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Published: July 28th 2006
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Wong again
Everywhere we turn, everyone we ask gives us conflicting information.
On purpose?
Flores has no Dragons.
Spirits were low. Lambanbajo, a one-road dump of a village, whose only beach we renamed Syringe Beach, was dragging us down. Jack had been served a rotten tenderloin steak and although he'd noticed and stopped eating half-way through was caught by a 24hour, gut-wrenching case of food poisoning, meaning he spent most of the night pebble-dashing the porcelain squat toilet.
We shared a twin room.
The toilet door didn't close never mind lock.
I was woken constantly by his groans and the stench burning in my nostrils; an imaginary green fog enveloping the dim room.
It wasn't pleasant.
Doctor down.
.....
The next day, after much bargining with Indo-Jack, our hotel worker-cum-travel-agent, we managed to get a pretty cheap deal on a trip to Rinca, an island supposedly full of Dragons and only a 2.5 hour boat trip away.
Jack had recovered and we were ready and packed by 8am and starting to wander down to the harbour with a good dose of apprehension regarding the seaworthyness of our
chartered vessle. You should see some of the barely-floating barges that the locals have the audacity of naming boats; Lonely Planet warns also that several have capsized and tourists, (though not their gear), have been lucky to survive. Mike, for some reason, had been appointed Boat-Seaworthyness-Surveyor, (despite his hatred of sailing and inability to even snorkle well), and had been dispatched the day before to ensure our 'boat' had a reasonable chance of surviving the crossing. He'd returned with a rather questionable affirmative, hence our trepidation that morning.
The boat did it's job and on arrival on Rinca, almost immediately, asthough called upon to be our welcoming committee, the end of the jetti led us directly into the path of 3 large Komodo Dragons basking in the sun; dry, scaly monsters tasting our scent with a worrying flick of their tongues.
I was really impressed, thought at perhaps 2m in length, (tail inclusive), I was assurred that these were mere teenagers by our resident Biologist and Lizard expert, who seemed a little dissapointed.
We'd seriously considered, pre-trip, buying a live goat or at least a chicken each so that we could feed The Beasts, watching them devour
the fate-sealed animals with their inch-long claws and gangrenous bites. Sadly, the Ranger informed us that as a World Herritage Site, such practices were no longer permitted and the Dragons were forced to fend for themselves although by the presence of the animals it was evident that either they hadn't got the message or scraps were still being hand-fed on the sly as a pestering dog would be come lunch time under the dinner table.
The plan had been to stay 1 night on Rinca, taking in 2 walks of the island in the hope of maximizing our chance of spotting some beasts worthy of the name Dragon; and with over 1000 on the island we felt pretty confident. However, things just seemed to be against us: it was mating season, meaning the animals journeyed inland to hump, away from the set-paths we were to be guided along; the losman we were due to stay at that night was a mosquito-den, (being in Malaria country - with no anti-Malaria drugs I should add - we decided this pretty risky), with yellowing, grubby matresses, grey-stained pillows, (sheets and pillow cases are never usually supplied in these budget places); the
only cafe sold just SuperNoodles and we'd already had 2 portions each for lunch; and cockroaches that scattered into the crevices when we opened the door.
While debating what to do, sitting on the jetti with our skipper and his son - both of whome spoke no word of English - we goaded the Dragons cotching in the sun just meters away with cow noises, red-shorts on a stick (matadoor style), and, on Jack's part, and ancient Italian Dragon-rousing dance, (or so he seemed to think); though none had any effect as the lizards stared at us with contempt before slowly closing their eyes to block out the annoyance.
It was 5 o'clock in the evening and we still hadn't come up with a plan, although we were making progress as Mike had managed to communicate with our skipper using Jack's Indonesian phrase book that Nick hadn't menstruated for 5weeks and needed to get to a Doctor.
Finally, the depressing thought of more SuperNoodles, Hitchcockesq-insects and another crappy fruitless walk led by a teenage 'guide' who'd memorised a set paragraph of Dragon facts, forced us to return to the phrase book, communicate that we'd had enough and
see if it was possible to sail this late, tail between our legs , back to Flores. We were in luck. Seemed the skipper wasn't to keen on this 2-shack slum of an island either and we headed off under the amber glow of sunset.
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