A few weeks ago, I traveled six hours north to a small town called Sangatta. There are two Americans living in Sangatta from the same program with which I am working. I traveled to Sangatta because it is home to Kutai National Park. The most exciting thing about this National Park is that there are orangutans! There are very few places in the world that orangutans still live in their natural habitat so I felt very lucky to get to see them up close.
The orangutans were much bigger than I was expecting. We hiked out into the woods with our guide, and they followed the sounds of the animals to find them for us to see. When we finally found them, we stayed down on the ground and watched in awe as they swung from branch to branch. The orangutans were less orange than I was expecting from seeing photos. The color was a little closer to brown but still beautiful.
When I saw them, I was in awe. The orangutans are such beautiful creatures that remind me of humans in a lot of ways. The way that they interacted with each other and the way the mother orangutan looked after her baby seemed like something that humans would do. The whole experience was absolutely breathtaking.
