Seemingly, the fruit season has finally started here on central Kalimantan! from eating only about the same thing all the time, the orangutan diet now all of a sudden varies a lot! And it felt like it happened over night. The national geographic team who were here about one week ago thought that the green beans were all they were eating here in Tuanan.
This means of course for my own part that i will be able to taste a lot of new funky fruits! Most of the fruits which orangutan eats are fine for humans to eat as well. However, there seems to be a limit for how much of these fruits that can be good to eat…
I’ve already tested some fruits of course, I like to taste new plants and fruits. My favourite happens to be the same as the orangutans favourite; Kamunda. This is what all of the orangutans have been feeding on every day for hours. So one day when I was out searching orangutans I found a fallen tree with a lot of lianas with kamunda fruits – an excellent opportunity to make a kamunda salad I though! I picked some young leaves and a bunch of beans and went back to camp and ate it.
I can tell you now – this was a horrible idea! I got so much gases in my stomach I was worried it was gonna burst! I suppose you all know how it feels, this is something we’ve all had sometime, but this pain was just so intense and it wouldn’t go away. I also had diarreah of course. From the positive point of view I’ve learnt my lesson…maybe!