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Published: March 8th 2009
sign
this photo is out of order, but I wanted it to show up as the image for the photo albumIn October 2004, the journal
Nature broke the news to the world that an Australian Archaeologist, Michael Morwood, then from UNE, Australia, had the year previously discovered “a new small-bodied hominim” that had lived from 74000 to 13000 years ago, on the Indonesian island of Flores. This was astounding news. Someone, I believe the editor of
Nature later in an interview said something like “If someone had told me that a fully manned spacecraft from outer space had just been discovered, I would not have been any more surprised”. An almost complete skeleton of one adult female had been found, and various parts of nine others, along with associated stone tools.
The media fuelled the popular imagination that there might still be some of these little creatures out there, digging up legends from locals about how back in the old days there had been little people up in the mountains who would come down and steal their food or babies. Of course, many, if not most, high and rugged mountain ranges have little people living in them, often with surrounding legends, but being small isn’t enough to qualify you as a separate species! People mused over the idea that “almost
Ruteng
did I mention there's an election coming up on April 9? yesterday” (in evolutionary terms) we had shared the planet with another species of human. As a friend said to me, it raised the chance of finding another species of human still alive today “from zero to almost zero”. People who couldn’t say “Homo erectus” without making gay jokes were suddenly talking about human origins.
And then quite suddenly no-one was talking about them any more. I guess people who don’t understand that we still don’t even have a complete adult skeleton of a
Homo erectus (you know,
H. erectus? the longest-lived species of human ever, who covered the world from Africa & Europe through to Java) were kind of expecting more complete skeletons to be unearthed, or to find one of them there curled up with his diary still in his hand writing “this climate change has killed all my brethren. Only the brutish
Homo sapiens survive. This Younger Dryas really is terrible - I hope no-one ever has the gall to name a pretty flower after it!”
Or perhaps it was the skeptics that put people off. Scientists of various flavours soon emerged who challenged the idea that these fossils represented a new species. Arguments fly back
and forth from those who feel that these individuals were pathological (usually they say microcephalic)
Homo sapiens and always an answer comes back as to why this cannot be the case. The arguments sound good to me, I can’t tell you which is right, if you look on Wikipedia or youtube, you’ll find plenty to help you make up your own mind. I think many other people though kind of lost interest when it was no longer certain that these specimens represented a new species, not really realising that this is how science progresses. Perhaps people finally realised that while this discovery did tell us new things about human origins, and reminded us of things we knew about evolution, no-one was claiming that these things were our ancestors, at best our distant cousins.
Anyway, knowing all this, it seemed that since I was on Flores anyway, I had to go and see the cave. It’s become a little bit of a tourist attraction ... one backpacker who had been through there told me that there was a little man there claiming to be the last descendent of the “hobbits” and asking for a lot of money to
Ruteng - traditional village
These couple made me pay Rp 20,000 to take their photo, but I felt I had to because I was already in their "traditional" house - you'd think they could have made a bit more of an effort though! have his photo taken. I didn’t see this. I had a fair amount of background knowledge where I wanted to go, and showed this to the manager of the hotel who knew all the archaeologists. He offered to arrange a two-day tour, taking in Liang Bua in the first day, and a remote traditional village on the second day. I think because I didn’t haggle with him enough he didn’t really take me seriously after I paid.
The guide turned up 80 minutes late, and took me to the site where I had to pay extra for the local guide, who at least could speak a little English. They took me to the site, which looks just like all the photos. You can clearly see the sites of the digs, although they’ve been backfilled very well - there’s no work going on there now. The large cavernous cave narrows into a real little cave at the back, and the local guides took me climbing through this cave for a bit, but not as far as we might have done since he hadn’t thought to bring a torch, and there’s only so much you can do by the flash of
Ruteng
new Catholic church building my camera.
Then of course I had to try to get a photo of myself in the cave. After about ten attempts to get them to take my photo I gave up - as you can see, the photo isn’t that great. I don’t like how photos make me look like my front teeth are missing, I don’t look like that in mirrors. It also doesn’t show much of the cave. It is truthful though in showing that I can’t grow a beard 😞
After this they took me to two other caves. On the second they asked me again “you have torch?” as if I might have been lying the first time because I liked climbing through strange caves in the dark. For the third cave they were able to find a torch from one of the locals, so we could see a little, although not as much as we might have if it had had fresh batteries. They told me that this cave goes on for 2.5 km, which to me means that it goes on for “a long way” ... these people’s attitude towards number is a bit similar to Lonely Planets.
After all
Ruteng
the old Catholic church building that, I still didn’t get to see the one place I wanted. Clearly something had been lost in translation, and instead of heading up the Wae Racang river, we headed down it, so I missed seeing the traditional, megalithic, village. I suspect I might not have been able to get permission anyway.
I was feeling a bit nervous about the second day of the tour ... this was supposed to involve a four-hour walk through the jungle, including some tree climbing, leaving at about 04:00. I was still feeling a little lightheaded, and of course no pharmacist in Flores sells bandages, so I didn’t fancy the idea of vines and bushes brushing against my leg for that long. It seemed that the guides weren’t that enthusiastic either, on the way back, my driver pointed out that none of the guides would speak English, and most of the villagers at this village wouldn’t speak Bahasa Indonesian.
