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My last full day in Timor Leste, and even though I wouldn't mind slacking some more down at the waterfront I pull myself together to make my long overdue daytrip to Baucau. I have decided to try to find a car with driver, and the most obvious choice is grabbing a taxi off the street. The bus is not an option, as my main objective is not really the city of Baucau itself, but a chance to take some photographs along the extraordinary highway along the coast, and there is no way a crowded bus could do me any justice. Manuella gives me a ring at 9 am so I take the opportunity to ask if she knows any agency where I could possibly rent a car with a driver. She advices me to try at Thrifty's. Going through my budget I notice I am running low on dollar bills and head out to the reception to pay my hotel bill one day early to get a better overview of my available funds. I have yet to find an ATM in Dili, I am told they exist, but so far I haven't seen any.

I head out for the car rental company, whose sign I saw near the container terminal the other day. The office consists of two locked barracks and some cars scattered about a yard, and not a single person in sight. As I am about to give up the owner suddenly arrives in his pickup. In a thick Australian accent he informs me that he has no drivers so I am back to the taxis. Walking around town I wonder how to best approach this task. Flagging down any driver and then trying to explain my plan puts me off a bit so I walk back to the hotel to see if they can give me some help. Young ms. Zhang is at the reception and while she has no general recommendations there is a taxi dropping off some passengers just outside so I decide to have a look. I'm certainly not a mechanic, but the car seems to be in decent enough condition so I give it a shot. The friendly security guard (who is from the Baucau region himself) walks up and helps translate and negotiate for the price. We're in business! This decision triggers a chain of activities. First I need to stop by a shop to stock up on film. Next we need to go to the manager of the taxi company for her to ok the deal, then we need to stock up on oli and fuel. Finally we can be on our way. The trip is estimated to around 2 hours in each direction.

As we leave Dili the road snakes its way up into the eastern hills where you can get a good view of the city being surrounded by mountains. Immediately as we pass over the first hills the scenery turns very beautiful prompting me to exclaim my first Oy, kapas! of the afternoon, an expression that would be in heavy use along the way. My driver is called Luciano but I don't really learn much more about him, as our language barrier is quite solid, and the use of my tetum dictionary is rather limited. But primate grumps and nods succeed where eloquence does not. The curvy road continues up and down round hills and past splendid beaches crying out for explotation. Small towns and villages pop up at regular intervals, which means the risk to hit a careless creature rises heavily. Every village has little stalls along the road from which you can buy various agricultural products, mainly rice, fruits or nuts. Some of them are even manned...

Half an hour out of Dili we drive into Metinaro were big roadblocks are erected outside the main training camp for the fledgling East Timor Defence Force. We continue through Manleo and after following the sea level the road starts to climb into the hills again. Here is where the spectacular section of the Dili-Baucau highway starts. The hills quickly grow into spectacular dusty mountains covered in dry trees, with dramatic red and brown soil. I will not jabber too much about it and let the photos do the talking, suffice it to say that I am hanging out the window and snapping like crazy going through rolls like there will be no tomorrow, stopping only to drop a kapas! or two. As we continue past the larger town Manatuto which is halfway to Baucau the road turns back inland and I have to bid the beautiful mountains goodbye. Driving into Laleia the scenery has changed to rice paddies, complete with buffalos, small terraces and green fields around.

Luciano keeps the pedal to the metal and even though I am used to this type of driving I have to question his sanity when he decides to overtake a big lorry in a blind bend. Of course we are suddenly staring into the face of another car and all three drivers involved have to step hard on the brakes. He apologizes and apologizes over and over again and the onward trip continues at a more realistic speed. As if the traffic wasn't treacherous enough, there are plenty of roadside crosses reminding of the perils involved, although I presume most of the accidents happen during the rainy season when roads are commonly washed away.

