by Marit Miners

I arrived here in Sorong on Saturday, and Andrew and I have endured several days of Christmas-related madness. We've been subjected to a night-and-day barrage of high-decibel dance remixes of 'Jingle Bells' and 'Feliz Navidad,' accompanied by the incessant 'crack!' and 'ka-blang!' of fireworks. Sorong is a raucous place.

Happily, the MER office has now moved to a spacious house with a garden, overlooking the harbour. With all the staff gone for the holiday, Andrew and I had the place to ourselves. We busied ourselves planting starfruit trees and amaryllis bulbs, and feeding the gaggle of kittens that has adopted us.

Andrew and I are off to the island at daybreak tomorrow, along with Marcel and Alison, two visitors from Singapore. (For our regular readers, you may remember hearing about Marcel some months ago when he came to the rescue of our ailing jet boat.) We'll also be joined by Iwein and Lika, two bird experts operating Papua Expeditions out of Sorong. They were kind enough to take us along for a birding trek this morning. You can read more about the tours they offer here.

We tumbled into the car an hour before sunrise and bumped and careened along until the dusty tumble-down shacks of Sorong gave way to vast swathes of green. The world was just lighting up, and the rain forest was cloaked with mist. We parked the car, tucked our trousers into our socks and grabbed our binoculars, eager to get on our way. We were immediately treated to hornbills and black palm cockatoos flying overhead.

We followed a little trail off the road, and there was a cacophony of strange bird sounds. The more I listened, the more alien they sounded. Iwein and Lika were in their element, whispering the names of the various birds with obvious zeal. Iwein's prowess as a birder was in full force as he emulated these bird sounds himself. And just in case there was any doubt in the birds' brains, Iwein produced an MP3 player from his bag, playing recordings of the calls to lure the birds closer.

We trekked from swampy forest up into gorgeous primary rainforest, populated with giant dipterocarps and fern trees, strung with lianas and climbers. The forest floor was littered with strange fruits and berries and flowers. Iwein and Lika were very excited to hear the King Bird of Paradise calling from the branches above. Although we didn't manage to catch a glimpse of him, I was satisfied just to be in his presence. We stopped in a clearing where we heard the frequent flapping of hornbills overhead. Andrew and I took a rest under some trees while Marcel and Alison and our guides carried on a bit further. We woke up from a nap only to see two great orange breasted birds looking down at us from the treetops! Funny to think that we were the ones being watched.

creepers

It was a magnificent morning. As we headed back to Sorong, the car was quiet. We were all very tired from the early start, but I suspect we were all involved in our individual ruminations and reveries. What a fantastic place this was, humid and full of the sounds of life and sweet smells. I felt so honoured to be a visitor in this place. We carried on driving for about 15 minutes, and then we stopped to visit the city dump.

Gentle readers, this was horrifying in a way that defies description. It is a massive dump, in the most literal sense of the word. Not a landfill, a dump. It's a hideous and reeking place, situated in a deep valley and quite nearly filled to the hilltops with plastic bags, old tires, dead chickens, castoff toothbrushes, broken windshields, solitary shoes, rusted refrigerators, broken cow femurs.... and millions and millions of other discarded things. The photos don't even begin to give an idea of the scale of this thing. It's a huge sprawling wasteland, surrounded by incredible rainforest.

Andrew and I got out of the car to get a closer look, and we were swarmed with black flies. The top of the dump was on fire, and the smell of rot mingled with the noxious fumes of burning plastic was enough to turn one's stomach.

flaming dump

chatting about the value of trash

All this puts us in a bit of a quandry as far as Misool Eco Resort's waste disposal goes. We do our best to create as little waste as possible, avoiding plastic water bottles and bags, buying in bulk whenever possible. We separate our recyclables from our rubbish, and we compost as much as we can. But we still create waste. What do we do with it? Do we ship our rubbish back to Sorong to feseter in an unsealed dump, which is undoubtedly leeching toxins into the ground water and sea? Or do we burn our own rubbish on the island? We'd be happy for any ideas or input - you can email us your suggestions here.

This treasure is disappearing fast, folks. The primal rainforests and everything in them are collapsing under our watch, and we simply can't let it happen. I hope you'll forgive the strident tone, but today's adventure was such a perfect illustration of the somewhat nebulous concept of disappearing habitat.

As we marveled at the sheer magnitude and disgustingness of the dump, we heard the growl of chainsaws coming from the forest in the distance. Ever the optimist, Andrew spotted some hardy dieffenbachias growing on the edge of the dump. Andrew dug them out and slung them in the back of the car. They're now in our garden, hopefully enjoying their new view and relatively fresh ocean breezes. And the plastic yogurt containers and sandwich wrappers from our early morning birding trek?? We brought them back to the house with us - it just seemed so wrong to throw them into the dump.

Right, time to pack our dive gear and some snacks for our journey to Batbitim tomorrow morning. We'll be back in the office on January 8th, so please be patient if you don't hear from us for a little bit. Wishing you all plenty of love and happiness in the New Year.

andrew and his prize dieffenbachia