May 22, 2008

Locusts and cicadas announce the end of the rainy season on route B1

On Friday 2 May I walked this route with a friend. On this trip we saw no monkeys but the forest was alive with a symphony of insects, which got louder towards afternoon (sore hari). For us, the perform­ance reached its climax around 3 pm in the pine forest on the north edge of the valley of the Ci Kutu. There were two kinds of insects: a kind of forest locust called uir-uir (or, locally, oer-oer) and a kind of Cicada called “tonggeret”. The uir-uir make a steady buzzing sound, while the tonggeret make their song in louder bursts of a few seconds. We were duly impressed with what Wikipedia calls the “remarkable acoustic talents” of the tonggeret.

Local lore has it that both species burst into song at the end of the rainy season – which may mean that the hikers are now relatively safe from mon­soon downpours, or that, if they occur, they will occur later in the day. The tonggeret are said to be noisiest in the late afternoon (sore hari).

The Wiki­pedia article on cicadas says that “Cicada song” is made by male cicadas with “loud noisemakers called “timbals” on the side of the abdominal base… Contracting the internal timbal muscles produces a clicking sound as the timbals buckle inwards… The interior of the male abdomen is substantially hollow to amplify the resonance of the sound.” More about tonggeret on: http://id.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tonggeret

During the same walk, we heard about a group of Indonesian schoolkids who had recently walked from Kmp Nangleng to Pasir Pondok Catang – the beginning of route B1. A heavy rain began after they had reached the forest and one schoolkid, unfortunately, slipped and twisted his ankle in the forest. He was carried out of the forest by the others, got some first-aid massage at the house of Pk Husni, and was then carried back to the road. This appears to have been the end of their hike. Sorry to hear of this mishap and better luck next time!

This was the first time in nearly two years that I had walked the last section of route B1, from point D to point E (see map) and back to the start, via the edge of the valley of the Ci Kutu (on other recent occasions I took the shortcut). I took the opportunity to notice a turn that was missed in the narrative in the published book (but not in the map). A correction is being issued on the Updates/Text Updates page of http://www.puncaktrek.com/. A recent change along the route is that the greenhouse of chili peppers behind Ibu Pipi’s warung is now gone.

Easy navigation, as always, on this route.

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