Expedition

Early morning. We go down the Lindu river for several hundred meters to set up our basecamp. At 11:30am, the camp is ready and we finally take the first meal of the day all together.

Part of the day yesterday was spent moving the camp. We are leaving the eastern piedmont of the karst for a forest patch located further north on the Lindu river.

Today, we focus with Tanguy on the Anoa, a small bovine endemic to the island of Sulawesi and at risk of extinction. We will also make a deep foray into the karst upstream of our camp.

Cédric left early this morning with his mask, fins and scuba tank to have a closer look at these blue holes lining the cliff and to explore what these depths may hold.

For some of us, it is an early start ! The reason behind this unusual 4:30am waking up is rather unexpected : Evrard found us a helicopter to have a little scouting of the massif with a higher perspective.

5:30am wake-up call for the whole team. A school bus along with a driver from the army has been kindly arranged by Yusni, Nina and Nida, and is waiting for us downstairs at this early hour.

The negotiations lasted for hours Wednesday night, between Evrard and the friend of Yusni, who is also acquainted with the pilot of the helicopter... At 2:30am, the deal is almost sealed, the price went down...

Today is the first meal with 10 around the table. The team is two-thirds complete, things are taking shape, and the approaching departure is on everyone's mind !

Kendari is the last large town on our way to the massif. It's time for us to get the last supplies into our already heavy loads.

We will get to the Matarombeo massif in four waves. The first one with Evrard, Olivier, Matthieu, Cédric and myself left France this 4th of October and is now in terminal 1 at Jakarta's airport