so i never had time to get this part of my trip journaled, but since I'm just waiting for the franks here in bangkok, finally had the chance
10/5
Arrived in Maumere from Moni to see amongst the scattering of hardly water worthy vessels in the indonesian port, one beautiful wooden ship sitting there. The Cheng Ho! The boat I was to be on the next 12 days.
So a little background: This is one of those lucky things that can happen to you when you're on a long trip. In the philippines I had met Hergen and Kerri at a diving place. They had actually been working in Indonesia in the Bali and Komodo area for quite some time on liveaboards and such and told me that when I got to bali I should email them for suggestions of where to do a bit of diving. Well, when I got to bali and emailed them, they suggested I contact the company, Kararu, that they used to work for (they had just moved to Manado in Sulawesi for the diving up there) and see if they had any last minute deals, especially with the economy in a worse state than the coral reefs these days. I heard back and found out there had just been a big group, who had chartered a boat, cancel for some reason. Well, this boat still had to make it from maumere to Ambon for its next group of people to pick up that would be going from Ambon to sorong and the raja ampats in papua, so this meant it was going no matter what. So they offered me an incredible deal to go on this ship last minute since with the cancellations they were now empty at the moment and obviously had little hope of getting many people b/c most people thinking about doing a trip like this were 2 week holidayers from europe or the states. The ship is a luxury sail ship with first rate diving. They offered me 65% off of the normal fair for the lowest class single bunk, waved the port fees (worth over 500 US), free use of all dive equipment, and a free upgrade to their nicest room, the state room. Even at 65% off, the trip still wouldn't be considered cheap, but after to talking with hergen and Kerri as well as Bill and Lisa Bubb from Australia who had done some similar trips, I decided it would be stupid not to do this trip since I was in the area and wouldn't even require a flight to get there, as who knows how long the reefs will last and as this is supposedly the 2nd most diverse reef area in the world (behind the raja ampats just next door) as the ocean apparently started way back when where the raja amapts are now, so the species are the most diverse. For example, the caribbean has like 30 species of butterfly fish and this area has over 350 species. And I'd also get to see some cool parts of indonesia that are usually either very expensive to get to or take a really really long time.
So I arrived at the hot, sweaty, and dirty port of maumere in flores to be ushered into the Cheng Ho, served and icy welcome drink, introduced to my luxury cabin, and no matter how hard I tried to decline the offer, had my luggage carried for me to my cabin. I met Peter and Kristine the dive cruise directors from Chicago and California. The other guests would be arriving in about an hour from the airport. I expected several people, but to my surprise there were only 2. Keep in mind the ship usually takes 18, but can hold 21! Dirk from Amsterdam and Paul a physician from Tampa who is originally from Puerto Rico. We were also introduced to the other two dive guides Bawa and Nyoman from Bali. So here we were, on this luxury ship, just the three of us, with 4 dive guides. We were all tingling with excitement and knew the trip would be amazing. We got a tour of the ship that had a huge and beautiful dining area, top decks for relaxing, and even an entertainment room with a huge flatscreen and an amazing video and novel library. They also gave me a laptop to use for the trip. The internet was actually broken, but not that it would have mattered b/c it did cost 2 bucks per email sent. But I used it to catch up a bit on my blog by just writing in word and then pasting when I got back to the internet and for looking at photos we took. And it was basically anything we wanted we could get. We had full access to sodas, fruit juices, milk, candies, cookies, and fresh fruits. I must have gone through so many oreos and milk the first day. That had been another thing I was craving: oreos dipped in milk. We would be served 5 meals a day. A first breakfast before the first dive with all the food of a real breakfast: fresh fruit, cereal, breads, etc. Then a real breakfast with eggs or french toast or whatever. Also there were afteroon snacks. And then a alway tasty buffet lunch and dinner that rotated between asian food (indian, indonesian, chinese, japanese (sushi!), and thai) and western (american, mexican, italian and just standard western fare like big pieces of meat). The interior of the ship was all decorated in balinese and papuan designs and pictures. And the whole ship itself, a 160 ft. long wooden phinisi schooner (traditional indonesian styled ship), was just beautiful, and kind of had the air of pirate ship.
We did a check out dive, a night muck dive, just off the boat in the port and immediately the diving was off to an amazing start and we knew the trip would be great. We saw an adult epillette shark and a juvenile one as well as lots of cuttle fish and two leaf fish. I didn't know quite how amazing it was to see an epillette shark, yet alone two of them, but Paul excitingly explained how rare a sight they were. It was great having Paul on board b/c he was so enthusiastic and was always making sure we knew just how amazing the diving was or what we were seeing. He's a physician as I said, but also is the photographer expert for a dive shop in tampa and has literally done hundreds of liveaboards and thousands of dives all over the world, so he knew what he was talking about. During and after the trip, he loved to say how my diving career had only begun not long ago, but now was over b/c there was no way I could ever live up to a trip like this (except at the raja ampats). Everything else would seem 2nd rate. (of course everyone is entitled to their opinions and other people have told me the solomon's, pulau, or komodo are just as good or better, so don't worry I still have places I can go in the future =)) And, yes, I would agree with him that these were the most diverse reefs I had ever seen and I saw everything I had hoped to see and more. Just so much. However, I would not say they are the healthiest reefs I have seen. This is b/c we were diving just in a lot of random islands, none of which are protected as national parks. A lot are fairly protected just due to remoteness and distance, but they are still fished. Because as Peter said, in indonesia fish is food. And even more than that shark fins and other big fish like napoleon wrasse are like gold for them when selling them to the chinese and japanese in the some legal and mostly illegal fish trade. So b/c of this we didn't see as many sharks or other big pelagic fish (napolean wrasse, bumpheads, barracudas, tuna) as you would expect to see (though we did see some) in a truly healthy coral reef ecosystem, but that didn't matter to me b/c I had gotten to see lots and lots of the big stuff at Sipadan in malaysia and tubattaha in the philippines. And the diversity of the reefs and fish there was just so staggering and amazing. After the dive we set sail for eastern flores on our pirate ship under a full moon. I sat up on the crow's nest for a while and just enjoyed the breeze, the full moon, and the feeling of being on this ship.
10/6 Did 4 more amazing dives around eastern flores and serbete island going to a new spot each time. Of course saw amazing corals and fish and on top of that saw a very bold octopus, and some huge bumphead parrotfish and napolean wrasses. The scenery above water was just as nice. With gorgeous tropical islands and nice turquoise water. Today while sailing between dive spots I sat up on the crow's nest and enjoyed the wonderful scenery from 80 or so feet up. The captain also showed me how to read the navigation charts and let me captain the ship for a bit.
10/7 4 stunning wall dives in the alor archipelago, specifically kawula island. Just unbelievable diving really. Saw some eagle rays, black and white tipped sharks, bumpheads, napoleans, more nudibranchs than you could imagine and 3 cute little pgymy sea horses. These little guys were only first described by science in like the early 90's and sit on large sea fans. They're tiny (smaller than a standard paper clip) and take on the color and texture of the sea fan they live in, so are difficult to spot. It's at this place that Paul says this is the best diving in the whole world. Wouldn't disagree with what I've seen so far in my diving and snorkelling career. Of course the underwater world was only just part of it. Woke up in the morning on my plush bed, looked out my huge window onto nice water and a smoking volcano rising out of the sea. I mean even just sitting up on the deck, reading on this crazy pirate ship, watching the surreal water and the volcano was spectacular enough, let alone what was below the boat. On the night dive, we saw some really cool flashlight fish amongst other things and then set off under the full moon again. Of course that night I couldn't help myself but watch pirates of the caribbean after the tasty italian meal.
10/8 Still in the alor archipelago, but on to Pura island with 4 more dives. The first dive site was called clownfish (like nemo) alley and was just a carpet of anenomes which meant millions of clownfish Also two sweet frogfish. There was a fisher village on the island and some of the local kids came out in their little dugout canoes to see us. They had these home-made goggles made from broken glass bottles and wood that they use for diving. So we swam around and did some free diving with them as well. And crazy as this is, the front cover of the Indonesian lonely planet, which is a gorgeous photo with nice water, a sweet ship and some local kids with home-made goggles in it. Quite the surprise to find myself there and it turns out the ship was kararu's old ship. Saw two more pygmy sea horses here and lots and lots of the beautiful mandarin fish. On the night dive we saw two coral cat sharks and an ornate ghost pipefish. As we weren't sailing that night, we had dinner on the deck of the boat.
10/9 again in the alor archipelago at pura and alor island for 4 more dives. Just brilliant brilliant fishes. 3 octopi on one dive and 2 larger seahorses on another. And one of the big finds of the trip, I found a wonderpus, which is this amazing octopus (search it on the internet if you want to see what it looks like). That night was bbq dinner on the deck with steak and potatoes...probably from idaho haha
10/10 Alor Archipelago at alor island and ternate island. 4 dives. Of course great fish and corals. Some more frogfish, some cool flounders. lots of stonefish and scorpionfish. Sailed all night with pretty big waves as we were crossing into some big open ocean
10/11 3 dives today as we arrived late due to unfavorable currents and winds at Wetar Islands in the Molukas and also had to get moving early to make the next destination in time. Some more incredible wall dives here. As we had to leave early we had a movie afternoon up in the gallery with popcorn and vatican chase scenes in angels and demons. Some more sweet big waves crashing over the bow that night.
10/12 3 dives at gunung api island (fire mountain island). This little volcanic island sitting in the middle of nowhere in the ocean and home to thousands of sea snakes. If you've seen the planet earth series, this is where the sea snake stuff was filmed. 2 types of snakes here: banded and olive sea snakes. Sea snakes are the most poisonous snakes in the world, but their mouths are too small to bite humans and they are also non-aggressive. In fact, I really loved them. They're so curious. They would just come swim up from far away right up to you and then swim around you and try and check you out. I laughed watching the other divers with sea snakes following them. These snakes are basically the only sea creatures I've seen that don't swim away from you. Everything else you see a lot of their backside, but not these sea snakes. They'd come right up to you. There were hundreds of them and you could hold them and play around with them and they wouldn't care or even act bothered. Some some other cool things here like an octopus and blue-spotted stingray. When we had arrived at the island we could smell all the sulfur in the area and while under water on our 3rd dive, we felt (and heard in the water) a small eruption. Sailed again all night.
