A Spicy Weekend!

Well, I'm back in Sorowako after spending most of this weekend at the PTInco exploration camp for the Latou project, about a 2 1/2 hour drive south of here. The project is located on a small peninsula on the east arm of Sulawesi Island and juts out into the Gulf of Bone (Bow-Neigh). Distance wise it isn't that far, being only about 90km by road but it is quite twisty with some pretty sharp switch-backs as the road climbs up the side of mountains and then back down the other. The camp is right on the edge of a small fishing village called Lelewau with no more than about 20 houses. Here is a link to Google Maps that shows Sorowako (spelled incorrectly on the map as "Sornako") and the fishing village: http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&ie=UTF8&ll=-2.794911,121.172333&spn=0.642618,1.054688&z=11

Myself and 3 others drove to the camp and then, after we had been shown our rooms and had a chance to change, we boarded a large fishing boat which took us to our final destination, a coral sand beach just around the point from the village. Here are a couple of photos, one showing the second boat load off-loading and the other of the beach and the camp that had been set up for the weekend. Altogether there were about two dozen from the exploration department in Sorowako, including the department general manager, Arief Hendarman, and his wife Hermin all for a holiday excursion. I was the only non-Indonesian (Bule - boo-lay, Indonesian slang for Westerner).




While Arief and I are about the same age he started with the company 4 years later than me (although he started right out of university when he went to school it typically was for 6 to 7 years before he got his degree although now they are more in line with places like Canada where it is now 4 years). As a result he will be joining the Quarter Century Club - the Inco activity for rewarding long-term service that typically consists of a dinner party and gifts to both the new members of the club and their spouses.

We had lunch of grilled fish, rice and chicken. And then spent the rest of the afternoon swimming or playing volleyball (they had a net set up at waters edge). I had a great time as the water is not very deep but rich in marine life, including corals and many small fish. I even came across a sea cucumber and brought it up the surface for a closer look having never seen one in person before. It emitted a mass of sticky tendrils so I tossed him back and took a few minutes rubbing off the dozen or so that had come in contact and stuck to my hand.

Later on I found all kinds of sea dollars close to shore. I had seen dried examples of their shells before but never the living creature. It was pretty neat watching them plow through the sand using millimetre long cilia that cover both top and bottom. Also near the water line, on shore, were dozens of hermit crabs. While they quickly retreated into their shells when picked up with in a minute or so they would come back out, nip at your hand and try and walk away.

Late in the afternoon most of us then made the boat trip back to the village and the exploration camp. A number got into their vehicles and began the return trip back to Sorowako. I and the rest had supper at the camp and then retired to our rooms. I was supposed to share a room with one of the people who had come out with me by the name of Hassan but he had decided to stay at the beach and spend the night in several tents for those who wanted to have that experience.

Before it got dark I came across on one of the walkways a big black millipede with bright red legs. And of course I had to take a picture of another one of novelty (at least to me) creatures to be found here. I later discovered that this was only one of many here at the camp! When I finally went to bed there was one on my shirt that I had hung up on the wall earlier! And in the morning another was crawling along a board on the opposite wall.













One interesting thing about this camp is they have power being supplied by a micro-hydroelectric plant located on the stream right by the camp. here is a picture of the generator and the impeller mechanism (manufactured right in Sorowako).















And here is one of the small dam and the intake for the system. The dam is about 12 metres higher than the generator and the average flow through the system is about 60 litres per second through plastic pie: 12" that is reduced to 8" and then 4" and finally 3" at the inlet side of the power unit. Pretty nifty system.














On the way down Hassan pointed out numerous black pepper plantations on the hill sides. Along the road side, at several small villages we passed through we saw cocoa beans drying and something else that Hassan told me was "cengkeh" (pronouncd cheng-kay) but he was unable to tell me what the English equivalent was. On the trip back to Sorowako we stopped at one place to take a closer look and they were cloves! So Hassan took me to a clove plantation where I could see the trees up close a personal.












As I have mentioned previously Indonesia used to be the centre of the spice trade, thus the name "Spice Islands" with the two most important being pepper and cloves and now I can say I have stood in the middle of plantations of both! And the aroma of these fresh spices as they dry in the sun is great in stark contrast to the local markets where "fresh" fish hangs heavy in the air. And so ends another chapter of my continuing adventures here in the Spice Islands!