Welcome to the jungle

Buton Island, Sulawesi, Indonesia.
This is the first trip I have done out of Europe (not counting a week in Morocco) since 2009. The experience is completely different to anything I have done in the last 4 years in any of the 50 countries I have visited, and not just because I am taking 27 students to the other side of the world.
This blog will be my account of the first half of the trip to Indonesia, the jungle part.
As expected the journey starts at Arlanda airport and catching am Emirates flight to Dubai. After 6 hours of sitting around we then took a flight to Jakarta. After some time getting through customs we are picked up and taken to our hotel.
Next morning we are traveling again. This time from Jakarta to Baubau via Makassar. Unfortunately the planes flies by Indonesien timeand we are delayed 90 minutes.
In Baubau we are just about at the jungle... But we are required to spend a day in the town to rest up which includes a trip to 'paradise' beach where all the students have a chance to unwind.
Finally the time comes, and we jump into cars and head off. A two hour journey over some unruly roads later and we are there at Labundo Bundo village!
The jungle experience is divided into two parts. The nights sleeping in the village and four nights sleeping in a jungle camp. So after our first night in the village we head out for the jungle camp, Lapago. The trek was a little hilly, but not much of a challenge for my group of Swedes. What was about a three hour walk ended up being only an hour forty.
I personally was a little apprehensive about the camp. I'm a little bit of a city boy who likes my creature comforts, or at least being close by. Although I camped a lot as a youngster, I have always prioritised other activities as an adult. I wondered how I could possibly get any sleep over the next four nights knowing it would be in a hammock. Looking back, I would say that to date, these are the best nights sleep I have had, and many of the students would agree.
The activities we participated in over the days in the jungle and village were:
The main purpose of the trip, habitat surveys. This involved collecting data on the canopy, undergrowth, trunk measurements of larger trees, the slow of the transect and the number of seedlings and samplings. This data is the important information required for Operation Wallaceas application for REDD+ funding. This data has been collected only by high school students over a number of years.
Herpefauna walks required students to follow a researcher as they cleaned out pit fall traps, recorded the findings abs let the animal free.
Megafauna walks was walking along a transect and recording information about animal tracks as well as watching camera traps being set up.
Civet walks was following the researcher through the jungle to check Civet traps for civets or other animals. Unfortunately for the group, no civets were caught, but they were able to see pictures on the camera trap. They also got a lot of information about civets.
Butterfly walks had students following a researcher along a transect and counting butterflies at particular points (point count) and identifying them. If they can't be identified, the students got to try to catch them.
Jungle skills were taught by a local villager. This included trapping, fire making, shelter building, and identifying plants for eating and drinking. Of course this works better if you happen to have a parang (machete).
Canopy climbing happened on a 48m fig tree, meaning students had the opportunity to get to 41m. The view from the top was amazing, being able to look over the canopy cover of the forest. It required a bit of strength, but in general, everyone got up and was definitely one of the highlights of the trip to date (and sweatiest).
Couscous walk required the students to walk down the road to the village trying to spot couscous in the trees and recording the number seen and describe the habitat they were found. Couscous are marsupials that have a prehensile tail, and are quite cute.
Farm walk was meant to be a cultural experience but was a little tedious as it was just showing quickly how the crops are planted and the type of plants grown, with a little bit of food tasting. The second part of this activity was more exciting and involved learning to cook an Indonesien dessert.
Early morning bird walks were an optional extra for the students. This was similar to the butterfly walk, which meant the at specific points along the road the students stopped for a period of time to try and identify the number of species at each point by sight or song.
As well as these activities, some students got to go out in very small groups with a scientist. These activities were frog walks, a day following a troupe of macaques, going to a tasier sleeping tree and watching for them leaving our returning from its nocturnal hunting and bat walks.
It has been an amazing time, and I have survived well even if the diet has been rice and I haven't been able to use a proper toilet or shower. The students themselves have shown a lot of growth, have learnt a lot from the lectures, talks and activities. Half way through the trip I believe this has been a worthwhile experience for the students and we have yet to make it to the dive site.