Nearing the outskirts of Baucau the first thing that catches my eye is the big empty airport. It still has a small military checkpoint and roadblocks outside, but is not in use. There have been plans to make it the main gateway to East Timor, but for now the smaller Nicolau Lobato in Dili continues to be the only airport in operation. As we drive in to Baucau around 4 pm I am a bit disappointed, it seems smaller and more compact than I had anticipated, and I don't feel particularily enthused at its sights. Instead I am thinking about the mountains at Manatuto, and would really like to see them one more time before the sun sets, so I decide to skip the sightseeing and head straight back to Dili. I don't know if poor Luciano had hoped for a short break here in Baucau, but he is not getting any! Instead we start the journey back, which turns out to be an exercise in disorentation. You'd think it'd be easy finding your way back to the highway in such a small town, but its vertical profile adds to the confusion. Good thing we started early, now it will be a race to Manatuto before sundown.

Just out of town Luciano wants to pick up an old man walking along the road, sure no problem. This will give him a welcome change in conversation partner, and I won't have to reply ok to his ok? every two minutes. As we drive into another village the road is full of people marching along the full width of the road. I notice the black cloth on some of the participants and realize we are in the middle of a funeral procession. As we creep along the road for minutes that seem like hours the sun is rapidly moving towards the horizon. We stop again, this time to shop for nuts and rice. The children selling rice run up to me tugging at my shirt and dropping rice everywhere. My two hosts are terrified at this and chase the children away and apologize and apologize. I try to convince them that it is not a problem, and manage to construct the sentence traveller always dirty which seems to relieve them a bit. Soon we are driving along and Luciano continues to enthusiastically honk and wave at every living thing we pass. We stop to shake hands with some ununiformed police officers with Glock guns in their belts, I think someone was a relative to someone or something.

When we finally make it back to the cliffs beyond Manatuto the sun has already come down, but she is illuminating the clouds and the sky turns into a spectacular mixture of pink and purple, it is so beautiful I find myself staring into the sky getting all nostalgic. The hills look even more spectacular in the sunset but I decide not to stop the car in the middle of the road to take photos, not wanting to add to the crosses along it. As we leave the mountains it is pitch black. The cars stop honking at each other and instead start flashing their headlights when coming up at the bends. The stars creep out and I have my first good view of the southern sky, Arcturus shining brightly above me. It has been quite a while since I sat down and stared at a starry sky and again I am finding myself overtaken by nostalgia.

Coming up on Metinaro again we pick up an off-duty soldier outside the army camp and continue towards Dili. Looking at the hills I can see several small forest fires, resembling lava streams. I have no idea who created these fires or why. The trip to Baucau has taken roughly three hours in each direction, and I spent the last hour sitting and dreaming about a big glass of orange juice. Manuella gives me a ring again. She's packed up her things at the office and invited some friends to her home, as tomorrow she will fly out of Dili enroute to Afghanistan. I agree to stop by after I had something to eat. The taxi drops me off at the hotel around eight and I immediately head outside to try and find the Thai restaurant for a quick meal. I don't. Instead I manage to find just about every other building in the neighbourhood, but give up on trying to find it and instead shop for some foodstuffs at a small convenience store attached to a petrol station. Two times I walk up on and startle stray dogs who freak out and start barking at me like crazy. Expecting to get a nice rabies bite at any time the up until now so pleasant Dili nightwalking turns a bit creepy.

Over at Manuella's a small group of friends have gathered, and they invite me for some satay meat sticks, Timorese bread and snacks. I say hello to Billy again and also have a freak encounter with a local girl who speaks rather good Norwegian. Turns out she studied in Oslo, so we have a laugh confusing everyone by speaking Scandinavian. As we break for the night I walk back to the hotel and have a chat with the crew at the reception. Turns out the hotel is operated by a company from Guangzhou, and is also staffed by Chinese. I ask ms. Zhang if they can recommend any good Chinese restaurants in Dili, but she recommends sticking to the mainland. Oh well, guess you can't have everything...

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