10/13
Woke up to 3 beautiful tropical paradise islands all interconnected by sand bars. We had the choice here to dive 2 dives at the beautiful walls here and 4 and the ambon, the next spot or do 1 hear and 5 at the next. We chose to do 1 here b/c we had seen lots of amazing walls and b/c ambon is very unique and diving and one of the best muck diving spots in the world. Turns out fate would also make this choice for me of one dive anyways. After a great dive with several sharks and turtles, I got up onto the tender boat. We sat there for about 5 minutes waiting for the rest of the people to get on. Once we got to the ship, I started getting a sharp pain in my abdomen on the left side. I asked the Peter and Kristine if they thought it was decompression sickness, but they said no b/c that's not one of the symptoms and I had dove conservatively (as you should) and it was the first dive of the day. Well in just a few more minutes, the pain got really sharp and I had to sit down. Then all of a sudden my left leg went numb. By then I had called over peter and paul (and where's mary?) to help me. Both my arms went tingly and then numb and my vision started to go wavy then I could hardly see at all, and I was getting pretty scared. I never full passed out and they quickly gave me oxygen. After a bit of oxygen and lots of water and an electrolyte drink the numbness went away everywhere except my left leg, but then a few minutes later, even that was gone. Both Peter and Paul (a physician) diagnosed it as dehydration and electrolyte imbalance. So I just rested the rest of the day, watching lots of movies as the ship sailed on towards ambon island and the capital of the molukas.
10/14 Ambon island molukas 5 muck dives, and absolutely amazing and out of this world. several octopi, a rare mimic octopus (similar to the wonderpus, but mimics other poisonous animals), lots of seahorses, flamboyant cuttle fish, flying gurnards, dragonets, 2 rhinopius, 2 leaf scorpionfish, stonefish, robust ghost pipefish, other pipefish, lots of cuttlefish, tons of lionfish and scorpion fish, several frogfish, lots of mandarin fish. Just amazing diving, like nothing I'd ever done.
10/15. I did one more muck dive on this day, seeing some of the same things. Paul and Dirk couldn't dive b/c they had a very early flight the next day and you need to allow 24 hours after a dive before flying...one of the bonuses of not pre-booking my flights with the company is I could get another dive. That afternoon I went to the airport to book my flight to jayapura as our ship was docked like 5 minutes from the airport. The travel agent that kararu uses had been looking for flights for me and the best deal he had found was 560 bucks flying to makassar and then having to spend the night and then flying to jayapura. Hmmm...this is indonesia and I knew better than to believe a travel agent or that a flight could be that expensive, so I went to check myself. And I found two different airlines going for 165 bucks and without having to spend the night in makassar! The rest of the day, I just relaxed and read and watched movies on the glorious cheng ho.
10/16 Sad goodbye to the chengho, it's crew, and dirk, paul, kristine, and peter. Flight to Jayaprua via Sorong.
Well, no doubt, the diving was truly amazing. And one of the best parts was that it was so diverse. Great wall dives, great coral. Muck dives. unique dives like clownfish alley and the snake island. And I loved how kararu set up it's diving where it wasn't a thing where you had to follow exactly behind the divemaster and all time and come up at exactly 50 mins or something. You could dive where you wanted and stay down as long as you wanted...or your air supply or dive computer let you. To me, this was really great!
Monday, October 26, 2009
Back to the good life of singapore
10/23 Well, I'm back in singapore, the land of relaxing and fun for me thanks to the Carlisles. The morning I just napped and watched some movies before heading to the American Club with the family to rock out on the exercise bike as I have a lot of catching up to do with my brother. I could beat the virtual bikers on the bike program but I don't think I can beat the rest of the D-II field yet. Celebrated oktoberfest a bit at the american club's union bar with some pork knuckle and of course lots of beers.
Had originally planned to go to Darwin, Australia between my indo visa running out and meeting the franks in bangkok, but in the end in seemed a bit of a hassle, would have had to fly to singapore and then back down to darwin, so a bit pricey for such a short time, I would have felt rushed, and the weather isn't supposed to be the best down there right now, so I decided instead to go hang out with the carlisles which is always a good time and then visit a few places in southern thailand instead.
The next day was back to the american club for tennis lessons and some good breakfast. In the evening we went to Martin and his wife's house for a very tasty bbq of hamburgers and fish. And then Craig, Martin, and I headed down to the Orchard Towers area for some partying singapore style. AnneMarie had unfortunately hurt her knee pretty bad so was unable to join us for this and some other things later on. Had already had quite a lot of wine and beer at the bbq and by the time martin (with his scotch and sodas and amarillo sours) and craig (with his large pitchers of beers) got done with me I was definitely swing dancing with the best of them at some cowboy themed bar. Met some women who worked, or their husbands worked for Ashlin and Caitlin's American school and they were also quite happy to buy the backpacker some drinks. We stayed out late into the night, and really have no idea when craig and I made it back home.
10/25 Craig, Caitlin, Ashlin, and I headed out to Sentosa Island which is sort of a theme parked island. They have a beach and then just lots of amusements. We did a cool zip line thing and then this really fun luge ride. Also had my first pizza in God knows when. Cowabunga! That night we met back up with Anne-Marie for some Mexican and some salsa dancing with the girls. Now it's definitely been over a year since I had some Mexican, and it was dang good! That was one of the foods I have been craving the most. But don't worry taco's michuacan of caldwell, I'll be back soon enough. I know sherman and mcdirty will cross the train tracks with me to go get some of that mexican goodness.
Monday was pretty laid back during the day. In the afternoon we went back to the american club for the girls' swim lessons and for me to swim some laps. Craig, crazy martin, June (one of annemarie's friends, who was tons of fun), and Chris (a local golf pro) first headed to the union bar. After several drinks there we headed up to the presidential lounge for some more. We then moved the party back to muddy murphy's, the irish bar and Martin's domain where he is treated like a god. From there we moved on to the cowboy themed bar and then ended the night at a sweet club with some rocking dancing. We left there around 5am and headed to Mcdonald's for some breakfast. Only the drive through was open and I had to pee really bad, but there was no toilet. Now in caldwell idaho you'd just pee on the street, or if you wanted to be discreet in the bushes, but chris and craig said here not to risk it b/c it would be the cane for me. gotta love singapore. But going out with crazy Martin and Craig is great fun. They know how to party and have a good time for sure.
10/27
Just hung out around the house and really relaxed. Watched some movies, caught up on some internet stuff. Craig and AnneMarie had a long day at the hospital I think as she was having surgery the next day.
10/28 Woke up early to go with Vivian on a walk with Cloey, through the botanical gardens, which was nice. Vivian is a great gal and fun to talk to, especially about life in singapore and life in the philippines. And of course she takes good care of me with tasty food all the time. I wanted to say goodbye to Craig and AnneMarie before I left b/c, as usual, they had taken such good care of me and treated me like a king. I waited as long as I possibly could before taking a cab to the airport, but unfortunately missed them and made it to the airport just in the nick of time. The driver on the way to the airport was very interested in what I was doing and about me. When he heard that I just had a brother and no sisters, he asked if my mom liked fish. I said yes, And he said, that it's then. If you eat a lot of fish, you will have only boys. He was pretty sure about this. I didn't want to argue as I was counting on him getting me to the airport as quickly as possible, but I have to say I don't really believe him. Though my mom may like fish, I don't think there was a whole lot available in the adobe of montrose. And I've visited several fishing villages in the philippines and indonesia where I'm pretty sure there entire diet is fish and coconuts and yet there still seems to be quite a lot of girls running around.
I had actually originally planned to take to train to KL and then the train from there to Hat Yai thailand, but I had checked the papers before booking and they were having some sort of unrest in the very southern thai border province and the train employees were on strike, thus why I changed to flying. Plus it was a pretty good deal and much quicker!
Arrived in Krabi where I took a bus to Trang. It poured the whole time and they said the wet season is staying much longer than normal. But I don't care too much, b/c it was in indonesia where I reall wanted that good weather and got it after sumatra. These are just kind of days I'm killing before meeting up with the franks.
Once in Trang I went out to the night market. And I was glad to be back in thailand for those night markets where they have incredibly cheap food that is ALSO tasty and full of variety. Trang is off the backpackers trail, which I like in thailand b/c I find that the thais are so much more friendly and welcoming off the dense backpacker trail whether it be off the beaten path or in non-backpacker touristy areas.
Here I'm hoping to visit a few of the trang islands including ko muk and ko libong.
Had originally planned to go to Darwin, Australia between my indo visa running out and meeting the franks in bangkok, but in the end in seemed a bit of a hassle, would have had to fly to singapore and then back down to darwin, so a bit pricey for such a short time, I would have felt rushed, and the weather isn't supposed to be the best down there right now, so I decided instead to go hang out with the carlisles which is always a good time and then visit a few places in southern thailand instead.
The next day was back to the american club for tennis lessons and some good breakfast. In the evening we went to Martin and his wife's house for a very tasty bbq of hamburgers and fish. And then Craig, Martin, and I headed down to the Orchard Towers area for some partying singapore style. AnneMarie had unfortunately hurt her knee pretty bad so was unable to join us for this and some other things later on. Had already had quite a lot of wine and beer at the bbq and by the time martin (with his scotch and sodas and amarillo sours) and craig (with his large pitchers of beers) got done with me I was definitely swing dancing with the best of them at some cowboy themed bar. Met some women who worked, or their husbands worked for Ashlin and Caitlin's American school and they were also quite happy to buy the backpacker some drinks. We stayed out late into the night, and really have no idea when craig and I made it back home.
