{"id":15880,"date":"2013-03-26T12:39:45","date_gmt":"2013-03-26T12:39:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.pyranha.com\/blog\/?p=15880"},"modified":"2014-04-08T13:21:02","modified_gmt":"2014-04-08T13:21:02","slug":"sulawesi-exploration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pyranha.com\/blog\/sulawesi-exploration\/","title":{"rendered":"Sulawesi exploration"},"content":{"rendered":"

Whilst flying out the not-so-successful expedition to Papua<\/a> in 2011, our plane stopped off en route to re-fuel. We had no idea where we were, and we popped into the airport for a quick Nasi Goreng and to find out. Discovering we were in Sulawesi set my brain into gear. I have the pleasure of organising the biennial selection weekend<\/a> for the British Universities Kayaking Expeditons, and as part of this event, each applicant has to research a destination for the final team to select from. One of the shortlisted expeditions for 2011 was Sulawesi. I bought a map and spent the rest of the flight tracing blue lines.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Mandar<\/a>

Incredible gorges with jungle dripping down the walls<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Impressive<\/a>

Incredible terraced paddy fields on the drive to the rafting run<\/p><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

Since getting back home I started making plans to return. In June 2012 I returned with my new wife on a scouting mission<\/a>, that I cunningly told her was a stop on our honeymoon. Fortunately she took this in good spirit and we did a day of boating with a local rafting operator aswell as the more usual touristy honeymoon stuff.<\/p>\n

With contacts made and more lines sketched out on Google Earth, I was now raring to go. Chris (who led the Papua trip) was keen to join me, but could only make it for just over 2 weeks. I booked for just over 3 weeks and told myself I\u2019d do some scouting and touristing whilst waiting.
\n 
\n

\"Buffalo<\/a>

Buffalo market in Rantepao – the whole economy seems to rotate around these things!<\/p><\/div><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Torajan<\/a>

Torajean culture is fascinating, they place great importance on funeral ceremonies and graves.<\/p><\/div>\n

By day 2 I was bored of touristing, so commandeered a jeep and went exploring solo. The river was beautiful, the many iguanas hilarious (bellyflopping into the water when startled) and I was already pleased I\u2019d decided to come back.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Torajean<\/a>

Torajean architecture is also pretty unique<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Ubiquitous<\/a>

Ubiquitous iguanas constantly surprised by our presence.<\/p><\/div>\n

Once Chris arrived, the exploring proper started. Two multiday first descents, one first descent at rainy season levels, one flood to deal with and lots of adventure. See below for a few photos of the rivers, scenery and culture. For more info, have a look at the January ’14 issue of Canoe & Kayak UK Magazine<\/a> for a full account of one of our first descents (the Mandar river).<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Planning<\/a>

Planning the next river in a roadside cafe (warung)<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Local<\/a>

Local people on the Mandar river had never seen kayaks before – half the village turned out to see us off.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Dropping<\/a>

Dropping in on the Masupu<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Another<\/a>

Another fun rapid on the Masupu River<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Navigating<\/a>

Navigating the flood<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Celebrating<\/a>

Celebrating survival of the flash flood on the Mamasa river, with a boat ride across the lake to the take-out.<\/p><\/div>\n

Huge thanks to Lynda and Ucock at Toranggo Buya, Agus at Sellatours<\/a>, Nick Blackbeard, Richard McFarland for help with logistics and river information. Neither would the trip have been possible without a generous grant from the BCU Expeditions Committee.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Whilst flying out the not-so-successful expedition to Papua in 2011, our plane stopped off en route to re-fuel. We had no idea where we were, and we popped into the airport for a quick Nasi Goreng and to find out. Discovering we were in Sulawesi set my brain into gear. I have the pleasure of … <\/p>\n

Continue reading »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":185,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,273],"tags":[564,75,85,108,120,563,561,560,557,558,562,559,371,556],"class_list":["post-15880","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-creeking-articles","category-expeditions-2","tag-bcu-expedition-committee","tag-expedition","tag-first-descent","tag-indonesia","tag-kayak","tag-maitang","tag-malua","tag-mamasa","tag-mandar","tag-masupu","tag-maula","tag-sadan","tag-sulawesi","tag-sungai"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9tk9G-488","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pyranha.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15880","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pyranha.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pyranha.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pyranha.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/185"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pyranha.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15880"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.pyranha.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15880\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16082,"href":"https:\/\/www.pyranha.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15880\/revisions\/16082"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pyranha.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15880"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pyranha.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15880"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pyranha.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15880"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}