Sea turtles | The Indonesian Pilgrimage of Tanja Eikenboom

We are staying at a lovely guesthouse called Rumah Kita, built by a Dutchman, Peter van Luijk, and his wife 25 years ago. It is on several hectares of land just outside the village of Kalibaru. There is a main house, the rear of which is a large, open veranda facing a large, open garden with the volcano Gunung Raong in the background. When we arrived Saturday March 16 after a 7 hour hair-raising drive from Malang, we were greeted by Peter and his two adopted Indonesian children, both in their 20s visiting from Holland where they were reared. We were given Bintangs (Indonesian beer) and nasi goreng for dinner. We slept well in a small guesthouse facing the garden.

At 9:00 Sunday morning our two Indonesians, Supri and Weedodor, picked us up for an overnight trip to Sukamade Turtle Beach. First stop was the small Indomarket for lumpia and other supplies. We then drove for the next 5 hours over smaller and more bumpier roads through smaller and smaller kampongs (Bahasa for village). I actually had one of those aha moments when I realized rural Indonesia is actually more developed than rural Kentucky. In these tiny villages with dirt roads, dirt front yards, there is always a small food store, a vegetable fruit market, clothing store and some sort of motorbike repair place. There is usually a “Gas station”, which is a stand outside the house with recycled liter bottles of gas for sale. Even though these shops don’t offer much, they do provide the basic necessities for the village, many times only appearing to contain a few dozen houses. The nicest building in these kampongs is the mosque. And many of the houses are painted brightly, with tile walls and veranda floors, beautiful lacquered front doors and front yards of gravel or dirt. People seem to be always fixing up their houses, and it seems to take awhile because they are in various stages of renovation. But there is obvious pride in their homes.

Contrast that with rural Kentucky where towns many times are lucky to have a gas station food mart. Town centers have been gutted so necessities are a long ways away at the Wal-Mart. Many times homes are in disrepair. People look depressed. So which country is more civilized?

Ok. Now I have to stop and insert another comment, this time about Islam. Java is mostly Islam so each town has at least one mosque. And apparently anyone can set up a mosque. So they are ubiquitous. What is annoying is that in the last ten years or so they have all decided they should use loudspeakers to call their flock to prayer and to amplify the services so it is impossible not to hear them. This means that for several hours every day we are subjected to the howling that comes from the mosque. Even in this tiny kampong. I think Islam is probably the most proselytizing religion on the earth today. Seeing the women in headscarves you realize how controlling Muslim men are over their women. It is just not an appealing religion in my view. (Insert from Tanja: It is such a contrast with Hindu Bali where it is one big celebration of the beauty of life (and women!) shown by sweet little offerings of flowers and rice everywhere. I am writing this while the local mosques are competing to be heard with their calls that sound like a whole tribe of cats in heat. Enough already!!!)

Back to Rick: Anyway, today’s five hour drive into what you would think would be nowhere was fascinating. The coffee, cocao and rubber plantations are thriving. Each tiny kampong we drove through had housing for the plantation workers. Except for a 5K trail through the mountain jungle, houses and cultivated land lined even the most rugged of roads. One realizes how much the population of Indonesia is growing. There are very few nowheres here.

We arrived at a beach of a little fishing village, which was pristine without a soul in site. We walked along it dodging the surf for perhaps a kilometer toward some bright colored objects on the sand. As we approached it was obvious they were long, brightly colored fishing boats pulled up on logs onto the beach. Behind them was a little village with a shack where we visited with the locals and had our lumpia and shared a Bintang. We then drove an hour more, over a nearly impassable road through mountain jungle, seeing toucans and monkeys in the trees. It was full of jungle sounds, no motors to be heard once the Diatsu left us to walk for awhile.

We left the jungle and went through muddy roads fjording rivers until we came to a small kampong this time with only thatched cottages and no electricity. Set back on one side was a bright, clean building with doors and a veranda which turned out to be the place where we are to spend the night. It is called the Guest House at Sukamade Beach and is where people stay who come to see the turtles.

Rick
Now comes the part written by Tanja-

It seems like all the magic in Indonesia happens right after sunset or before sunrise. We just got back from an overnight trip to the sea turtles in Sukamade. Absolutely fantastic. It takes about 3 hours from here to get there because it is mostly a dirt and very bumpy road, through villages, a fishing town, the jungle, rubber and coffee plantations, kalies (=river). The amazing thing is that it is still very populated there. It is just that the government sucks in Indonesia and can’t even provide decent roads.

We had dinner at the guesthouse and then left for the beach around 7:30 pm again in a jeep from the eighties and via a dirt road that by now had changed into a mud river because of the tropical down pores (it is still rain season). We ended up in some kind of camp outpost where they incubate the turtle eggs that the turtles lay at the beach. From there you have another 20 minute walk with the turtle rangers. When you get at the beach they tell you to sit down and wait till they give you a sign with their lights that it is safe to come. They look for fresh tracks that tell you that a turtle has come to shore to lay her eggs. But you can’t approach her till she has buried herself and starts laying her eggs. If you do before she starts laying her eggs she turns around and goes back to sea.

So there Rick and I were sitting in the pitch dark. It was overcast so all you could see was the white of the surf, occasional lightning in the distance and a meek attempt of the moon to get through all the clouds. After about 20 minutes we got the sign of a flashing light from the far end of the beach that it was safe for us to come. It was so exciting to walk over the beach in the dark, no sound except the surf and some thunder far away in the mountains. By the time we got to the place the turtle had already started her way back to the sea. Unfortunately the rangers came too late to harvest the eggs. A wild swine had already made a gourmet dinner of the eggs. It was fascinating, though, to watch this enormous beast (this one was a one meter green back) moving slowly to the water. She stopped about every 5 minutes, sort of deflated and then she started pumping herself up for the next two meters. She actually sounded like a bicycle pump. Finally she made it to the surf and we waved her goodbye when she let the surf take her into the Indian Ocean.

By that time we had gotten the sign from the other end of the beach that they found another turtle ready to pop. On our way over there we saw the ruins of another nursery where our villain, the swine, had been pigging out on turtle eggs. Fortunately the rangers did get to our last turtle on time. By the time we got there she had already laid about 80 eggs (they are the size and shape of ping pong balls). We were so fortunate to witness the laying of some 40 more. Absolutely magical! Apparently, for this one it was her first delivery on this beach so they took all her measurements (104 cm by 80 cm), gave her a ring and some other stuff. On our way back to the camp we ran into our villain, a big mother swine with a tiny little piglet. Oh blessed circle of life.

FROM GUESTHOUSE RHUMA KITA