10/25 Craig, Caitlin, Ashlin, and I headed out to Sentosa Island which is sort of a theme parked island. They have a beach and then just lots of amusements. We did a cool zip line thing and then this really fun luge ride. Also had my first pizza in God knows when. Cowabunga! That night we met back up with Anne-Marie for some Mexican and some salsa dancing with the girls. Now it's definitely been over a year since I had some Mexican, and it was dang good! That was one of the foods I have been craving the most. But don't worry taco's michuacan of caldwell, I'll be back soon enough. I know sherman and mcdirty will cross the train tracks with me to go get some of that mexican goodness.
Monday was pretty laid back during the day. In the afternoon we went back to the american club for the girls' swim lessons and for me to swim some laps. Craig, crazy martin, June (one of annemarie's friends, who was tons of fun), and Chris (a local golf pro) first headed to the union bar. After several drinks there we headed up to the presidential lounge for some more. We then moved the party back to muddy murphy's, the irish bar and Martin's domain where he is treated like a god. From there we moved on to the cowboy themed bar and then ended the night at a sweet club with some rocking dancing. We left there around 5am and headed to Mcdonald's for some breakfast. Only the drive through was open and I had to pee really bad, but there was no toilet. Now in caldwell idaho you'd just pee on the street, or if you wanted to be discreet in the bushes, but chris and craig said here not to risk it b/c it would be the cane for me. gotta love singapore. But going out with crazy Martin and Craig is great fun. They know how to party and have a good time for sure.
10/27
Just hung out around the house and really relaxed. Watched some movies, caught up on some internet stuff. Craig and AnneMarie had a long day at the hospital I think as she was having surgery the next day.
10/28 Woke up early to go with Vivian on a walk with Cloey, through the botanical gardens, which was nice. Vivian is a great gal and fun to talk to, especially about life in singapore and life in the philippines. And of course she takes good care of me with tasty food all the time. I wanted to say goodbye to Craig and AnneMarie before I left b/c, as usual, they had taken such good care of me and treated me like a king. I waited as long as I possibly could before taking a cab to the airport, but unfortunately missed them and made it to the airport just in the nick of time. The driver on the way to the airport was very interested in what I was doing and about me. When he heard that I just had a brother and no sisters, he asked if my mom liked fish. I said yes, And he said, that it's then. If you eat a lot of fish, you will have only boys. He was pretty sure about this. I didn't want to argue as I was counting on him getting me to the airport as quickly as possible, but I have to say I don't really believe him. Though my mom may like fish, I don't think there was a whole lot available in the adobe of montrose. And I've visited several fishing villages in the philippines and indonesia where I'm pretty sure there entire diet is fish and coconuts and yet there still seems to be quite a lot of girls running around.
I had actually originally planned to take to train to KL and then the train from there to Hat Yai thailand, but I had checked the papers before booking and they were having some sort of unrest in the very southern thai border province and the train employees were on strike, thus why I changed to flying. Plus it was a pretty good deal and much quicker!
Arrived in Krabi where I took a bus to Trang. It poured the whole time and they said the wet season is staying much longer than normal. But I don't care too much, b/c it was in indonesia where I reall wanted that good weather and got it after sumatra. These are just kind of days I'm killing before meeting up with the franks.
Once in Trang I went out to the night market. And I was glad to be back in thailand for those night markets where they have incredibly cheap food that is ALSO tasty and full of variety. Trang is off the backpackers trail, which I like in thailand b/c I find that the thais are so much more friendly and welcoming off the dense backpacker trail whether it be off the beaten path or in non-backpacker touristy areas.
Here I'm hoping to visit a few of the trang islands including ko muk and ko libong.
Sunday, October 25, 2009
Penis Gourds, bones through the nose, and tribal wars: just another day in Papua
I realize I am going out of order here and haven't written about the boat yet, but I will get back to this later. Papua was too fascinating not to write about
On the 16th of Oct. flew from Ambon Island in the Molukus (spice island area)to Jayapura (though the airport is actually in Sentani) via Sorong. The flight was a bit late (of course, i think indonesia would implode if any of there transport was ever on time), so I missed the last flight flying to Wamena. So spent the night in Sentani, which was ok b/c it was much more difficult to obtain my surat jalan (travel permit for areas outside of the cities in papua)than expected. I had read that you could just get it at the police station at the airport. But that was not the case, at least not today. Probably depends on who's there, how much money you're offering them, etc. I wanted to be on the first flight out--as I was on a bit of a time crunch before my visa ran out and I had heard it could be difficult to arrange a trek once in wamena and so I wanted a full day--so it was important for me to get the surat jalan that day. Hired a motor mike to take me to the police station that's a bit out of town. It was 8pm by this time and most of the police station was closed. The driver took me to several locked doors, then a policeman took me around and we finally found some guy playing video games in an office. Via a random bystanding translator, he said to come back tomorrow, but I said that it would not be open in time to get the early flights to wamena and asked if he could just do it there. He said yea, maybe. I was fully inclined to give a bribe if necessary. Eventually he called some guy that knew good english and he told me to wait an hour. So I did. Some random guy showed up, took my passport copies and passport photos, pasted them to a sheet of paper and said I was good to go. So the next day I showed up at 4:30 am when the ticket office opened to buy my ticket for the 6 am flight, which of course ended up leaving after 9...haha. Checking into the airport was a mess! It was basically a free for all to get checked in. And people were carrying bags and bags of stuff b/c wamena is only accessed by plane, so everything must be flown in. But finally got physical enough to get my bag checked in and to make it to the plane.
Stepped out of the plane into a beautiful green valley with steep green mountains all around. The town is Wamena, and the area is known as the Baliem Valley. According to my guidebook the Baliem Valley was discovered in 1945 when a plane crashed into the valley and the survivors were rescued. It apparently came as one of the last and greatest surprises to a world that had mapped, studied, and explored its remotest corners. Of course missionaries (dutch) were soon dispatched by 1954. Walked from the landing strip about 100 meters to my guesthouse. It was the most expensive place I had stayed yet at $16.50 with breakfast, but I had expected this as every single thing is flown into the Wamena. And wamena looks just like a normal town: banks, cars, trucks, busses, shops, big churches, etc. All amazingly flown in on huge military planes. The plane I flew in on would normally have about 30 rows of seats, but it only had 10 as the rest of the plane was stripped out for cargo. As an example of prices, mie goreng here cost $2.50 (most other places it's 0.50), a liter of water was 3.00 (and I usually get it for 0.20 to .50).
A guide soon found me and we walked around town a bit doing some of the necessary errands such as checking into the police station with my surat jalan. I really liked wamena and found it, I don't know, almost surreal or from a movie set. Set in this huge flat valley with beautiful mountains all around. And then it has this frontier town type feel and even more-so it was exactly how I have always imagined a say, african missionary station in the early to mid 1900's. Like Isaak Dinesen's Africa (Out of Africa) or any that you see in the movies. With lots of tiny planes flying in and out (the two main airlines flying here were missionary airlines and missionary air fellowship), beautiful churches, and a real slow feel to it. Also reminded me a lot of the Poisonwood Bible that we had to read as incoming freshman to ACI. The Papuans are the farthest things from Asians. Don't look like asians at all. Definitely a much more African look or probably like native australians. But they're still kind of short and very stout in stature. They have a real reggae type vibe too with lots and lots of bright colors, bob marley type hats, and dreds and cornrows. Their look reminds me a lot of Ernest Renfroe...or for those not learned in 1990's university of colorado backup forwards, they looked similar to Lebron James, except half the height. All the papuans were barefoot and only the indonesians wore shoes. One thing I learned really quick (and I made sure to learn it by asking), is not to call the Papuans Indonesians. They clearly wanted to be separated. The Indonesian Province is actually called Irian Jaya (and that's how it would be on modern maps), but to the people who live there it's called papua. It's also sometimes known as west papua. Papua is another classic example of how european colonialism screwed up local populations and has continued to cause problems (mostly known in Africa...i.e. rawanda, uganda, kenya, zaire, zimbabwe, etc). The island of papua is made up of Papua New Guinea (it's own country) on the east and Irian Jaya owned by indonesia on the west. The people in Irian Jaya are obviously much more related in customs, beliefs, etc to the people of PNG than to indonesians. Irian Jaya should really be part of PNG (if anything at all) than indonesia. And actually this is a huge problem all over indonesia, though much more pronounced here. See the dutch used to control Indonesia (known as the dutch east indies) which was very prosperous for them b/c of all of indonesia's natural resources and slave labor. And especially the spice isles b/c there was a time when some of the major spices such as nutmeg were ONLY available on the tiny banda islands of the molukus. Of course when indonesia was given independence, it was kept all together in one big country. But all the islands are decidedly different in people, culture, beliefs, and often religion. And in fact, almost all of the islands want, and have fought for it at some time, independence from Java and Jakarta. The problem is, a place like sumatra (all the sumatrans despised the javans) is so so rich in oil, timber, and now oil palms, that jakarta would never give them freedom (I read that 60% of indonesians GNP comes from sumatra). The same is true for Kalimantan (where the people are more like the rest of the borneans) which has loads of resources in its rainforests and mines and off shore oil. Bali, another one which is completely different, especially with its hindu culture, is too valuable in tourism, not only for money, but for the name. The newest country in the world, East Timor, which used to be part of Nusa Tengerra, Indonesia finally fought and gained independence. This, of course, caused massive violence throughout indonesia as other provinces thought they could get the same fate. And this is a major reason why you (or lots of people back home in america) think Indonesia is so dangerous b/c of all the fighting for independence. The island, ambon, where my boat arrived in, was closed to tourists the whole of the 90's b/c of a huge independence struggle. Well, just like those other places, Papua is too valuable with its resources to give up. There was a big memorial in Sentani to all the Papuan freedom fighters who died in their latest war in the late 90's. And to me, the Papuans stand out even more than the rest of the places I visited from the Javan indonesians. It's so obvious they're not like indonesians at all. And in order to make sure places like papua can't get independence, jakarta has initiated a thing called transmigrasi where they are shipping javans (the most populated island) to these other places and giving them land or tax breaks or something for doing that. So in a place like Papua that makes up 22% of indo's territory, but only has 1% of its population, this is a big deal. And its very noticeable. The big cities on the coast had a fair amount of indonesians, and in wamena where it was mainly papuans, the indonesians had the better jobs like police, travel agents, bankers. And b/c of this there is definitely a lot of descrimination towards the native papuans which is quite sad. And of course there is a huge military presence and from what I've heard the army had no problem firing at papuans for the smallest thing. And to make things worse for poor papua, there are also foreign interests which are not so good for it. There's a US-based mining company, called Freeport, which has the 3rd largest copper mine in the world and the largest gold mine in the world in papua. This has caused thousands of papuans to be displaced (which is quite bad b/c in a place were tribal wars are still quite common, it's not easy to just pick up a move to a new place or enemy territory, so they are forced to the cities where they just become beggers usually b/c they aren't educated and often don't even know indonesian langauge) and many thousands more to be sick from mine tailings. Of course it's mostly indonesians employed there and according to what i've read, over a 10 year period the mines contributed us$40 billion to the jakarta economy as the mines make a PROFIT or US $1 million per day! Although it's no excuse for violence, this likely explains why 2 american teachers and 1 indonesian teacher were murdered in the town where the gold mine is recently after they decided to expand the mining operation and displace more people.
