Advertisement
Published: October 19th 2010
Edit Blog Post
The boat trip was made up of two mini buses full of tourists, just under 30 people and for some unknown reason we were asked to change bus 3 times, at the 4th attempt we refused and luckily stayed on the boat with less people and made great new friends.
We drove from the west to the east coast of Lombok with a live chicken on board (which later became dinner on the boat!), a 3 hour trip with a huge rain shower which leaked through the bus ceiling.
Upon arriving at the port, Princess Carla suffered from what we shall term as ‘Dock Shock’. The boat which would be our home for the next four days was not the large private cabin type we dreamed of, but small (about 50ft long, sounds long, but wasn‘t), crewed by teenage boys and an old wise captain (phew). It was an eat and sleep on the floor of the deck, kinda place, at least we got a small thin mattresses with blankets for comfort. We were nestled in above the engine with eleven roomies and the odd cockroach, it soon felt like home though!
Each day we were in bed around
8pm and up about 5am. However, we travelled at night on a couple of evenings so trying to sleep above a huge diesel engine which sent vibrations through your head meant any sleep was rare pleasure. However great company and being on the open sea meant we came to love it and settled in nicely.
Our boat adventure led us to many different islands where we snorkelled loads, spotted dolphins, hiked up a hill for breathtaking views over Flores, swam in a vast and tranquil salt lake, climbed a waterfall and fished unsuccessfully with a plastic bottle, line and hook.
One of the most spectacular sights was when one evening we put down anchor off shore near a small cove of trees and at sunset hundreds of flying foxes (giant bats with fox like heads and a wing span of about 3ft) took to the sky and flew out into the night, they continued to emerge from the tiny cove until dark.
Before long we arrived at Komodo Island for our first encounter with the dreaded, saliva poisoned, prehistoric Komodo Dragons. All did not go well…upon disembarking on a pier on the brink of collapse, chivalrous Jim had
his little finger crushed whilst holding the pier and stairs together so people could get off safely (the teenage crew not for the first time, ignorant to passenger safety). Fortunately a fellow passenger, Roan (our new friend from the Philippines) came to Jim’s rescue with a handkerchief to use as a bandage.
After a brief talk about dragons and being informed that we probably wouldn’t see any Komodo Dragons on Komodo Island (!?!) we went on a 2 hour hike over the island (hard work in the heat and suffering from a bit of shock from a bashed up finger) and saw a very big and old dragon which lived around the Komodo café. To help Jim recover from his finger incident we drank a few beers in the company of the old dragon and took a few back on board for good measure.
We think Komodo Dragons need a rebrand and should in fact be called ‘Rinca Dragons’ as it was on this island on our final day where we saw about 10 dragons in the wild.
Rinca Island certainly came up with the goods with its dragons and felt like a lost world, with sun partched
barren landscapes.
On Rinca we witnessed dragons of various sizes stomping around the entrance and a few more in the wild, including a female by her nest. Komodo Dragon nests are holes dug in the ground where they lay their eggs, the female will dig about a dozen nests to camouflage her real nest. Interesting fact number two is that Komodo Dragons are not born with poisonous saliva, it’s passed down, the young Dragons obtain it by eating the same meat as older Dragons. Hmmmm. but how did they get it in the first place?
After Rinca we stopped at our final destination, the port of Labuhanbajo. Upon arrival we arranged our car trip across Flores with our new boat pals, Amelia, Roan and Andy and then found the best bar in town with the rest of the boat passengers for a few well earned beers and…burgers! 😊
Love, the dragon hunters Jim and Carla
xxx
Advertisement
Tot: 0.13s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 7; qc: 46; dbt: 0.0576s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb