a good look at the male, we moved off and started to make our way down the hill a bit. After some time, we found a nice clearing and we settled down for lunch. A very nice lunch in the jungle. A rice based dish and quite a bit of fruit. About half way through the lunch, we suddenly hear loud crashing sounds in the forest and we looked up to see the massive male heading rapidly down the hill to come and join us for lunch. The quick thinking guide grabbed some of the food and run towards the big fellow and put the food down. When the big male Orangutan found the food, he stopped to eat the food. This gave us enough time to gather up the camera equipment and head off to a safe distance.
All in all a great day out. Just very very hot. When I eventually reached the river at the hotel, I just dropped my camera bag and walked into the river! My core temperature seriously needed cooling down. The end of a great day! Wonderful experiences of wild orangutans. Well worth it! I would do it all again in a heart beat.
Big male who came to lunch

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