well, anyways, back to the blog. So the guide who was accompanying me around, Silas, and I walked a bit through the town. I was looking to do a 4day 3 night trek. I wanted to know what this guide had for plan and cost and such but he said he'd tell me tonight. I was looking for some other tourists to share the guide with, but there weren't really any at all as this was a very low season. Almost all their tourists come in july and august. Did find two italian guys, but their english wasn't the best and from what I understood from them, they had been here before and were just going to be doing day hikes by themselves. They did invite me a long to go for a few hours by car to a traditional village nearby called jawika. So I did that. Later that afternoon, silas finally told me his plan and cost. A whopping 750 dollars! for 4 days. Seemed quite rediculous to me considering that was about 1/2 the price I just paid for 12 days on a luxury sail boat with 4 dives a day, gourmet food, a long transfer, etc. So I told him no, but he said I wouldn't find anywhere cheaper and that it's just expensive here, but he would give it to me for 5 hundred. Still too much for me. I mean where could all the cost be going. I'd be staying in local huts, carrying my own stuff, so I didn't need a personal porter, and eating mostly local food with some cheap rice and noodles. So I went out looking for someone else. Someone told me the guy running the computer place, Mr. Fuji (a japanese expat), knew about prices and guides. I loved Mr. Fuji. He was quite funny and very nice and helped to hook me up with a guide named Kipenus who I was able to arrange a 4 day trek for 200 hundred, which I was definitely okay with. That night I felt a bit sick and got a little sharp stomach pain in my abdomen and a bit of numbness in my left leg and was feeling a bit lightheaded, so I was very worried it was the episode from the boat recurring. But after I lied down, drank lots of water, and fell asleep, I was ok.
The next morning, Kipenus, his son Kipe (who carried some of the food and was the cook), and some girl who was the daughter of Kipenus'friend and had never been to where we were going so wanted to come, and I set out to the market to buy some food. The market was very colorful and full of lots of people from the different tribes selling their vegetables. And at the market, same as in the town of wamena it was often quite funny to see the older men or older women just hanging around in their traditional garb. For the women, that's just a woven skirt and nothing else. For the men it's just a penis gourd and nothing else. In the town of wamena, most of the people are fully clothed, a lot b/c of the missionaries as I was told. Almost every papuan there, including the ones I would later meet on my trek are Christians (protestants they would tell me, though they never knew if they were presbyterian or babtist or whatever). The missionaries were mainly from holland, canada, and the us. From the market we took an impossibly overcrowded bemo to as far as the road went to the south which was near the village of Kilima. From here we got out and began the hiking. Crossed over a huge alluvial fan from a flood that had taken out the road as the road used to go about a mile further. Had to cross a very muddy river here which we were able to do without getting too wet as there were some logs thrown across it. Once in kurima I gave the heavily armed military (all the ak 47's they were toting were quite funny as the local papuan villagers used spears and bows and arrow still as their method of war) and the police my copies of the surat jalan. We walked for a bit along the Baliem river, which was an awesome river in force and power. It was quite wide but had huge rapids for as far as I walked along it, which during my whole trip was quite far. So that was pretty impressive. And we're talking big rapids on a big river. Class V's for sure. Reminded me of that one rapid on the Colorado that you bike by under the overpass of the highway when on the Glenwood Canyon bike path during the end of may when the river is going full blast. But the difference here was instead of that one rapid, it was that same rapid for miles on end. It would be an intense raft ride for sure. I mean there was just no calm water along the whole river. We eventually went straight up going through several villages and their "gardens" as they call them, which are little plots for growing things that are enclosed by rocks they have pulled out of the fields that serve as protection from the pigs as well. In the villages, it's quite cool b/c they have a crazy tangle of paths made by the rocks walls and some of them have little tunnels built in for the pigs to pass through. I really liked the villages. They are just made up by tiny (you have to squat down to go through the door)a little round huts with grass roofs and a couple rectangular huts which are the cooking huts. I really found the villages to be quite cute. Like something you imagine from the hobbit or some other fairytale land in the mountains. The villages were fun to go through b/c all the people were so friendly and would give huge genuine smiles and come over to shake your hands in a long, long handshake. They give each other long handshakes and will just hold the hands or arms for most of the conversation or even the waste. Men will be holding mens hands and women holding women's hands as they walk along. And as far as I can tell they would go over to shake everyone's hand and say welcome, not matter if they knew each other or not. On the passes or major foot byways it was long lines of people shaking hands as they passed by each other. Even the kids would come up to me to shake my hand, except for the really young ones, which kipenus said hadn't seen white people before and they would cry quite loudly. I just got the impression of such a friendly, welcoming, and loving culture. In the villages the people in their about 30's and younger would wear t-shirts and shorts (though still decked out in their normal jewelry and accessories) and the older people just chilling in their penis gourds and grass skirts. The older women were also missing fingers and I learned that before the missionaries came, they used to have a practice where when someone died, the women would cut off a finger at the 2nd knuckle and the men would cut their hair. (hmm...who gets the short end of the stick there?) The hiking was quite spectacular as well b/c the landscape was extraordinary and you had great views. You could see down to the valley and down the canyon to the rivers, and across to other villages and big mountains. I particularly loved this trek b/c of the great views. I realized I am truly a child of big sky country (I realize I'm not from montana, but all the west could have been given that similar nickname), and I love views and open space. The treks in the dense jungle cannot compare b/c you're lucky to see more than 10 meters in front of you and it can feel quite claustrophic and when you're moving at a good pace, it all seems to look the same (green, big trees, more green). Whereas here you could really see the landscape. The canyon was quite steep and I was impressed at how the villages hung to the sides and that they could even grow stuff in their gardens there.
We arrived in Kilise where I had some nice warm tea and then the rains came. That was something else I loved about here. It was higher up (wamena is at 5000ft and the villages I visited still higher) so it was cool and the weather was great. It was the season of the start of the wet season, so I was prepared for lots of rain (sumatra when I visited before the start of the wet season that apparently came early rained hard nearly all day everyday), but here it was clear til about 1, then you'd get an occasional drizzle after 1 that wouldn't get you wet, but then sometime around 4 to 6 it would start raining harder and then rain all night. So I never got rained on, and it's rather nice to sit in a little hut by the fire, drinking tea, and reading and listening to the cold rain. That first night, the chief invited me in to eat with them. They were having their typical sweet potatoes and sweet potato leaves, but then something a bit special which was sweet potato leaves soaked in this red fruit. It was delicious! Tasted a lot like artichoke hearts, except not quite as strong. But the entire diet here for 3 meals a day is just sweet potatoes and sweet potato leaves. On very rare occasions they have pig and some seasons they'll get some carrots and maize and cabbage, but that's it. A few fruits can be picked around such as bananas, passion fruit, and some unknown ones to me. In Kelise I slept in a little hut on the floor on some grass and a little mat they had for me. I quite liked the set up there. Sadly (to me), the chief was telling me quite proudly that they were going to build a place for tourists to stay that had an aluminum roof and beds that year. This is one of the main reasons I wanted to make sure I got to the baliem valley this trip b/c it's one of those places that as it become more and more known it becomes more and more touristy and less and less authentic. Just like how in thailand the hill tribe villages you can visit have motorbike access, satelite tv's, cell phones, etc. These people, though, are very much still living their traditional ways. Other than the younger people wearing t-shirts, there wasn't much difference. You'd be surprised how nice and soft the grass is. That night told me that the village we were staying with had had someone die so they would be doing one of their traditional festivities the next day. If we wanted to stay there one more day and join in and watch the festival we could and I would just have to give a donation. This was quite lucky for me b/c in the july-august tourist season, they will do these same things for the tourists, but for a nice fee of 300 bucks, which does also include a pig roast (they would not be roasting a pig here b/c they don't have many pigs as they're quite expensive and they save them for the tourist season).
