Just like you and me...almost

Camp Leakey was built in the 1970s as a research post and has been staffed ever since by Indonesians and the Jane Goodall of orangutans, Dr. Birute Galdikas. Dr. Galdikas spends most of her time fund raising and lecturing these days, but she lived in the jungle for more than 30 years studying orangutans.

When we arrived at Camp Leakey, we were the first tourists and we immediately met a couple of friendly gibbons named Bob and Boy. These two gibbons have lived around Camp Leakey for their entire lives and are pretty comfortable with humans. They also apparently love coffee because when one of the staff set their coffee mug down, Boy grabbed it and climbed back to the tree to finish drinking it and eating the leftover coffee grounds.

Our guide took us around the camp, and up in the trees we saw our first baby orangutan with his mom. Orangutans only have one child at a time, and the babies stay with their moms until they're about 7 years old. As a result, orangutans take the longest time between babies of any species. They share 97 percent of our DNA and the similarities are just amazing.

The orangutans that live around the three camps we visited are either former captives or the children of former captives. Many of them have completely gone back to the wild, but some still show up for feedings to supplement their diets. The camps offer feedings once a day, and they give the orangutans milk and bananas. They never mix up the diet because they want them to be bored with the food options on offer so that they'll prefer to find their own food in the wild.

It was amazing to see them up close and watch how they act and interact with eachother. At the last camp we visited, we were walking into the forest to the feeding site and our guide saw a huge orangutan coming behind us. He told us to walk faster because it was completely wild and rarely came around. We knew we'd better move quickly if our guide was concerned. The big guy showed up at the feeding site a couple minutes after us. He was huge. Probably about 5'8" and he must have weighed 250 pounds. He then proceeded to eat all of the bananas by himself for the next 20 minutes while the mothers and their babies stared longingly at the diminishing supply.

One thing we didn't really realize before we saw them was how orangutans slept. They make a new nest way up at the very top of really tall trees every night. It almost seems impossible that their nest could support something the size of a human. Imagine trying to build a nest 50 feet up and then sleep there!

So after three days on the boat, we finally headed back to to town for a much overdue hot shower. But we had one more stop to make before heading back to Jakarta...