I'm struggling to make friends here. Miriam, a 9-month-old orangutan orphan who's learning how to climb a tree, almost scales past her trainer when I approach. For good measure, she starts to cry. Another orangutan signals displeasure by emulating the sound of a Harley barreling toward me. In fact, the only one who tolerates me is 11-year-old Leuser, and not because the 42 air-rifle pellets lodged in his body have mellowed him. He's also blind.

At any zoo, these surly apes would bomb the aw-isn't-he-cute exam, but here at the world's most successful school for rescued orangutans, they're taught to get back in touch with their wild side. Even playtime is serious business. Passing, say, the test of recognizing a friend (another orangutan) versus a foe (a human logger) could spell life or death for these critically endangered icons of the old world jungle.

Everything happens here with one goal in mind: graduation day, when the shaggy students are set loose into the harsh Sumatran rain forest. But for the students to have a shot at survival, handlers must teach them to avoid humans at all costs, a tough task considering they need to be fed by humans.

And teaching them about the dangers of Homo sapiens means no lines of gawky tourists dangling bananas and posing for pictures. That's why this center at the far north of Sumatra – one of the main islands of Indonesia – is closed to the public and barely known to outsiders. Even if you made it to the nearby village – where the specialty dish is fruit-bat soup and the humid air is clouded with mosquitoes - this part of Sumatra is definitely not for the faint of heart.

This is the second post of a 2-part series. Read the first part here.

The swamp here could be the stuff of nightmares. Because this happens to be the rainy season, which lasts from October to March, the trails are meant to be waded, not walked. Yet I am utterly stuck, knee-deep in pungent red mud with stagnant water up to my waist. Ellen Meulman, a PhD student from the University of Zurich, doubles back to pull me out of the quagmire. It takes a few hard yanks. "Be careful," she says. "You can disappear in these waters." Thoughts of leeches and king cobras vanish, replaced by a more immediate fear.

We've been slogging and hacking through the jungle for nearly three hours, on our way to rendezvous with today's observation team. The field staff hustles day in and out to arrive at the nest-site before dawn and do not return until after dark. In between, they track the individual behaviors of the orangutan in excruciating detail: Is the subject playing with a neighbor? Eating, and if so, what? Vocalizing? Using a tool?

The orangutans here already know some remarkable tricks. They've learned how to fashion a seed-extraction stick to crack open the prickly shell of the Neesia fruit. The theory goes that this rather complicated skill developed from simpler abilities to use tools to dig for honey, fish for termites, and scoop for water. Yet primatologists know little more than that these smarter-than-we-thought apes possess culture; the pressing question now is to figure out how it's acquired and transferred.

Forget for a moment the dreadful conditions in this miserable Sumatran swamp, which include being eaten by tigers (seven in the surrounding area last year). Just getting here is an ordeal in itself. Start by taking the 1,400-kilometer flight from the capital, Jakarta, to Sumatra's bustling northern port, Medan. Then it's a grueling twelve-hour ride straight across the island's dramatic mountains-and poorly maintained roads-to the Indian Ocean, where a puttering speedboat will be waiting to make the hour-long trip upriver.

If all goes well, you arrive at camp for the daily rationing of rice and canned mackerel. This is assuming you secured the four permits required for a visit to this hidden corner of Leuser National Park, a World Heritage Site.

Yet despite the remoteness or food or the fact the Suaq Balimbing field station is in the middle of a flooded swamp, the scientists here couldn't be happier at their return. "We were all waiting for this place to reopen," Andrea Gibson, a PhD candidate at University of Zurich who had to delay her orangutan fieldwork by three years because of the station's hiatus, said to me.

I'm mainly posting about this because I found the picture to the right pretty funny. The orangutan you see is of Charly, the oldest fertile ape of his species. He's fathered at least 18 little Charlys (Charlies?), and has reached the ripe old age of 50.

Interestingly, a neighbor of his at the Frankfurt Zoo in Germany, Matze, also turns 50 today. He's a great ape who has fathered (only) 17 kids, many of whom are spread out across the world in other zoos. I'd like to think they've lived a long life because there's some sort of lively contest between the two--"I'm more fertile than you are!"

I'd like to use this chance to give a shout-out to the plight of the orangutans. Their species is predicted to die out within a decade or so because of habitat destruction on the one island they live on: Sumatra, in Southeast Asia. Help save them if you can, by perhaps adopting one?

Dean Cycon is an activist and entrepreneur who has been working with indigenous communities in the coffeelands for over twenty years. His all-organic, all-Fair Trade, all-kosher coffee roaster company, Dean's Beans, follows sustainable business principals and is a recognized industry leader in its' commitment to Fair Trade.

According to Cycon, 99 percent of people involved in the coffee economy have never visited a coffee village. In his new book, Javatrekker: Dispatches from the World of Fair Trade Coffee, Dean invites coffee drinkers to follow him on a journey to remote farming communities in Africa, Asia and the Americas. His compelling stories are a collection of varied experiences -- of cultural anthropology, business philosophy and adventure travel -- that reveal a unique perspective on the people who make our morning cups possible.

With Fair Trade Month upon us, it seemed the perfect time to chat with this intrepid explorer. Dean was kind enough to answer questions for Gadling about his travels through the coffeelands, his thoughts on tourism in these regions, and his personal travel aspirations. Our Talking Travel interview touches on everything from rare coins to a cameo movie appearance. Read on to learn more about this fascinating coffee pioneer:

Catherine posted the scoop on International Talk Like a Pirate Day, even translating boardroom talk into pirate lingo--impressive, but for some honest to goodness pirate talk, head to the Straits of Malacca. Pirates still sail the waters here, wrecking havoc by capturing crews, taking over ships, and stealing their goods. The goods might be three million dollars of diesel fuel, for example. Just in case you're a bit fuzzy about where this is exactly, (I even looked it up to be clear and I used to live in the region), here's a map. The Sraits of Malacca is the stretch of water between Sumatra in Indonesia and the west coast of Malaysia. Singapore is at one end of it.

Marilyn Terrell, chief researcher for National Geographic Traveler, sent us a link to a National Geographic magazine article that details the history of and the current practice of honest-to-goodness pirates in this part of the world. It's a fascinating read made more interesting by the account of the writer Peter Gwin who travels to where the pirates are. He interviews various players along the way, starting with one who is in jail. The pirate, like many other pirates, is from Batam, Indonesia. This is where Peter Gwin's journey takes him, until he eventually learns, first-hand, the ropes of pirate living--part of it involves a karaoke bar.