So we decided to stay of course. During the day, everyone is in traditional garb. Women wearing only grass skirts and their woven bags on their heads and maybe some makeup. The men just wearing penis guords and often cassowary feathers on their heads and some wearing bones through their noses. The first thing they do is a mock tribal war out away from the village and then do a whole lot of dancing and singing and then walking to the village (I guess recounting the deceased man's life). They then start a fire using some mechanism they have build that's like rubbing sticks together (no lighters here). They build a huge huge bonfire and pile stones on top of if and then put wet grass on it to cover the stones and keep away big flames. This heats the stones up. While the fire is burning the women go out and pick sweet potatoes that they put in their colorful woven sacks and the men go and cut leaves and grasses. Nearby they dig this big pit and after all the wood has burned, they put stones on it using a big wooden tool that's like chopstix, but just one stick with two ends. They were quite impressed that I could carry a big rock without dropping it and clapped and smiled with glee. Then different grasses and leaves. Then sweet potatoes by the load, then more grasses, then more stones, then some sweet potato leaves, and then just keep repeating this process until they have a huge pile that they wrap in banana leaves and tie off with some bark. They let this cook for a while, then at some point they went back to the big pile and pulled away all the leaves and stones. We just sat down amongst all the leaves and feasted on the potatoes that were everywhere and the potato leaves. Everyone in the whole village was there just sitting on the leaves and picking at the food. Quite cool to see. And there were lots of babies and children being breastfed. It appears they breastfeed kids until at least 5. I asked Kipenus about the fake tribal war and how often they still have them. He said they have them much less since the tourists have started coming b/c it's more important to get money from tourists (who don't seem to visit warring tribes for some reason =) but still will have them frequently. The tribes go to war for things like stolen land, stolen grass for huts, stolen wives (the men can have as many wives as they can afford, much to the chagrin of the missionaries), etc. It's something you definitely check on the internet to make sure the tribes aren't warring before you go. The wars themselves are quite interesting b/c people actually rarely die and they fight using spears and very basic bow and arrows. That night, I joined the chief again and he made me two anklets. He loved my headlamp and wished to trade a penis gourd for it, but I told him, through my guide, that I needed a good headlamp for the rest of my trip, so I couldn't part with it. They tend to just do everything before dark and sit by the fire at nights. Back in wamena I had gone to a curio shop just to see the wares. Of course you can buy penis gourds. Each tribe has a different size from skinny to thick and short to long and straight to curved. I asked the person running the shop which was most popular. The answer: the long thick ones. Figures.
The next day we left kilise and continued for a bit along the same canyon with amazing views of course. Kipenus was busy showing me all the amazing ways they use the plants in the area. My favorite was a thing that looked a bit like a pea pod, but with a lot of fuzz. They use it to brush their teeth after a meal and at the end is a little hook that they floss with. Most indonesians in their older years are lucky to have teeth and if they do they are quite nasty, but I noticed the papuans had quite nice teeth (though stained red from all the betel chewing), so this thing must be pretty good. There was also a leaf that when heated and then put on the skin was like a band-aid, except that it stayed on much better and kept the dirt out much better as I made sure to try it on a cut I had. There were many many other things though. We eventually went down the steep canyon walls to walk along the baliem river again before crossing what they call a hanging bridge. Your typical hidden tribe indiana jones type bridge that you think of being in nepal or the peruvian andes. You definitely went slow over it and made sure to hold on b/c it wasn't the most stable thing, had broken boards at your feet, and the might, mighy baliem river with a definite class V rapid right below you was splashing up from below. There's actually a memorial at a different hanging bridge where a japanese tourist and his guide fell and drowned. After following the baliem river for a bit we turned to follow a smaller, but equally rushing tributary of the river. This water was clear instead of muddy, but still crazy. This led us to a village called sykosima where we rested and had some tea. From here we climbed steeply up this new canyon. We had to cross the river a couple times on trees thrown across the river as the bridges had been washed away. We then went up quite high with more great views everywhere including one of a large waterfall across the valley. I was really loving this trek. It felt much more wild, like the wild west. In most places in asia (not including my crazy 7 day rainforest trek in taman negara), everything seems so tamed and controlled. And you don't quite feel like you're out in the middle of the wilderness or some wild area like you do in the middle of the rockies or sawtooths or cascades or arizonan desert. But here it felt much more like that. 312 handshakes later, we arrived at hitugi. This village was a bit more developed in that it had a school with an aluminum roof (all carried in) and a church, but still the traditional houses. There was a little waterfall where took my shower and once in the shower found that a whole lot of people in the village had come over to watch the white guy shower. That afternoon the rain never came until well past dark, so I played catch with a couple kids from the village. Hadn't played catch in a long time. We of course used an un-ripe lime as a ball and our hats as mits. The kids loved it and I think found it quite amazing. I thought about teaching them a bit of baseball, but then wondered how the limes would hold up to a wooden stick. No so much myself, but I was imagining the jovial bison smashing the limes with a thunderous swing just like old robert redford in the natural.
The next morning we left hitugi early as I had a plane to catch at 1pm and was a bit nervous we'd make it in time, and I really needed to make it as I had a flight the next day to jakarta and then on to singapore as my visa was going to expire and my book says that in indonesia for an expired visa you can have consequences of anywhere from a small fine to a big one to 5 years in a lovely indonesian jail. I had allowed plenty of time between all flight connections knowing how timely indonesian transport tends to be. So we hiked a while along a ridge on the canyon wall with more and more stunning views before descending down to the river and crossing another hanging bridge. As we got closer to the road there were hundreds of papuans carrying nicely cut logs on their heads. They were carrying it to some distant village to build a school or church or something. Made it back to wamena by 12, plenty of time to catch my 1 o'clock plane that left at 3:30. Security in most indonesian airports is quite hilarious, as in quite weak. Here it was even more so (not that you really need that much security in a place where the airlines are run by missionaries and the longest flight is 45 minutes). They actually have an x-ray machine for your bags here (perhaps to make the tourists feel comfortable), but of course the worker running it was sleeping, so you just go around. There's also a x-ray machine for your person. Where you empty your pockets and go through. For me that just meant putting my ipod bag and camera case around and going through. For the papuan behind me it meant putting his spear and arrows around and then walking through (at least a pat-down for him would have been unnecessary as all he was wearing was his gourd). There was also a sign that said passengers only in the waiting area. My guide gave the policeman there a cigarette and then joined me. The nice thing here is that if you have a flight that truly leaves at 1pm, you can show up at 12:55 b/c you just dance through security, walk onto the tarmac carrying all your luggage and load it onto the plane yourself before climbing on. Of course, the time consuming part is all the long handshakes for the villagers who have jumped the small ditch separating wamena from the runway and come to say goodbye.
As I still had some daylight time when I got to sentani; and the hotel is a 2 minute walk from the airport there as well, I hired an ojek to take me to the top of one of the mountains there to tugu macarthur (a monument for general macarthur). It was on this mountain with a fantastic view of the huge and island studded Lake sentani that macarthur apparently devised his winning strategy to capture the philippines from Japan. He had a large base here and the indonesians apparently took the hint and have built a massive army base there. Had to give up my passport and sign in and all that and the drive through was a bit nerve wracking with so many guys toting big machine guns and me the very much american riding through. But most returned my smiles and waves. When we got to the monument, the fence around it was locked. I thought about climbing it and started too, but heard gunshots in the distance and I scared myself out of doing that. But shortly after some very friendly bankers from jakarta on business came up and they sneaked through a hole, so I did as well. Eventually lots of people came up and they opened the monument during sunset. Apparently the moto driver had gotten tired of waiting for me even though I hadn't paid him yet and had tried to illustrate in a drawing of a setting sun that I wanted him to wait until the sun set. But oh well, I caught a ride down with some teenagers coming back down. Back at the base of the hill I waited for my moto biker to come back so I could pay him the one way fare. You get cheated so much in this country that I try and show by example, how at least I think it should be done, instead of walking away with the owed money. One of the other ojek drivers was so impressed that he really wanted to take me all around the city for free. He was so happy to see me and must have told me a hundred times that he is indonesian and he is muslim but he hates terrorists and he loves america and thinks we should be best friends. So I let him take me to the market to get some water and to a local place for my last nasi campur. He was a very nice guy.
The next morning I got up at 4am to check in to my flight, that of course didn't leave until 8. It was a long day of flying. Going from sentani to sorong (still papua) to ambon (malukas) to makassar (sulawesi) to jakarta (java). My favorite was the loading at sorong, which was still part of papua. Anyone at the next airport would hear that the plane was delayed here not to weather or technical problems or fueling issues but to hand shaking. The papuans coming on the plane shook the hand of every other person on the plane as they made their way up the aisle, and in course in a briefer version of their normal handshake, but still quite long. I really loved how into warm welcomes and hellos the papuans were. Had to hang out in the jakarta airport for a long time as i had picked a plane that left at 10pm (in case my other flight was really delayed), but was still 2 hours before my visa expired. Arrived in singapore about 2am. Oh singapore! You really can have no idea what it's like to arrive into the singapore airport after beining in indonesia for the past 2 months and 3 of the past 3 and half months and papua the last week. Indonesia, the perhaps least developed country in asia to singapore, one of the fanciest cities and countries in the world. All of a sudden you could drink water from the tap, everything was bright and shiny. The airport has a swimming pool, free internet terminals (not just wifi but actual computers). As I was through customs by 3am, I decided to sleep and wait until the rest of the world woke up before going to the Carlisles. They have these special reclining benches and chairs just for such things at the airport here and it may have been the most comfortable bed I had had in 2 months (aside for being on the cheng ho). That tells you about singapore.
Of course the carlisles in all their generosity would not have me do the subway and bus routine to get to their house I had planned and instead got me a taxi. I showed up just in time to hug the girls goodbye to school and to have some big tasty waffles from Vivian and fresh milk. And thus ended my indonesian chapter of my trip.