Back at the hotel, I mentioned to the manager that I was a bit unsure, particularly if he couldn’t provide an English-speaking guide. After a bit of thought he decided that the next day he could take me to a place where the
Liang Bua - entrance
This sign looks more than five years old, so I think Liang Bua was a bit of a local site before the archaeological finds locals “make their rice like spider webs”. I couldn’t work out what he meant by that, but he assured me it was “VERRRY beautiful”. Also we’d then go to Todo, a traditional village. I asked if this was traditional in the same way that the one we’d originally planned on was, and he said “Oh yes, VERRRRY traditional”. They’d then drive me on to Labuanbajo, my next destination.
This didn’t seem like great value for money, but the cost of the “tour” was a sunk cost by now, and it meant I could get to Labuanbajo a day early, which is good as I was getting behind schedule, so I agreed. The next day the guide turned up only 20 minutes late, a big improvement. I think we drove all around western Flores, so in one way I feel like I got my money’s worth.
The “place where they make their rice like spiderewebs” turned out to be a place where the rice padis were arranged in concentric lines out of a central point. I had to pay another Rp 10000 for the privilege of walking up a hill to look down on it. I’m not sure it
counted as “VERRRRY beautiful”. Todo turned out to be a nice drive of about an hour up some really winding and rough mountain roads, past little villages, with the locals taking the truck into town, or little markets of their own, and some nice scenery. But the town itself didn’t seem that traditional.
Here again I had to pay Rp 20000 for the privilege of entering and being shown around by someone who spoke a bit of English. The traditional stone circle in the middle of the village was still there, and one traditional house, now inhabited by only two families, but at one stage the whole village had lived there. In one little shelter he tried to tell me that one big solid piece of timber in the middle was 3000 years old. I didn’t believe him. He insisted, and with a mixture of English and Bahasa Indonesian and sign language he told me that he knew this because the wood had been removed in the renovation of the building in 1995; and it had originally been built in 1110. I was fairly happy with this explanation, not having the language to question how they knew it was
originally build in 1110, but pointing out that this made it closer to eight hundred years than three thousand. He seemed happy with this years ... “three thousand” again is just code for “a long time”.
So by that afternoon I ended up in Labuanbajo. This little fishing village has a small tourist strip, where everyone speaks English to some degree, and you can arrange all sorts of tours of diving. This is a nice change for me; although it means that everything is very expensive too. I’m hoping Bali won’t be like this, I’ve heard that it’s cheap because of the competition, but I don’t believe that. The place I stayed at was pretty awful, and had a restaurant with an impressive menu of western food, except that when you ordered any of it it turned out to be some weird approximation. I ordered “chicken schnitzel with chips and vegetables”, although I’m sure it wasn’t spelt like that. I specifically asked if it came with tomato (hoping against hope that they actually meant “parmigiana”, and the waiter answered “yes, of course”, because he didn’t understand what I was saying, and “yes of course” again when we worked out
that I was asking if there were any tomatoes involved. What came were presentable potato wedges, three bits of something that looked like potato cake, but actually did have miniscule bits of boiled chicken inside them, heavily covered in batter, and some slightly rancid coleslaw with added salt. No tomatoes to be seen.
Anyway, the main thing to do in Labuanbajo is see the Komodo dragons. The world heritage listed “Komodo National Park” includes the island of Komodo itself, lots of little islands, and even, I think, a small part of the Flores mainland. To see the dragons though you need to take a boat cruise out to Komodo or Rinca island. I chose a day trip out to Rinca island.
Of course, the cost doesn’t include the exorbitant $US15 park entrance fee, nor the two Rp 20,000 each other park fees, plus the park ranger’s tour. I didn’t really see many other animals either, other than a monkey and a water buffalo. There were a bunch of smallish dragons hanging around the park hut, near where they’d attacked and nearly killed a ranger about three or four weeks ago, but they were fairly unimpressive.
After about
an hour of walking, I spotted a large dragon sunning itself on a rock. This is no thanks to the ranger. It was large, I’d say at least two metres long - they get up to three metres - but of course it’s still just a big lizard isn’t it, not like a crocodile or something. It was good to see their nests though, and get a bit of the background about how they live.
It was during this walk that my sandals blew. I’d noticed at Liang Bua that these sandles, which are great for walking when they’re dry, become horrible when they’re wet, your feet just slide around everywhere. Literally every step was as much effort as four normal steps, because you have to balance while your feet slide around. Somewehre along the way, I don’t know if it was at Liang Bua or at the Komodo park, two of the straps broke on my right sandal. This is a big problem for me, as I can’t get shoes my size anywhere in Asia. In fact, it’s very hard even in Australia (which is why I can’t just get someone to send me some from home) because
I have funny-shaped feet. I think they’re actually still fine for walking on normal surfaces, and I’ll see if I can get someone to sew up the broken bits.
So that’s about it for Liang Bua and Labuanbajo. I should have said that Ruteng, the main city near Liang Bua, is quite pretty and it’s a nice area to hang out for a while because of the altitude, it’s fairly cool. It’s also pretty, with the mountains surrounding it. Of course it doesn’t have a beach though.
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Mark Daly
non-member comment
Sandals and Fun...
Sounds like it's all coming together. For what it's worth you'll have no trouble finding someone to make shoes and/or sandals in Kuta when you get to Bali. If you can't find anybody you like then head to Charisma Tailors at the end of Poppies lane 1 (the one with McDonalds on the corner) the last set of actual shops before it hits Legian street. Charisma is next door to a shop which sells T-Shirts for dogs (as opposed to cooking them) and another which sells pirated movies. Ask for Made and tell him that Mr. Mark from the Grand Istana Rama (The friend of Mr. Paul) sent you. He'll look after you and your sandals :) Travel safe!