Timor cuscus – year 2006
The villagers of Makaleb were getting ready to stew these 2 little marsupials so I decided to attempt to buy them and take them to my friends place in Pante Macassar on my motorbike.
Phalanger orientalis (timor cuscus)
Timor Cuscus in Oecussi – pardon the misspelling kus kus – ha ha – never saw one before this day and then I had two.
I gave a guy walking down the trail carrying a dead turtle a lift home on the back of my motorbike as he directed me down the path.
Killing turtles isn’t generally considered to be too cool, but when people are living in such poverty you really don’t feel like preaching, especially when his kids are going hungry and he is trying to feed his family
We went down a rutted road to Makaleb, a small village that was composed of those neat little round grass houses you find in the outback in the Oecussi part of East Timor.
Makaleb is the kind of place that I seek on my travels. Just real people living their lives in peace and making the best of it. They were very friendly and kind and full of laughter.
Oecussi, Timor Leste is for me an incredible corner of the universe.
Everyone really got entertained looking at the photos I took with my cheap digital camera. (1.2 megapixel coolpix – ha ha – state of the art at that time)
note from reader – This is Phalanger orientalis (timor cuscus) – Anton Sineri
Conservations Departmen Forestry Faculty Papua University
These 2 cuscus were cute little rascals and they really didn’t have that much meat on them.
It seemed like a good idea to buy them and bring them over to a friends house who lives on the beach in town.
We didn’t come to a price but I told them I would return to talk about it.
He wanted to earn enough to pay the boat trip back to Dili (7 dollars) where he had worked as a taxi driver.
My friend Cris thought it would be a good idea to go ahead and get them so I went back the following day to pick them up.
After a little bargaining we agreed on 20 dollars for the two. The price was a little high but I wanted to help him out so he could get back to his job in Dili.
The rains had started so the rivers were getting full and becoming challenging to drive through.
I was using Henry’s ag-bike (of the Backpackers Guest House in Dili) that has the spark plug way on top so it is less likely to short out.
The exhaust pipe is raised up so water doesn’t run in and ruin the valves if your bike stalls in the river.
That bike could chug right through the river but one of the local guys lost his motorcycle half way across. It is one of the risks riding in Oecussi.
When the water gets too high people just don’t travel. Communities are just cut off until the water level recedes.
It did look ridiculous riding that bike with 2 cuscus on the back but we made it to town ok. I got the cute little cuscus transport bag included in the 20 dollar price.
The cuscus munched on mangos, watermellon, cabbage and jambulan when we got to the house.
Cris and I tried to see if they would stay in the yard surrounded by a fence but they are very active at night and didn’t want to stick around.
Dogs and kids with slingshots would be a big danger if they started walking around the neighborhood.
These kids will kill any wild animal they come across and these little guys would land up in the cook pot for sure.
When the cuscus do get released, it is planned to release them way out west near the isolated village of Citrana where there are more trees and less people.
If not, they have a big new bamboo cage in the works where they will be relatively protected. We’ll see what happens.
update: The male has made a dash for freedom and was not to be found. Hopefully he made it. The other one was released at night as well. We hope that they found each other in the outback somewhere.
remark sent in by reader, Anton Sineri, in March 2010 below – thank you for sending – I cut and pasted it into the main page – great info!
Hi,
I am glad to see you website.
Some people believe is not goot (taboo) to eat this animal because is spesial friends for them (Like se human), but if some time this is common food because they dont have another to eat. i’m study about this mammal since 2001 until now. There are 11 spesies in Papua (Papua and Papua New Guinea) in Papua (indonsia) 7 spesies. one of them have big population but higt levels of hunting. This is Phalanger orientalis (timor cuscus) but especially in papua (ex.Numfor Island, Biak, Moor, and another pleace).not only hunt but also the development of a m trigger factor very large. i’m conservationist, i worried for this species. I am hoping to stay awake in the future.
how about you…..
