It really tickles me that I've been in Asia for 3 months, living a life that's so foreign, culturally & physically, from anything I've experienced before. But I'll stop writing about that for now. I'll leave all that for my last day here, when it'll be more appropriate. Besides, I still have to finish writing about Bohol & Cebu! (I've pretty much given up on Japan. But who knows, maybe (aka probably) during lapses in the upcoming job search (may all that is great & powerful & magical in this world grant me the luck of 7 unicorns eating four leaf clovers in fields of rainbows for that search), I'll catch up.)
So. After the nuzzle-worthy Chocolate Hills, I visited the equally nuzzle-worthy Tarsier Sanctuary in the town Corella. It had been a slow day, judging by the sleeping front desk attendant who was drooling into her palm propped under her chin. Other than bored, she was very nice & set me up with a tour. The tour was disappointingly shorter than expected, but still pretty cool. A guide took us into a semi-wild enclosure where 10 of the creatures lived.Tarsiers are not the smallest primates in the world, as many ads in PI suggest, but they are quite tiny - about 10 - 15 cm in length, not including the tail. They have huge eyes (that are actually roughly the same size as their brains!), long fingers & toes, & furry bodies. They are nocturnal & live in trees, so when I visited that afternoon they were all adorably hugging & spooning branches. When I first saw a tarsier, two things came to mind immediately: 1) God, does that look like Yoda (learned later that they actually inspired his character design!) & 2) God, do I want to HUG IT. Unfortunately, for us & them, human touch stresses & terrifies them. In fact, most tarsiers that are caught & caged for tourist purposes die shortly after capture. Accustomed to solo, quiet life styles in the forest, cities, cages & in the company of loud, grabby tourists are awful environments for them. Some stop eating, or even bash their heads against the cage bars, essentially committing suicide. It's heartbreaking, and yet more & more are stolen away from their natural environment everyday for tourism profits & to replace ones that have already died. Le sigh. But the sanctuary exists to help this situation! Thanks to them, the numbers of the species are at healthier levels, and they are protected from snatchers & modern predators such as domesticated cats.
Realizing that I had been at the sanctuary longer than planned & thus might have missed the last jeepney to Tagbilaran, I all by ran back to the main road. I was pretty much in the middle of nowhere & I stood at the side of the road, wishing & hoping, for about half an hour, without so much as a dragon fly passing on the asphalt. Then! A dude on a motorcycle appeared. A knight on his noble steed if I ever saw one. He offered me a lift and I later ended up watching the latest Chronicles of Narnia film with him and his friends! Yay friendship!Okay, I'll cover the Loboc River in my next post!
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