On the 16th of Oct. flew from Ambon Island in the Molukus (spice island area)to Jayapura (though the airport is actually in Sentani) via Sorong. The flight was a bit late (of course, i think indonesia would implode if any of there transport was ever on time), so I missed the last flight flying to Wamena. So spent the night in Sentani, which was ok b/c it was much more difficult to obtain my surat jalan (travel permit for areas outside of the cities in papua)than expected. I had read that you could just get it at the police station at the airport. But that was not the case, at least not today. Probably depends on who's there, how much money you're offering them, etc. I wanted to be on the first flight out--as I was on a bit of a time crunch before my visa ran out and I had heard it could be difficult to arrange a trek once in wamena and so I wanted a full day--so it was important for me to get the surat jalan that day. Hired a motor mike to take me to the police station that's a bit out of town. It was 8pm by this time and most of the police station was closed. The driver took me to several locked doors, then a policeman took me around and we finally found some guy playing video games in an office. Via a random bystanding translator, he said to come back tomorrow, but I said that it would not be open in time to get the early flights to wamena and asked if he could just do it there. He said yea, maybe. I was fully inclined to give a bribe if necessary. Eventually he called some guy that knew good english and he told me to wait an hour. So I did. Some random guy showed up, took my passport copies and passport photos, pasted them to a sheet of paper and said I was good to go. So the next day I showed up at 4:30 am when the ticket office opened to buy my ticket for the 6 am flight, which of course ended up leaving after 9...haha. Checking into the airport was a mess! It was basically a free for all to get checked in. And people were carrying bags and bags of stuff b/c wamena is only accessed by plane, so everything must be flown in. But finally got physical enough to get my bag checked in and to make it to the plane.
Stepped out of the plane into a beautiful green valley with steep green mountains all around. The town is Wamena, and the area is known as the Baliem Valley. According to my guidebook the Baliem Valley was discovered in 1945 when a plane crashed into the valley and the survivors were rescued. It apparently came as one of the last and greatest surprises to a world that had mapped, studied, and explored its remotest corners. Of course missionaries (dutch) were soon dispatched by 1954. Walked from the landing strip about 100 meters to my guesthouse. It was the most expensive place I had stayed yet at $16.50 with breakfast, but I had expected this as every single thing is flown into the Wamena. And wamena looks just like a normal town: banks, cars, trucks, busses, shops, big churches, etc. All amazingly flown in on huge military planes. The plane I flew in on would normally have about 30 rows of seats, but it only had 10 as the rest of the plane was stripped out for cargo. As an example of prices, mie goreng here cost $2.50 (most other places it's 0.50), a liter of water was 3.00 (and I usually get it for 0.20 to .50).
A guide soon found me and we walked around town a bit doing some of the necessary errands such as checking into the police station with my surat jalan. I really liked wamena and found it, I don't know, almost surreal or from a movie set. Set in this huge flat valley with beautiful mountains all around. And then it has this frontier town type feel and even more-so it was exactly how I have always imagined a say, african missionary station in the early to mid 1900's. Like Isaak Dinesen's Africa (Out of Africa) or any that you see in the movies. With lots of tiny planes flying in and out (the two main airlines flying here were missionary airlines and missionary air fellowship), beautiful churches, and a real slow feel to it. Also reminded me a lot of the Poisonwood Bible that we had to read as incoming freshman to ACI. The Papuans are the farthest things from Asians. Don't look like asians at all. Definitely a much more African look or probably like native australians. But they're still kind of short and very stout in stature. They have a real reggae type vibe too with lots and lots of bright colors, bob marley type hats, and dreds and cornrows. Their look reminds me a lot of Ernest Renfroe...or for those not learned in 1990's university of colorado backup forwards, they looked similar to Lebron James, except half the height. All the papuans were barefoot and only the indonesians wore shoes. One thing I learned really quick (and I made sure to learn it by asking), is not to call the Papuans Indonesians. They clearly wanted to be separated. The Indonesian Province is actually called Irian Jaya (and that's how it would be on modern maps), but to the people who live there it's called papua. It's also sometimes known as west papua. Papua is another classic example of how european colonialism screwed up local populations and has continued to cause problems (mostly known in Africa...i.e. rawanda, uganda, kenya, zaire, zimbabwe, etc). The island of papua is made up of Papua New Guinea (it's own country) on the east and Irian Jaya owned by indonesia on the west. The people in Irian Jaya are obviously much more related in customs, beliefs, etc to the people of PNG than to indonesians. Irian Jaya should really be part of PNG (if anything at all) than indonesia. And actually this is a huge problem all over indonesia, though much more pronounced here. See the dutch used to control Indonesia (known as the dutch east indies) which was very prosperous for them b/c of all of indonesia's natural resources and slave labor. And especially the spice isles b/c there was a time when some of the major spices such as nutmeg were ONLY available on the tiny banda islands of the molukus. Of course when indonesia was given independence, it was kept all together in one big country. But all the islands are decidedly different in people, culture, beliefs, and often religion. And in fact, almost all of the islands want, and have fought for it at some time, independence from Java and Jakarta. The problem is, a place like sumatra (all the sumatrans despised the javans) is so so rich in oil, timber, and now oil palms, that jakarta would never give them freedom (I read that 60% of indonesians GNP comes from sumatra). The same is true for Kalimantan (where the people are more like the rest of the borneans) which has loads of resources in its rainforests and mines and off shore oil. Bali, another one which is completely different, especially with its hindu culture, is too valuable in tourism, not only for money, but for the name. The newest country in the world, East Timor, which used to be part of Nusa Tengerra, Indonesia finally fought and gained independence. This, of course, caused massive violence throughout indonesia as other provinces thought they could get the same fate. And this is a major reason why you (or lots of people back home in america) think Indonesia is so dangerous b/c of all the fighting for independence. The island, ambon, where my boat arrived in, was closed to tourists the whole of the 90's b/c of a huge independence struggle. Well, just like those other places, Papua is too valuable with its resources to give up. There was a big memorial in Sentani to all the Papuan freedom fighters who died in their latest war in the late 90's. And to me, the Papuans stand out even more than the rest of the places I visited from the Javan indonesians. It's so obvious they're not like indonesians at all. And in order to make sure places like papua can't get independence, jakarta has initiated a thing called transmigrasi where they are shipping javans (the most populated island) to these other places and giving them land or tax breaks or something for doing that. So in a place like Papua that makes up 22% of indo's territory, but only has 1% of its population, this is a big deal. And its very noticeable. The big cities on the coast had a fair amount of indonesians, and in wamena where it was mainly papuans, the indonesians had the better jobs like police, travel agents, bankers. And b/c of this there is definitely a lot of descrimination towards the native papuans which is quite sad. And of course there is a huge military presence and from what I've heard the army had no problem firing at papuans for the smallest thing. And to make things worse for poor papua, there are also foreign interests which are not so good for it. There's a US-based mining company, called Freeport, which has the 3rd largest copper mine in the world and the largest gold mine in the world in papua. This has caused thousands of papuans to be displaced (which is quite bad b/c in a place were tribal wars are still quite common, it's not easy to just pick up a move to a new place or enemy territory, so they are forced to the cities where they just become beggers usually b/c they aren't educated and often don't even know indonesian langauge) and many thousands more to be sick from mine tailings. Of course it's mostly indonesians employed there and according to what i've read, over a 10 year period the mines contributed us$40 billion to the jakarta economy as the mines make a PROFIT or US $1 million per day! Although it's no excuse for violence, this likely explains why 2 american teachers and 1 indonesian teacher were murdered in the town where the gold mine is recently after they decided to expand the mining operation and displace more people.
well, anyways, back to the blog. So the guide who was accompanying me around, Silas, and I walked a bit through the town. I was looking to do a 4day 3 night trek. I wanted to know what this guide had for plan and cost and such but he said he'd tell me tonight. I was looking for some other tourists to share the guide with, but there weren't really any at all as this was a very low season. Almost all their tourists come in july and august. Did find two italian guys, but their english wasn't the best and from what I understood from them, they had been here before and were just going to be doing day hikes by themselves. They did invite me a long to go for a few hours by car to a traditional village nearby called jawika. So I did that. Later that afternoon, silas finally told me his plan and cost. A whopping 750 dollars! for 4 days. Seemed quite rediculous to me considering that was about 1/2 the price I just paid for 12 days on a luxury sail boat with 4 dives a day, gourmet food, a long transfer, etc. So I told him no, but he said I wouldn't find anywhere cheaper and that it's just expensive here, but he would give it to me for 5 hundred. Still too much for me. I mean where could all the cost be going. I'd be staying in local huts, carrying my own stuff, so I didn't need a personal porter, and eating mostly local food with some cheap rice and noodles. So I went out looking for someone else. Someone told me the guy running the computer place, Mr. Fuji (a japanese expat), knew about prices and guides. I loved Mr. Fuji. He was quite funny and very nice and helped to hook me up with a guide named Kipenus who I was able to arrange a 4 day trek for 200 hundred, which I was definitely okay with. That night I felt a bit sick and got a little sharp stomach pain in my abdomen and a bit of numbness in my left leg and was feeling a bit lightheaded, so I was very worried it was the episode from the boat recurring. But after I lied down, drank lots of water, and fell asleep, I was ok.
