On the Go in Manado 13: From Bitung to Batu Putih

In the last week of my loop traveling on motorbike through North Sulawesi, none of the legs of the journey were particularly long. They were all an hour or two, at most, and so I was able to visit every spot of interest nearby along the way. 

For example, near Bitung there was a private zoo at a place called Tandarusa. I didn't have high hopes for the place. When I visit a zoo, I judge it in a visibility

A tarsier. This primate, the smallest one in the
world, is indigenous to Sulawesi and live
there in the jungle adjacent to the zoo.

vs cruelty ratio. I go to a zoo to see interesting animals, but I don't want to see them in a some hellhole of a prison. How would this "private zoo" rank on the visibility-cruelty scale?

Well, sadly, it was dependent on where the display was.

A kus kus. Back in the early 90's, I bought one of these
as a pet. I had it for one night and then it escaped out 
a window.

For the tarsiers, kus kus and sulawesi eagles at the front of the zoo, they had nice, clean cages. Their conditions were high on the scale. I was the only visitor at the private zoo, and so I got showed around the place by what seemed to be one of the managers. 

Oh, she was so embarrassed when we came upon this. A dead animal in a cage. As a zookeeper, that has to be the ultimate shame. I don't know the species, but based on the number of ants chowing down on the carcass, this blue bird had been dead for at least a day. 

As we got towards the back of the kebung binatang the conditions for the animals got worse. The wild boar, the emu, the turtles, and the two crocodiles were living in squalor. I chalk it up to laziness. These exhibits were harder to maintain because they were a few hundred meters further from the zoo HQs. Sad. Very Sad. 

Skirting another volcano, I arrived in White Rock, Sulawesi. The name of the village was Batu Putih, and it had the darkest sands of any beach I've ever visited.  

 Enjoy the video.