Flores: The Island Where Rat Tails Never Went Out of Style

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Its kind of like apples without oranges, Santa without his scary little elves, the Lone Ranger without Tonto, or in some obscure way, God without El Diablo. The story of our time spent on the Indonesian island of Flores would not be complete without first mentioning the time we did on her neighbor, Sumbawa. Having spent just under twenty-four hours on the Island That Shade/Rain Forgot, I am hardly the expert, but when 21.5 hours starts to feel more like a month, you know that it is time to move on. On an island with a landmass larger than Bali and Lombok combined, which is to say that you just might be able to find it on a world map, the trans-island “highway” seems excessively long. In fact, the highway seems to have been planned by a drunk twelve-year-old (don’t get me wrong, I am in no way condoning the consumption of that vile substance by anybody that is not at least 21 years of age. At that point you can control it responsibly) who has never seen anything larger than the 100cc motor scooter he just drove home from the local warung. In short, the road has more curves than a plus sized clothing catalog and more zig-zags than a Boulder hippy in April. During our nine hour ride across the island, my attorney was forced to stand for seven of those. This was due to the fact that a pleasant ‘ol lady refused to give up the only empty seat next to her to some poorly dressed infidel. His only respite came when a local gentleman offered him a seat on a milk crate just before emptying the not quite digested, post fasting (at that point it was still Ramadan) meal into the aisle, spackling the legs of Mr. Beergut himself. Suddenly, standing didn’t seem so bad. It is a fact that the three of us were probably the only living beings on the bus NOT filling small plastic bags and heaving them out the open windows. Sleep becomes impossible and all you can think of is getting off the bus in a dusty little town and resuming the endless search for the street food that will not make you sick. At least we still had the nine hour boat ride over to Flores to look forward to.

“Never has the Casio keyboard done so much for the music of an island, than that of Flores” -some smartass-

Labuanbajo, the port town that our ferry dumped us out in was a sight fore weary eyes. Although the ferry, which took in the sights of the dragon infested islands of Komodo Rinca, and all of their cousins, was the best ride so far, we’d been on the move for 36 hours and were in desperate need of a cold Bintang, a bowl of Guacamole, and a few zzz’s. LBJ as I call it, or sometimes Labby-baj-wan (it gets worse from there), proved to be one of my most favoritest towns that we visited during our random wanderings through this nation of islands. While it lacks certain comforts that many vacationers require, like a killer party scene, (or any nightlife after 8:30pm) reliable electricity, or pizza, it has plenty to keep three travel bums happy. Hell, the entire town comes equipped with a built in alarm clock! Yea, at a quarter to 5 every morning a voice, or rather several amplified voices would creep into the dreams of every snoozing slob unable to get up early enough to practice Islam. It ended up working out for us because while the faithful were collecting their prayer rugs and heading to the closest mosque, we would be up, mowing pink sprinkled donuts, slamming a few Jaruk flavored Buavitas, and doing our own type of praying. I don’t know about the other guys, but I found myself silently asking whoever would listen, or no one at all (it didn’t really matter) not to let the wicked currents in the Komodo National Park sweep us 21 miles from the dive boat only to abandon us on the tip of an island known for its salivating dragon population. I should explain, the dive sites accessible from LBJ lie with in the boundaries of the Komodo N.P. and are some of the best any of us have seen in Indonesia. The sites really have just about anything that you could hope to see when you stick your face in the water. Pristine reefs, massive schools of predatory fish, rays, dolphins, macro everything, a wide variety of underwater features are all found here, but they also have what the Dive Komodo staff call “ripping current”. If you want diving that gets your ticker throbbing and tests all those unused skills that you learned in your comprehensive PADI courses, this is the place for you. During our first 11 days in LBJ, we had current that was moving at a steady 8 knots, currents that completely change direction every three meters you descend, up currents, and the kind of currents that take your exhaled bubbles and spiral them straight down in some kind of demented vortex. We learned quickly that when you see the fish furiously swimming head up, you make like a fish and do the same thing or you may be looking for the bottom at 300 meters. It all sounds intense, but when you find yourself completely surrounded in a school of feeding Giant Travally or see feeding frenzies at 30 meters, the diving quickly becomes an addiction that is hard to kick. The occasional manta ray isn’t too bad either.

Ba-ja-wa….Ba-jaw-a…Bajawa! Bajawa. No, we didn’t travel 8 hours east into the mountainous center of Flores Island just because we thought the town had a fun name to say. That was really only half of the reason. After spending 11 days in LBJ, easily the longest time we have spent in one place since getting stranded in Seghe, Solomon Islands, we all felt the urge to get back on the road and spend some quality time in cramped Bemos, (tiny minivans) going deaf from the same four Indo pop songs being played at levels that would surely be heard by dead people. Bemo drivers in the interior of Flores seem to take an extra amount of pride in making sure that all of their passengers have the most uncomfortable ride possible. That being said, we made it to the central town of Bajawa just fine, if not a little on the deaf side. Our stay in the mountain town was brief, but we made good use of the thin, frigid air at the staggering altitude of probably, several hundred meters. The volcanic peak, Gunung Inerie, the shape of a perfect cone and reaching high enough to pierce the cloud layer enveloping the valley, was conquered with relative ease compared to the mental peak my attorney was about to finally summit and put out of his mind. Im talking about a peak so sinister, so dangerous, so mind controlling manipulative, it’s better that I not utter the name of this mountain for fear that just speaking its name will bring a twenty year drought to the people of Bajawa. Suffice it to say that this peak has stolen the sanity of many men unlucky enough to be sucked into its evil sights. But, my attorney, with nerves of steel, finally put his nightmares to sleep by reaching the summit of the mountain and putting her out of his mind forever.

With skies a brighter shade of blue and a new found bounce in the step of Beergut, it was time to leave Bajawa and make for the tiny village of Moni. We made this little pilgrimage (that is probably not the right word) to witness what the Ministry of Tourism calls (try to picture the voice from every action movie preview that you’ve ever seen) The Incredible Color Changing Lakes of Kelimutu! I don’t know if getting up at 4am to see the sun come up over green and brown volcanic lakes is as life altering as the authors of the Lonely Planet seem to think it is, but it was neat. And it was worth the trip. Even better, on our way hiking down from the mountain top, we took a wrong turn and stumbled into a village on the side of the heavily wooded slope. It turned out that the villagers were far too busy at their makeshift voting booths, voting for their next provincial leader, to notice three ugly dudes sneaking through their village. It’s the small, everyday things that I see that start to impress me the most.

It was inevitable. We all knew it would happen, but nobody had to say anything. We all knew that after about a week exploring the interior of Flores, we would migrate back to our beloved LBJ and spend another four days diving the waters that had become our own personal methamphetamine habit. Oh well, I love the place and we all knew that we would be forced to give it up soon, as our time in Indonesia was rapidly coming to a close. On the bright side of things, we still had another bus trip across Sumbawa to look forward to.

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Photos

As the Sun Slowly Sinks Into The Western Horizon
A view from our digs in Labuanbajo, Flores

Boat Repair
The local fishermen use the very low tides during the full moon do do repairs and touch-ups on their boats.

Poser
Octopus

Gunung Kelimotu
The multi hued lakes of Kelimoutu. Near moni central Flores.

Roadblock
We had to detour the little roadblock in the middle of the so-called trans-Flores highway.

Hawksbill Bentucky
Benntucky and a Komodo Turtle

Yellow Pygmy Seahorse
Im told its rare