Tangkoko National Park

After arriving at Tangkoko National Park from Pulisan at night, getting up for the Morning Tour at 6 AM the next morning was not easy. Fortunately, I didn't have to worry about finding a guide either that night or the next morning, as I had already hired Stefen, whose number and highest recommendation I received from Renata.

Hardly had we entered the national park when Stefen already spotted a bear cuscus wandering in a treetop. Bear cuscuses are somewhat comparable to sloths or koalas. They eat about 10 kg of leaves per day, but can only convert about 10% of that into energy. That's why they sleep or rest most of the time and only move very slowly when they do.

Just a little further, we encountered Rambo 2. This is the name given to one of the three groups of macaws in the national park. Apparently, all three groups have around 70 members each, and there are constant territorial battles between the groups that can sometimes get bloody. I was a bit taken aback by the brutality among the monkeys when we met a monkey that was missing a leg. According to Stefen, it had lost its leg after stepping into a poacher's trap.

Before the five-hour Morning Tour ended, we went to the beach and saw various kingfishers, a woodpecker, a pair of hornbills, and a gecko. Although we kept hearing the hornbills flying around, it was not so easy to actually see them, much less photograph them. There was a ranger who would have loud conversations with her guests, scaring off the hornbills in the process. Stefen had to use all his ranger skills, and in the end, he was successful :)

The beach at Tangkoko National Park has extraordinarily vibrant colors. One part of the beach is black, another part is white, and there's even a section where black and white mix together. The black comes from volcanic rock, while the white comes from coral.

I spent lunch with Gloria, and unlike in Bunaken, her boyfriend was also there. Two days before their originally planned departure, he had to reschedule his flight to apply for a new passport. The old one was only valid for 5 months and 27 days instead of the required 6 months. Frustrating.

We started the Night Tour at my request by searching for hornbills again, but unfortunately, we were not successful. However, we saw several slow lorises in their sleeping tree, and Stefen even managed to attract an owl successfully. We had heard it calling from a distance, at which point Stefen answered the call with the same call from his phone repeatedly. Eventually, the owl actually flew to us and allowed us to take photos.

Additionally, Stefen knows a yellow-bellied woodpecker that always sleeps under the same large leaf. And all the guides know the hiding spot of a tarantula and show it to their guests. But the tarantula just didn't want to show up that particular evening. So Stefen showed us the hiding spot of another tarantula that only he knows, and we were lucky there.

Stefen was a really great guide: he knows a lot about the animals and plants in the national park, can not only discover various animals but also track and attract them, takes amazing photos with his telephoto lens, and has no problem extending the tours by half an hour or even an hour to show even more animals. So anyone who wants to explore Sulawesi and visit Tangkoko National Park should definitely contact Stefen beforehand (+6282349592940).