Yes Mom I'm Alive

“Wait, stop - I smell orangutan!”

I pause behind our guide, frozen still except for my craning neck searching the canopy of trees.

Snap! A branch breaks just a few meters to the east. We quickly and quietly walk in the direction of the sound.

“There, theretherethere!” Haas whispers, pointing to the top branches of a tree. A mother orangutan- hefty but graceful- carries her baby in her arm as she swings down toward us. She stops just above our heads and looks at us curiously, and we at her.

The baby, no more than a year old by Haas’s estimate, wiggles free from his mother’s clutch and climbs up a dangling vine. But Tarzan he is not; with one clumsy twist of his body he slips and falls toward the underbrush. His mother acts quickly, swinging down and scooping him up in her arms before he crashes to the ground. They are now at eye-level with us. We hold our breath in awe of this moment.

“Welcome to the jungle!” Haas cracks loudly, and begins to laugh.

---

We- our guide Haas, porter Nanong, a Belgian couple and I- left the small riverside village of Bukit Lawang in northwestern Sumatra before sunrise that morning for a two-day trek through the Gunung Leuser jungle, one of only two places in the world to see orangutans in the wild.

After a quick breakfast, we crossed the Bohorok river on a precarious rope bridge and entered the thick hedge of trees to begin our hike into the Sumatran jungle. The hike is steep and most of it is a scramble- we grasp onto roots, trunks and rocks along the narrow trail to pull ourselves up and steady ourselves on the way down. It is challenging work made downright grueling by the steamy jungle heat. But I stay right on Haas’s heels as he takes us through the canopied hills, over streams, and down into the cool valleys.

A native of Bukit, Haas knows the jungle well; he moves swiftly and adeptly through the tangle of trees, tracking animals by their sounds and smells. Haas warned us that we would be lucky if we saw one orangutan on our trek but by the end of the first day we’ve seen four.

At dusk we set up camp downriver from a modest waterfall. The Belgians and I eagerly jump into the crisp pool beneath it, washing off hours of mud, sun and tire. When we finish, we join Haas and Nanong around a campfire for dinner, songs and card games. Slowly the sky darkens to night and the jungle decrescendos with it, until the only sounds are the steady piercing chime of the cicadas, the crackling fire, and our very happy laughter.