Chapter Three:
Orangutan
She was sitting in a tree eating a round fruit. I know I am a confident swimmer so I dive in and start to swim to the other side to get a closer look. The current is strong and it pulls me downstream a bit but I eventually get to the edge and crawl out.
When I get to the spot where I saw it, I realise it isn’t just one Orangutan, there is a whole troop of them. About 10 or 20. Just sitting there eating the round looking fruit.
I decide to climb a tree a few feet away. She doesn’t mind me being there, she just sits there eating, not bothered one bit. So I decide to move a bit closer, but still she ignored me.
Chapter four:
The Little Infant
I was sure they weren’t going to leave I tried some of the fruit they were eating. It tasted like a mix between a peach and a rock melon. I was sure I had eaten one before. And then I remembered, it was a pawpaw, I have had it once before in Rarotonga after we went snorkeling.
When they started to move I made sure I had my pocket knife and trailed behind them. While we were walking a small Orangutan split off from the group and came close to me, so close that I could touch it. I didn’t because I didn’t want to scare it away. A little while later he came even closer, and then he held my hand. I have never held a monkey's hand before. It felt incredibly like a human's hand, only softer.
I think I have been with the Orangutans for 3 days, it is hard to keep track in this place. It has been a blast. I've been swinging through the trees with the infants and relaxing with the parents. It was great until the apes bombarded the camp. That day was horrendous. There were Orangutans running everywhere.
Chapter Five:
The River
I wake up in the canopy of a tree, wet and cold. The only thing I remember is when a frightened infant ran to me and held onto my chest for dear life. It is early morning and I’m starving. I have hardly eaten since I got here. I need to find food. I walk to a pawpaw tree with the infant still clinging to my chest and feast on about five pawpaw’s.
I decide to head back to my camp, so I walk up to the stream and when I am about to step in the infant squeals and starts climbing all over me. I step back and it calms down so I try a second time but it just doesn’t want to go in.
Maybe it hasn’t been near water before so I decide to walk up stream and look for a log to climb across. I find one wedged between some rocks. I put one foot on the log to make sure it is sturdy. It doesn’t move so I start to walk across it slowly.
I’m past halfway and nearly there when the log starts to move. I start running, I leap and hope I’ve timed it correctly. I hit the ground relieved to not have fallen into the river and gotten swept away.
Chapter six:
A Sinking Feeling
After a good night's sleep, I feel energized and awake. I gather as much food as I can, wrap it up in a banana leaf and set off, in search of my parents. I decide to walk in the canopy of the jungle so I don’t get sunstroke.
While I am walking, I have a sinking feeling, and then I realize that I am sinking! I have walked into a swamp! I am going down slowly, and there are mosquitoes everywhere! The infant jumps up to a nearby branch and swings across to safety.
I throw my food to the other side and look for a vine to pull myself out with. I look up and find loads hanging down, low enough so I can reach them. I reach up and grab hold of it. I struggle to pull myself out, it takes a few attempts but I finally come free. I start to swing through the trees and land on the ground weak and cold...
Chapter Seven:
Hope
I wake up in the seat of a car with a blanket around me and someone's hand on my shoulder, the infant is by my chest sleeping. I look up to see my father sitting next to me. “Dad?”I say with a raspy voice. He looks down and hugs me tightly. “Oh Toby, I’ve missed you”.
“Where’s Mum”
“She is in the hospital in Indonesia, she got badly burnt”
When we get to the hospital mum is lying in a hospital bed, covered in bandages. The doctor said it would take a few months for her to heal and he recommended we don’t fly the rest of the way to Hawaii.
We weren’t planning on staying in Indonesia so we had to find a place to stay. We found a hotel on the waterfront not far from the hospital.
While mum was recovering I had the time of my life. I rode the elephants along the beach, went to the beach every day, sun bathing on the beach.
When mum was discharged from the hospital she said she wanted to live in Indonesia. Mum, Dad and I were excited to start a new life in a country we had never been to before.
And we lived happily ever after;)
