Bukit Lawang, Trekking the Jungle Pt. 2

So if you know me really well, you might know that... I don't like hiking, I don't like sweating, and I don't like animals... well mainly just the wild ones they scare me!  And maybe after looking through these photos you've noticed that this jungle trek included ALL three! I was quite proud of myself making it through this adventure.

When we first arrived to Bukit Lawang we set up a trek through the wild jungle in hopes of finding a few orangutans and other wild life.  We also had a water rafting trip set up at the end of our trek to get back to town.  We got lucky and got a guide all to ourselves, unfortunately I forgot his name but he looked like Landon's Indonesian twin, both having long hair and a blue tank top on. :)

Ten minutes into the hike I was already completely soaked the humidity just hit us like a wall when we entered the jungle. I had sweat constantly dripping from my forehead into my eyes and my shirt was so stretched out and wet, which is why there are no photos of me in this post! :) We had about 4-5 encounters with wild orangutans and it was so amazing.  Their hair is so vibrant and they have so many human-like characteristics that they were just so interesting to watch.  All of my photos of the monkeys were taken with a 50mm so you can imagine how close we were, I was sad I didn't have a zoom lens but at the same time grateful I didn't have the extra weight to carry.  We had one scary experience when the mother orangutan climbed down to the ground and got just a couple feet away, our guide was freaking out which of course made me panic, I started running and guess what Landon did? He just got super excited and was walking towards the monkey of course, doesn't surprise me with him!  Thankfully the orangutan went back up and left us alone, the mothers are very protective and we had to be careful with that.

As we got closer to the waterfall we had to "repel" down a slippery, muddy slope with a vine attached to a tree.  I slipped and fell a couple times but I'd have to say that was one of my favorite parts, holding onto a vine repelling down orange mud really made the jungle experience more surreal. Once we reached the river they had tied tubes together that we sat on and they took us down the white water, it was super fun and didn't last long enough in my opinion!  All in all, the jungle trek was amazing and not as dangerous or scary as I was anticipating. :)