A day of hiking

With a team of three men (Rohman, Yadi, Guide Bapak Asni) I hiked to the border of Cali with a neighboring village. This was the most enjoyable day of field work thus far – our objective was to simply collect a couple of GPS points so most of the time was spent walking and talking. The hike took us from the lowlands through forest which had been logged (industrially logged) in 2004, and then burned in 2006, and to the top of a peak overlooking cali and the village of Mensubang. Mensubang has oil palm, and the extent of the plantation was incredible – it filled most of the valley floor.

Bapak Asni is a man from Cali who earns a living by hunting. He knows these hills well, and had lots of stories and information for us as we walked. One of the highlights of the day was drinking water from a log (see picture below) and another was finding a group of orangutan nests. I have yet to see orangutans here, but monkeys are abundant.