Sulawesi 2018

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marcox
Posts: 20
Joined: April 25th, 2015, 3:11 am

Sulawesi 2018

Post by marcox »

I spent two weeks around north Sulawesi with my gf. Even it wasn`t a pure herping trip, we did find some herps and other interesting wildlife.

We started our trip at the city of manado which is well connected to europe / asia with regular flights from singapore. From there we took a boat to our resort (40min) at the island of Siladen, part of the bunaken marine national park. Its mainly a destination for diving and snorkelling, but also a great place to relax.

There we went on a dolphin tour and spotted a few hundreds spinner dolphins.

Our next destination was the tangkoko np with his interesting fauna. The park is around 2h from manado by car. Tangkoko is famous for mammals especially tarsiers, the selfie monkey (black macaques) and couscous. All three species are nearly guaranteed if you go on a morning and an evening trekk at the park.

We saw 2 of three 3 groups of black macaques with around 80 animals. The second group was at the beach looking for food. Quite interesting view to see them all around the beach.

We saw two groups of tarsier who regulary visitted bye tourists and used two people and managed to spott a bear couscous. After seeing all the "standard" animals of the park, I asked the guide to find some herps for us. We find 3 species over the 3 days we were there but couldn`t find any viper and missed a "5m" retic while we were at an other corner of the park.

From tangkoko we went back to manado and took a 5h ferry ride to siau island, which is around 120km of from manado between Sulawesi and the Philippines. Siau has an endemic Species of Tarsier, an active volcano, two hotels and around 30k inhabitants, who are more than frendly. To my surprise there were many bevelnosed boas around the island and its almost guranteed to find them. We found 4 pieces in and around our resort in 1h. They were the only snake species we managed to see at Siau, but there are a few more species including retics, vipers,vinesnakes etc. Even the people from Siau catch retics for food as allmost any other animal on the island including the siau tarsier.

Back at Mando we went to spend 3 day at Tomohon Higlands (1.5h drive). The region for volcanos, specacular landscapes and the extreme market, where you can see, that the people from the minahasa region eat everything with 4 leggs beside furniture...if you are interested in guided herping tours in this region you can contact michael leitzinger from Archipelago Adventure who owns also a very nice resort at this region and guided tours around Indonesia for many years.
We went looking for vipers with one morning but didnt had any luck. We also joined him to bring a nice 3m retic to the local animal clinic and received many interesting infos from him.

Overall is the north of Sulawesi a very interesting Region if you are into wildlife or diving. The local people are very friendly and at the tourism is still developing. The prices there are very affordable I hope to get back there an other time.
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DanW
Posts: 103
Joined: November 4th, 2010, 8:02 pm

Re: Sulawesi 2018

Post by DanW »

Thanks for sharing this. Looks like a great trip to a part of the world I don't know much about. Siau Island sounds like quite the place to visit.

Dan
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Curtis Hart
Posts: 595
Joined: June 7th, 2010, 5:07 pm
Location: Hillsdale County, Michigan

Re: Sulawesi 2018

Post by Curtis Hart »

Thanks for posting. That is a great part of the world! How hard was it to find the Siau Tarsier?
marcox
Posts: 20
Joined: April 25th, 2015, 3:11 am

Re: Sulawesi 2018

Post by marcox »

Curtis Hart wrote:Thanks for posting. That is a great part of the world! How hard was it to find the Siau Tarsier?
Not hard at all. We could hear them from our Cottage every night. Took around 20min to find them with some help from the Hotel staff. But we had better views as we went looking for theme higher upt the mountain accompanied by a guide. But it took also not more then 30min to gind them.

we were staying at kalea beach Resort.
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orionmystery
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Joined: December 26th, 2012, 11:48 pm
Location: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
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Re: Sulawesi 2018

Post by orionmystery »

Nice! Not been to Sulawesi yet even though it's not that far from KL. Tempted to go find the Tropidolaemus laticinctus!
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