The next morning, Kipenus, his son Kipe (who carried some of the food and was the cook), and some girl who was the daughter of Kipenus'friend and had never been to where we were going so wanted to come, and I set out to the market to buy some food. The market was very colorful and full of lots of people from the different tribes selling their vegetables. And at the market, same as in the town of wamena it was often quite funny to see the older men or older women just hanging around in their traditional garb. For the women, that's just a woven skirt and nothing else. For the men it's just a penis gourd and nothing else. In the town of wamena, most of the people are fully clothed, a lot b/c of the missionaries as I was told. Almost every papuan there, including the ones I would later meet on my trek are Christians (protestants they would tell me, though they never knew if they were presbyterian or babtist or whatever). The missionaries were mainly from holland, canada, and the us. From the market we took an impossibly overcrowded bemo to as far as the road went to the south which was near the village of Kilima. From here we got out and began the hiking. Crossed over a huge alluvial fan from a flood that had taken out the road as the road used to go about a mile further. Had to cross a very muddy river here which we were able to do without getting too wet as there were some logs thrown across it. Once in kurima I gave the heavily armed military (all the ak 47's they were toting were quite funny as the local papuan villagers used spears and bows and arrow still as their method of war) and the police my copies of the surat jalan. We walked for a bit along the Baliem river, which was an awesome river in force and power. It was quite wide but had huge rapids for as far as I walked along it, which during my whole trip was quite far. So that was pretty impressive. And we're talking big rapids on a big river. Class V's for sure. Reminded me of that one rapid on the Colorado that you bike by under the overpass of the highway when on the Glenwood Canyon bike path during the end of may when the river is going full blast. But the difference here was instead of that one rapid, it was that same rapid for miles on end. It would be an intense raft ride for sure. I mean there was just no calm water along the whole river. We eventually went straight up going through several villages and their "gardens" as they call them, which are little plots for growing things that are enclosed by rocks they have pulled out of the fields that serve as protection from the pigs as well. In the villages, it's quite cool b/c they have a crazy tangle of paths made by the rocks walls and some of them have little tunnels built in for the pigs to pass through. I really liked the villages. They are just made up by tiny (you have to squat down to go through the door)a little round huts with grass roofs and a couple rectangular huts which are the cooking huts. I really found the villages to be quite cute. Like something you imagine from the hobbit or some other fairytale land in the mountains. The villages were fun to go through b/c all the people were so friendly and would give huge genuine smiles and come over to shake your hands in a long, long handshake. They give each other long handshakes and will just hold the hands or arms for most of the conversation or even the waste. Men will be holding mens hands and women holding women's hands as they walk along. And as far as I can tell they would go over to shake everyone's hand and say welcome, not matter if they knew each other or not. On the passes or major foot byways it was long lines of people shaking hands as they passed by each other. Even the kids would come up to me to shake my hand, except for the really young ones, which kipenus said hadn't seen white people before and they would cry quite loudly. I just got the impression of such a friendly, welcoming, and loving culture. In the villages the people in their about 30's and younger would wear t-shirts and shorts (though still decked out in their normal jewelry and accessories) and the older people just chilling in their penis gourds and grass skirts. The older women were also missing fingers and I learned that before the missionaries came, they used to have a practice where when someone died, the women would cut off a finger at the 2nd knuckle and the men would cut their hair. (hmm...who gets the short end of the stick there?) The hiking was quite spectacular as well b/c the landscape was extraordinary and you had great views. You could see down to the valley and down the canyon to the rivers, and across to other villages and big mountains. I particularly loved this trek b/c of the great views. I realized I am truly a child of big sky country (I realize I'm not from montana, but all the west could have been given that similar nickname), and I love views and open space. The treks in the dense jungle cannot compare b/c you're lucky to see more than 10 meters in front of you and it can feel quite claustrophic and when you're moving at a good pace, it all seems to look the same (green, big trees, more green). Whereas here you could really see the landscape. The canyon was quite steep and I was impressed at how the villages hung to the sides and that they could even grow stuff in their gardens there.
We arrived in Kilise where I had some nice warm tea and then the rains came. That was something else I loved about here. It was higher up (wamena is at 5000ft and the villages I visited still higher) so it was cool and the weather was great. It was the season of the start of the wet season, so I was prepared for lots of rain (sumatra when I visited before the start of the wet season that apparently came early rained hard nearly all day everyday), but here it was clear til about 1, then you'd get an occasional drizzle after 1 that wouldn't get you wet, but then sometime around 4 to 6 it would start raining harder and then rain all night. So I never got rained on, and it's rather nice to sit in a little hut by the fire, drinking tea, and reading and listening to the cold rain. That first night, the chief invited me in to eat with them. They were having their typical sweet potatoes and sweet potato leaves, but then something a bit special which was sweet potato leaves soaked in this red fruit. It was delicious! Tasted a lot like artichoke hearts, except not quite as strong. But the entire diet here for 3 meals a day is just sweet potatoes and sweet potato leaves. On very rare occasions they have pig and some seasons they'll get some carrots and maize and cabbage, but that's it. A few fruits can be picked around such as bananas, passion fruit, and some unknown ones to me. In Kelise I slept in a little hut on the floor on some grass and a little mat they had for me. I quite liked the set up there. Sadly (to me), the chief was telling me quite proudly that they were going to build a place for tourists to stay that had an aluminum roof and beds that year. This is one of the main reasons I wanted to make sure I got to the baliem valley this trip b/c it's one of those places that as it become more and more known it becomes more and more touristy and less and less authentic. Just like how in thailand the hill tribe villages you can visit have motorbike access, satelite tv's, cell phones, etc. These people, though, are very much still living their traditional ways. Other than the younger people wearing t-shirts, there wasn't much difference. You'd be surprised how nice and soft the grass is. That night told me that the village we were staying with had had someone die so they would be doing one of their traditional festivities the next day. If we wanted to stay there one more day and join in and watch the festival we could and I would just have to give a donation. This was quite lucky for me b/c in the july-august tourist season, they will do these same things for the tourists, but for a nice fee of 300 bucks, which does also include a pig roast (they would not be roasting a pig here b/c they don't have many pigs as they're quite expensive and they save them for the tourist season).
So we decided to stay of course. During the day, everyone is in traditional garb. Women wearing only grass skirts and their woven bags on their heads and maybe some makeup. The men just wearing penis guords and often cassowary feathers on their heads and some wearing bones through their noses. The first thing they do is a mock tribal war out away from the village and then do a whole lot of dancing and singing and then walking to the village (I guess recounting the deceased man's life). They then start a fire using some mechanism they have build that's like rubbing sticks together (no lighters here). They build a huge huge bonfire and pile stones on top of if and then put wet grass on it to cover the stones and keep away big flames. This heats the stones up. While the fire is burning the women go out and pick sweet potatoes that they put in their colorful woven sacks and the men go and cut leaves and grasses. Nearby they dig this big pit and after all the wood has burned, they put stones on it using a big wooden tool that's like chopstix, but just one stick with two ends. They were quite impressed that I could carry a big rock without dropping it and clapped and smiled with glee. Then different grasses and leaves. Then sweet potatoes by the load, then more grasses, then more stones, then some sweet potato leaves, and then just keep repeating this process until they have a huge pile that they wrap in banana leaves and tie off with some bark. They let this cook for a while, then at some point they went back to the big pile and pulled away all the leaves and stones. We just sat down amongst all the leaves and feasted on the potatoes that were everywhere and the potato leaves. Everyone in the whole village was there just sitting on the leaves and picking at the food. Quite cool to see. And there were lots of babies and children being breastfed. It appears they breastfeed kids until at least 5. I asked Kipenus about the fake tribal war and how often they still have them. He said they have them much less since the tourists have started coming b/c it's more important to get money from tourists (who don't seem to visit warring tribes for some reason =) but still will have them frequently. The tribes go to war for things like stolen land, stolen grass for huts, stolen wives (the men can have as many wives as they can afford, much to the chagrin of the missionaries), etc. It's something you definitely check on the internet to make sure the tribes aren't warring before you go. The wars themselves are quite interesting b/c people actually rarely die and they fight using spears and very basic bow and arrows. That night, I joined the chief again and he made me two anklets. He loved my headlamp and wished to trade a penis gourd for it, but I told him, through my guide, that I needed a good headlamp for the rest of my trip, so I couldn't part with it. They tend to just do everything before dark and sit by the fire at nights. Back in wamena I had gone to a curio shop just to see the wares. Of course you can buy penis gourds. Each tribe has a different size from skinny to thick and short to long and straight to curved. I asked the person running the shop which was most popular. The answer: the long thick ones. Figures.
The next day we left kilise and continued for a bit along the same canyon with amazing views of course. Kipenus was busy showing me all the amazing ways they use the plants in the area. My favorite was a thing that looked a bit like a pea pod, but with a lot of fuzz. They use it to brush their teeth after a meal and at the end is a little hook that they floss with. Most indonesians in their older years are lucky to have teeth and if they do they are quite nasty, but I noticed the papuans had quite nice teeth (though stained red from all the betel chewing), so this thing must be pretty good. There was also a leaf that when heated and then put on the skin was like a band-aid, except that it stayed on much better and kept the dirt out much better as I made sure to try it on a cut I had. There were many many other things though. We eventually went down the steep canyon walls to walk along the baliem river again before crossing what they call a hanging bridge. Your typical hidden tribe indiana jones type bridge that you think of being in nepal or the peruvian andes. You definitely went slow over it and made sure to hold on b/c it wasn't the most stable thing, had broken boards at your feet, and the might, mighy baliem river with a definite class V rapid right below you was splashing up from below. There's actually a memorial at a different hanging bridge where a japanese tourist and his guide fell and drowned. After following the baliem river for a bit we turned to follow a smaller, but equally rushing tributary of the river. This water was clear instead of muddy, but still crazy. This led us to a village called sykosima where we rested and had some tea. From here we climbed steeply up this new canyon. We had to cross the river a couple times on trees thrown across the river as the bridges had been washed away. We then went up quite high with more great views everywhere including one of a large waterfall across the valley. I was really loving this trek. It felt much more wild, like the wild west. In most places in asia (not including my crazy 7 day rainforest trek in taman negara), everything seems so tamed and controlled. And you don't quite feel like you're out in the middle of the wilderness or some wild area like you do in the middle of the rockies or sawtooths or cascades or arizonan desert. But here it felt much more like that. 312 handshakes later, we arrived at hitugi. This village was a bit more developed in that it had a school with an aluminum roof (all carried in) and a church, but still the traditional houses. There was a little waterfall where took my shower and once in the shower found that a whole lot of people in the village had come over to watch the white guy shower. That afternoon the rain never came until well past dark, so I played catch with a couple kids from the village. Hadn't played catch in a long time. We of course used an un-ripe lime as a ball and our hats as mits. The kids loved it and I think found it quite amazing. I thought about teaching them a bit of baseball, but then wondered how the limes would hold up to a wooden stick. No so much myself, but I was imagining the jovial bison smashing the limes with a thunderous swing just like old robert redford in the natural.
