Tangkoko: the reserve where the forest meets the beach

Tangkoko Batuangus is a nature reserve of about 8,700 hectares on the north-east tip of Sulawesi, where lowland rainforest runs down to a black-sand beach. It is small by Indonesian standards and unusually easy to see: from the village of Batu Putih the trailhead is a ten-minute walk from most guesthouses, and the animals people come for are within a kilometre of the sand.

That accessibility is why Tangkoko is popular and why it needs care. Guides are compulsory, groups are meant to stay on the trail, and the reserve's best-known residents are habituated enough to be watched but not tame enough to be touched. Go with a local guide, keep your distance, turn off the flash, and accept that a wild animal may simply not appear on the evening you have booked.

The reserve, the village and the two volcanoes

The reserve takes its name from two peaks. Gunung Tangkoko and Gunung Dua Saudara rise behind the forest, and Batuangus is the third part of the name, a separate block of forest and coastline to the east. All of it is protected, which is why the trees come down to the shore here while the land either side has been cleared for coconuts and smallholdings.

Batu Putih is the entry point: a straggling village of homestays, warungs and guide posts along the coast road, about two hours from Manado and an hour from Bitung. The reserve office and ticket desk are at the end of the village, where the road gives way to sand and the forest begins. This is where you register, pay and pick up a guide, and where the trails start.

The night walk, and the tarsier

The spectral tarsier is the reason most people come. It is a primate the size of a fist, nocturnal, with eyes that take up most of its face, and by day it sleeps clinging to a sapling or a bamboo stem. At dusk it wakes, calls and moves through the undergrowth hunting insects. A guide with a red-filtered torch can usually find three or four in an evening, sometimes more.

The walk starts around six, lasts an hour to ninety minutes, and is conducted in near silence. You will be told not to use flash, not to touch, and not to stand between the animal and the branch it wants to reach. A guide who offers to hold one for a photograph is not the guide you want. Bring a torch of your own, wear long sleeves against mosquitoes, and keep your voice down.

Dawn, and the crested black macaques

Tangkoko's other famous resident is the crested black macaque, a jet-black monkey with a pointed crest and a stare that looks deliberately insolent. A troop lives near the beach and is most visible in the early morning, when they come down to forage along the forest edge. They are habituated, which means they ignore people up to a point, and that point is usually reached when somebody produces food.

The species is endangered, hunted for meat elsewhere in Sulawesi and squeezed by habitat loss, and Tangkoko is one of its strongholds. In 2011 a macaque here picked up a wildlife photographer's camera and took a self-portrait that set off a long legal argument over who owned the picture. The troop is not a performance: keep three or four metres back, keep bags closed, and do not crouch at their level.

Hornbills, cuscus and the beach trail

The reserve holds around a hundred and fifty bird species, and the ones people notice are the hornbills: the knobbed hornbill with its casque and loud wingbeat, and the smaller Sulawesi hornbill. Kingfishers work the creek mouths, and the Sulawesi bear cuscus, a slow-moving marsupial, is often found sleeping in a favoured tree on the daytime walk. Guides know the trees, which is most of the reason to hire one.

The trail along the coast to Batuangus takes three to four hours return and passes through forest, along the sand and over a headland, with the sea on one side and the reserve on the other. Take water, wear shoes rather than sandals, and expect leeches after rain. The black sand is volcanic and gets hot by mid-morning, so most walks start at six.

• A torch with a red filter for the night walk; white light disturbs the animals.
• Long trousers and leech socks, especially in the wet season.
• Cash in small notes for the permit, the guide and the warungs.
• Closed shoes for the coastal trail; sandals are useless on the headland.
• No flash, no feeding, and no standing between a tarsier and its tree.

Permits, guides and where to sleep

Entry is paid at the reserve office in Batu Putih. The permit itself is cheap; the guide fee is set locally, so ask before you set off and agree whether the price is per person or per group, and whether it covers the night walk as well as the daytime trail. Rates are not published anywhere reliable and they change, so treat any figure you read online as a rough starting point and confirm in person.

Batu Putih has a dozen or so homestays and small guesthouses, from basic rooms with cold water at around Rp 150,000 to places with hot water and a generator at Rp 400,000 to 700,000. None of it is luxurious. Electricity can be intermittent, wi-fi is slow or absent, and dinner is whatever the family is cooking. That is the trade for walking into the forest before breakfast.

Questions people actually ask

Do I need a guide in Tangkoko?

Yes, and it is enforced at the reserve office. Guides are local, know where the tarsiers and the macaque troop are likely to be, and are the difference between a walk and a wildlife sighting. Agree the fee and the route before you set off.

How fit do I need to be for the night walk?

Not very. The tarsier walk is short, slow and mostly on flat ground, with some roots and mud. The coastal trail to Batuangus is longer and has a headland climb; it is fine for most people with normal shoes and a torch.