Days 59-62: Waiterang, Flores
We decided to get off the beaten tourist track and so we flew to Maumere on the island of Flores and headed to the village of Waiterang. We had a stopover in Waingapu on Pulau Sumba with cows grazing along the runway. The hotels are bamboo huts and the electricity is only on from 6pm to 6am. It made for a nice escape.
The area is very rural and there were banana and rice fields everywhere.
We had planned to take a hike up to Gunung Egon (Volcano Egon) but that failed because we never did locate the turn off.
On the walk back we passed many homes, and all of the people came out to see us. We passed adults saying “salemat siang” (good day) and kids saying “halo”… the kids, in bunches from 2 to 12 were evenly split on whether they would run out to see us or run laughing away from us. It felt like we were in a two person parade.
The hotel also had the only restaurant in town and it had a really nice view of the sea.
This was our first “mandi” experience. We’re old pros at the squat toilet now, but showering from a bucket (and not injesting any of the well water) took a bit of figuring. The sea water was significantly warmer than our mandi.
Never seen a centipede in real life – intimidating critters.
We chartered a boat to take us and another gal out snorkelling. It was the most beautiful and pristine coral we’ve ever seen. Just stunning! Must have something to do with the lack of tourists and the fresh growth after the tsunami in 1992. The most interesting critters we saw were small (thankfully) 4-5 foot black-tip reef sharks.
This tree was just growing right out of the ocean near where we were snorkelling.
View from the boat on the way back.
The local fire water is made from fermented palm juice distilled through bamboo tubes. It’s called ‘arak’ and it packs a whallop of a headache.
We finally figured out where all the small droppings in our room were coming from on our way out this morning. A small bat was sharing our hut during the day.
Tags: Indonesia
Kelly & Marcus