Days 69-70: Here There Be Dragons (Big Ones This Time!)
It’s not every day you get a few feet from something that would be happy to eat you.
After the grueling bus rides to cross the island of Flores, we were lucky to catch a boat for a 2 day/2 night trip to the island of Lombok with stops at the island of Rinca in Komodo National Park as well as Moyo Island off the coast of Sumbawa and a few snorkelling spots. It was a fantastic way to recharge our batteries.
We were on a medium-sized boat with 12 other passengers – all but one was Dutch. According to one, “the Dutch never left Indonesia… there is still an economic invasion going on.” We were welcomed to the boat by the 6 man crew doing a 15 minute rendition of the Electric Slide.
Room with a view. The facilities on the boat were great.
Rinca Island is next to Komodo, and we were told that the Komodo dragons on Rinca were easier to spot and more active. That was certainly the case because there were about a dozen dragons hanging around between the boat dock and the ranger’s huts. They ranged in size from about 1.5m for the females to about 3m and 100kg for the big males. A 50kg dragon can eat a 40kg deer in a single meal. They like to ambush water buffalo and deer along the game trails. Aparently their saliva has something in it that kills the buffalo in a day from a single bite. They seemed to spend most of their time lounging about, but when they were on the move they were very intimidating. We’ll show you the movie when we get home.
We had already spotted two dragons by the time we got to the sign that read: “All visitors holding entrance ticket are insured under Wana Artha Life.” Good to know!
One of the boys sniffing the air with his forked tongue for tasty tidbits.
We were given a walk around the island by pair of rangers that were reassuringly armed with long forked sticks. Seriously.
The island was also inhabitted by wild deer, monkeys, and water buffalo (aka Dragon Chow).
The dragons seems to like to hang around the ranger’s huts, probably looking for scraps of garbage. It doesn’t seem to be a good idea to get creatures capable of killing a water buffalo interested in hanging around where you live. One of the guides told us that the ranger in charge of training was sleeping when a dragon climbed the stairs to his hut and bit him in the leg. He was able to get medical care and lived but lost his leg.
Not to worry mom! I’ve got a long stick.
We stopped off at a few nice snorkelling spots along the journey. Some of the cooler creatures were a baby lion fish, a school of wrasse, and colonies of spiney black urchins with bright blue and orange circles.
Between some islands we came across pod after pod after pod of dolphins. It was an awesome bonus to the trip.
We also went to the island of Moyo off the NW coast of Sumbawa. We hiked to a really neat swimming hole with a waterfall, rope swing, and cliffs for jumping into the pool.
Kelly catching some air.
On the way back to the boat Marcus had a good run with some of the locals. His running crew posed for the traditional Big Guns photo afterwards.
Tags: Indonesia
Kelly & Marcus
May 20th, 2005 at 10:21 pm
Test of comments feature. If you can read this, it’s working from:
http://tblogs.bootsnall.com/km/
May 21st, 2005 at 6:46 am
Comments seem to be working….
Marc, that stick just is not too reassuring – somehow I think the dragon could make toothpicks out of it in no time… Be careful!
Mom xoxox
May 21st, 2005 at 10:45 am
Sounds awesome, but how you guys gonna watch Episode III?
May 23rd, 2005 at 12:47 am
awesome site, im impressed you have been so dilligent with the updates and pics. Byron has a point with his latest posting, props to him for keepin’ it real.
May 23rd, 2005 at 7:12 am
Rope swings and swimming holes? Now I’m really jealous!
Are you sure they were dragons? Are you sure they weren’t…..cows?
May 24th, 2005 at 6:53 am
I’ve got $20 on the dragons. Any takers???
May 25th, 2005 at 1:42 am
Wait a minute! Episode III is out? We’ll be home tomorrow! 😉 Surely a bootleg version will make it to a hotel near us shortly.
Thanks for that Matt. It was daylight so I’m pretty sure they were dragons. Although, there were buffalo on the island now that you mention it…..
We decided not to post the pictures of me wresting the dragon because some may have considered the punishment dealt out as animal cruelty. 😉
May 27th, 2005 at 10:18 am
Awesome Pictures. Looks like you are having a great time! Kelly, I miss you! I couldn’t find anyone to go to Dona Maria’s with me 🙁 That so never would have happened on your watch!
Take care and happy travels!
May 27th, 2005 at 11:00 pm
Hey Colette –
Ah, Bob must have been REALLY busy (or on vacation). And Priscilla must have already had lunch plans. Maybe some of our new “project” group would like to go sometime? If you don’t go before I get back then we’ll definitely have to go!