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Published: March 18th 2006
We've moved from the Gilis in Lombok to Labuanbajo in Flores. The trip was harrowing to say the least. Shuttled to Mataram. Took some local transport to Lembar (the main port). That was the wrong place to go. We went back to Mandalika terminal in Mataram. Took a bus packed with enough people and produce to start a military campaign from Mataram that would eventually take us to the East coast of Lombok and onward from there across Sumbawa to Sape where we would catch a ferry to Labuanbajo. All told it took two days. The bus lost first gear around midnight in the middle of nowhere in Sumbawa, so we stopped for a 3 hour transmission repair on the side of the road. They removed the offending part and hit with a nondescript piece of metal. A rock was used as an anvil. The bangs and in went the piece. We were off soon after that. No problem. The entire male population of the bus was apparently used to repairing buses so a great number of them were all together under the bus, smoking, banging (the bus) (I mean with tools) (tools for working on buses!), and yelling a little bit. Sape is the butthole of nowhere. This is a butthole that has never seen a western toilet. A butthole with goats wandering around the ferry terminal starving to death, stealing bananas from the trucks loaded to foundering with them. Apparently the ferry we were taking had arrived that morning and unloaded bananas for about 9 solid hours before we got on. A quick 8 hour jaunt to Labuanbajo and we were there at 2:00 AM. Finding a place to stay turned out to be easy. There are no nice places to stay in Labuanbajo. Well there was one, but it was full. So none for us. Oh yeah and some guy tried to steal some of my shit while he thought I was sleeping on the bus in Sumbawa. Some really old man. No shame.
Once you get to Flores though it's nice. We spent a day going to Rinca (right near Komodo) to see the Komodo dragons. On the way back we stopped at tiny uninhabited islands and snorkeled. I have pictures of all this, but you'll have to wait until Kuala Lumpur for photos. Wonder of wonders the Internet connections are still slow out here. Rinca looks better than all those expansive wide-angle shots in Jurassic Park. You couldn't have made it up better. The pictures don't do it justice. Palm trees on the tops of meadowed islands look great. The dragons really fit right in.
Fi and I are actually in Ruteng right now. It's the next "city" over in Flores. It's actually really nice. The streets are clean. The people are nice and there are no hawkers, no German divers, and pretty much no backpackers. We're alone. The place we're staying is fantastic. It's huge, clean, wooden, beautiful, friendly staff. The whole nine yards. We might stay here two days just because it's so nice. I'll go take some pictures of the town, the churches etc after this.
I'll get photos up as soon as possible. Hope everyone is doing well. Please complaints, questions or comments.
--Gabe
Gabe pretty much summed up the bus ride to Flores though he did miss the fact that I was stared at by every male on it. I try to ignore it but sometimes I do feel very self-conscious. There were also some very friendly people too though and they made up for the rough trip.
Rinca Island was kick-ass. We shared our boat with some very cool people from Belgium and a dude from Singapore. The dragons are some prehistoric looking creatures. I quite liked the water buffalo that were chilling in mud pools too. It looked like fun.
I can't believe how beautiful Flores looks. The scenery is spectacular. It was well worth making the trip here. -Fi
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Pleased t o see Fi has her writing hand working now. We always knew she was good looking so not surprised all the guys satred. they had probably never seen white women before especially good looking ones