Anton Sineri
Conservations Departmen Forestry Faculty Papua University
cuscus animal of East Timor year 2006
This is Phalanger orientalis (timor cuscus)
two timor cuscus side by side sitting on a branch at night
Oecussi homes in East Timor.
For motorcyclists with a desire for exploring off the beaten trail – Timor Leste including Oecussi is fantastic.
In 2006 the situation was unusual but I went to every remote corner that I could get to in 7 months. Camping out in remote areas usually by a water source.
note: Always have enough water in case you have to walk out.
Seriously I did one trail that was basically a footpath south to north . It was very sketchy as it was difficult to find the trail at times. It was hot and dry. If my bike broke down and I could not fix it I would have had to walk back tracking all the way to the south as I did not know the way ahead. And there was no traffic at all for 2 days on this trail. I did complete the trail at the north in time.
Phalanger orientalis (timor cuscus)
Oecussi Timor Leste
The trusty motorbike that Henry let me use.
House in Oecussi – really miss you people ! Thanks for your hospitality.
dp
Hi Dutchpickle
I am glad to have found this wonderful website. It was a link I found in my “stats” for my waray language website. May I add a link to this site on the main page of my website, I think many people would find this site to be very informative.
I love what you are doing, promoting the Waray language.
Also all the great posts, will help tourism in the area.
BTW, I am an American who spends part of the year in Barugo, Leyte. Province life can be boring at times, but I love the people and adventure of being out in the middle of nowhere.
I have one comment about pictures. Is there any way to view a larger version than what is posted in each article? The small picture does not reveal much detail.
Thank you for sharing your experiences, it is really a pleasure reading about them.
Lloyd
Hi Lloyd,
Thanks for your comments. Glad you like the site!
I used to have the pictures with a pop up feature when you clicked on them bringing them up to a larger size. We decided that it was taking up too much bandwith so we now just use thumbs.
Feel free to add links to your comments or to put our link on any relevant sites that you want to.
If your site is primarily about the Waray Waray you might want to put the links on those pages.
Take care…
dp
DP
I understand the bandwidth issue.
Any chance that you could post the larger pictures on a free photo hosting site? Such as Photobucket, ImageShack, or Flickr.
In any event, reading your blog is enjoyable, and I will post a link on my website, hopefully gaining you a few more readers.
Thanks again.
Lloyd
Hello Lloyd,
That’s a pretty good idea. It would give me a back up on the pictures as too.
Feel free to put a link to your site on our site as well!
thanks
dp
Hi, I enjoyed your kus kus pictures. I lived in Jakarta for five years in the late 70s – early 80s and owned (briefly) a cute little kus kus that I bought from a guy on a street corner. I’ll never forget those huge eyes. Unfortunately, he disappeared like magic. I was playing with him in my living room, let him loose while he was hanging onto a draw string on the drapes, and when I turned around he was gone, never to be seen again despite a long search! I never imagined a slow moving critter like him could move that fast! Thanks for bringing back those old memories.
George
Hi George,
Cool story!
Thanks…they can move – especially at night!
dp
Hi,
I am glad to see you website.
Some people believe is not goot (taboo) to eat this animal because is spesial friends for them (Like se human), but if some time this is common food because they dont have another to eat. i’m study about this mammal since 2001 until now. There are 11 spesies in Papua (Papua and Papua New Guinea) in Papua (indonsia) 7 spesies. one of them have big population but higt levels of hunting. This is Phalanger orientalis (timor cuscus) but especially in papua (ex.Numfor Island, Biak, Moor, and another pleace).not only hunt but also the development of a m trigger factor very large. i’m conservationist, i worried for this species. I am hoping to stay awake in the future.
how about you…..
Anton Sineri
Conservations Departmen Forestry Faculty Papua University
so much to see and discover in this world. great stories, great photos, great site.
Thank you very much for this information Mr Anton Sineri
Elon Musk – Don’t need the cash. Devoting myself to Mars and Earth. Possession just weigh you down.
I miss those motorcycle diary days :)
“take the red pill”