The next morning we left hitugi early as I had a plane to catch at 1pm and was a bit nervous we'd make it in time, and I really needed to make it as I had a flight the next day to jakarta and then on to singapore as my visa was going to expire and my book says that in indonesia for an expired visa you can have consequences of anywhere from a small fine to a big one to 5 years in a lovely indonesian jail. I had allowed plenty of time between all flight connections knowing how timely indonesian transport tends to be. So we hiked a while along a ridge on the canyon wall with more and more stunning views before descending down to the river and crossing another hanging bridge. As we got closer to the road there were hundreds of papuans carrying nicely cut logs on their heads. They were carrying it to some distant village to build a school or church or something. Made it back to wamena by 12, plenty of time to catch my 1 o'clock plane that left at 3:30. Security in most indonesian airports is quite hilarious, as in quite weak. Here it was even more so (not that you really need that much security in a place where the airlines are run by missionaries and the longest flight is 45 minutes). They actually have an x-ray machine for your bags here (perhaps to make the tourists feel comfortable), but of course the worker running it was sleeping, so you just go around. There's also a x-ray machine for your person. Where you empty your pockets and go through. For me that just meant putting my ipod bag and camera case around and going through. For the papuan behind me it meant putting his spear and arrows around and then walking through (at least a pat-down for him would have been unnecessary as all he was wearing was his gourd). There was also a sign that said passengers only in the waiting area. My guide gave the policeman there a cigarette and then joined me. The nice thing here is that if you have a flight that truly leaves at 1pm, you can show up at 12:55 b/c you just dance through security, walk onto the tarmac carrying all your luggage and load it onto the plane yourself before climbing on. Of course, the time consuming part is all the long handshakes for the villagers who have jumped the small ditch separating wamena from the runway and come to say goodbye.
As I still had some daylight time when I got to sentani; and the hotel is a 2 minute walk from the airport there as well, I hired an ojek to take me to the top of one of the mountains there to tugu macarthur (a monument for general macarthur). It was on this mountain with a fantastic view of the huge and island studded Lake sentani that macarthur apparently devised his winning strategy to capture the philippines from Japan. He had a large base here and the indonesians apparently took the hint and have built a massive army base there. Had to give up my passport and sign in and all that and the drive through was a bit nerve wracking with so many guys toting big machine guns and me the very much american riding through. But most returned my smiles and waves. When we got to the monument, the fence around it was locked. I thought about climbing it and started too, but heard gunshots in the distance and I scared myself out of doing that. But shortly after some very friendly bankers from jakarta on business came up and they sneaked through a hole, so I did as well. Eventually lots of people came up and they opened the monument during sunset. Apparently the moto driver had gotten tired of waiting for me even though I hadn't paid him yet and had tried to illustrate in a drawing of a setting sun that I wanted him to wait until the sun set. But oh well, I caught a ride down with some teenagers coming back down. Back at the base of the hill I waited for my moto biker to come back so I could pay him the one way fare. You get cheated so much in this country that I try and show by example, how at least I think it should be done, instead of walking away with the owed money. One of the other ojek drivers was so impressed that he really wanted to take me all around the city for free. He was so happy to see me and must have told me a hundred times that he is indonesian and he is muslim but he hates terrorists and he loves america and thinks we should be best friends. So I let him take me to the market to get some water and to a local place for my last nasi campur. He was a very nice guy.
The next morning I got up at 4am to check in to my flight, that of course didn't leave until 8. It was a long day of flying. Going from sentani to sorong (still papua) to ambon (malukas) to makassar (sulawesi) to jakarta (java). My favorite was the loading at sorong, which was still part of papua. Anyone at the next airport would hear that the plane was delayed here not to weather or technical problems or fueling issues but to hand shaking. The papuans coming on the plane shook the hand of every other person on the plane as they made their way up the aisle, and in course in a briefer version of their normal handshake, but still quite long. I really loved how into warm welcomes and hellos the papuans were. Had to hang out in the jakarta airport for a long time as i had picked a plane that left at 10pm (in case my other flight was really delayed), but was still 2 hours before my visa expired. Arrived in singapore about 2am. Oh singapore! You really can have no idea what it's like to arrive into the singapore airport after beining in indonesia for the past 2 months and 3 of the past 3 and half months and papua the last week. Indonesia, the perhaps least developed country in asia to singapore, one of the fanciest cities and countries in the world. All of a sudden you could drink water from the tap, everything was bright and shiny. The airport has a swimming pool, free internet terminals (not just wifi but actual computers). As I was through customs by 3am, I decided to sleep and wait until the rest of the world woke up before going to the Carlisles. They have these special reclining benches and chairs just for such things at the airport here and it may have been the most comfortable bed I had had in 2 months (aside for being on the cheng ho). That tells you about singapore.
Of course the carlisles in all their generosity would not have me do the subway and bus routine to get to their house I had planned and instead got me a taxi. I showed up just in time to hug the girls goodbye to school and to have some big tasty waffles from Vivian and fresh milk. And thus ended my indonesian chapter of my trip.
Saturday, October 24, 2009
some photos
Didn't have a chance to add to my blog in a while, so there are 3 new lengthy posts below and will hopefully have a better chance at keeping updated now that I am out of indonesia. Also adding some photos here. Someone back at home wanted to know what I was looking like these days, so they're all photos of me on my adventures in indo.
pictures top to bottom are as follows:
1. climbing the ropes to put up the sails on the cheng ho on my sail trip from flores to ambon
2. swimming with the most poisonous snake in the world off of gunung api island...the banda sea banded sea snake. But don't worry mom, their mouths are too small to bite human skin and they aren't aggressive anyways
3. the new chain smoking captain of the cheng ho
4. on top of Mt. Rinjani looking down at the crater lake
5-6. on the crater rim of gunung rinjani
7. sunset view from rinjani looking out towards bali
8. life on the gili islands
9. entrance to a balinese temple compound
10. jumping happy to be at bromo national park in java
11 and 12. in the underground mosque of yogyakarta located in the pleasure gardens of the sultan
13. my best hindu yoga pose on top of the very sacred mount merapi
14. on top of mt. merapi
15-17 Krakatau erupts!
pictures top to bottom are as follows:
1. climbing the ropes to put up the sails on the cheng ho on my sail trip from flores to ambon
2. swimming with the most poisonous snake in the world off of gunung api island...the banda sea banded sea snake. But don't worry mom, their mouths are too small to bite human skin and they aren't aggressive anyways
3. the new chain smoking captain of the cheng ho
4. on top of Mt. Rinjani looking down at the crater lake
5-6. on the crater rim of gunung rinjani
7. sunset view from rinjani looking out towards bali
8. life on the gili islands
9. entrance to a balinese temple compound
10. jumping happy to be at bromo national park in java
11 and 12. in the underground mosque of yogyakarta located in the pleasure gardens of the sultan
13. my best hindu yoga pose on top of the very sacred mount merapi
14. on top of mt. merapi
15-17 Krakatau erupts!
Island Hopping into the Lair of the Dragon
The next morning, Rudy, and I made our way to the office of the boat company that we were taking to get to Labuan Bajo flores. It’s a 4 day boat ride from Lombok to Flores via Sumbawa, Rinca, Komodo, and several other islands. The first part was a 3 hour bus ride to the other side of lombok where we used the road as our supermarket, stopping at at least five places along the way to purchase everything from fresh fruit to beer to water to live chickens. Once at the port, we boarded our little converted indonesian fishing boat and set off into the sun towards sumbawa. It was quite the interesting group on board. Rudy from holland, 3 brothers (Santiago, Mariano, and Miguel) from Argentina who now live in Spain, Gabbie from switzerland, Connie from Germany, Mark from France, the couple of Mark (britain) and Lena (sweden), Paul from France who now lives in Spain, Choon from Malaysia, Greg from Australia, and 2 gals with names too hard to try and spell from holland an another with the same problem from Denmark. And the tres hermanos from argentina also had a pet baby monkey, Kuchina, that they had picked up at a market in Jakarta. Kuchina was very cute and quite well behaved, though Connie (an older woman for the crowd) showed great disdain for kuchina especially when it would randomly poo or pee on the boat. The boat was far from a luxury cruise, but we had tons of fun and the food was terrific. The engine had no muffler, so it could be deafening at times and make it difficult to sleep when steaming at night and the quarters were cramped for sleeping: we all slept on the deck, but very tight so that if the boat rocked, one way I rolled onto the barrier and the other way onto rudy, and at night had kicking wars with paul, since the mattresses were laid out so that people who were 5 feet or less wouldn’t touch, which obviously not the case for us. The first night we threw out anchor off some small island (Gili Bola) off the shore of sumbawa. The next morning we started steaming early and made it to the island of Moyo where we did some nice snorkelling and had some fresh caught fish by some local fisherman cooked on the fire for us. We then hiked a bit into the interior where we came upon a nice freshwater waterfall and some swimming holes that were good to jump into from nearby trees. It would be are only freshwater showers for the whole trip, so we stayed there for quite a while. Back at the boat we sailed onto the next island (Satonda) where we did some more snorkelling and then hiked into its saltwater lake for a swim. That night was a bit of some rough sleeping as the boat sailed all night with some decent waves.
The next morning we woke up to a beautiful beach on Gili Laba Island where we swam and hung out on the beach and also built Kuchina the monkey a little sail raft, though it wasn’t really necessary b/c she enjoyed swimming or just riding on top of santiago‘s (mom to her) head. We then sailed to red beach on Komodo island for a snorkel, which was quite amazing. An unbelievable amount of fish. From there we went to the headquarters of komodo national park and went on a hike with a guide (and a long pronged stick) to find komodo dragons (the worlds biggest lizard and highly endangered as it’s only found on komodo, rinca, and a few on flores. On the hike we found 3 big guys (at least 7 feet long) lounging in the sun. On the hike we also came across a couple herds of timor deer and some wild boar. The landscape is quite interesting b/c it’s incredibly dry and brown and very rugged. A lot like a mountainous desert, though a cool looking species of palm tree was sprinkled about and the ocean surrounding it was an indescribable light turquoise color. And of course it was crazy hot. Boating through the area was breathtaking b/c there were so many of these rugged islands with gorgeous waters around them. That evening we went off to another island (Kalong Island) for some swimming and to watch the flying foxes leave the mangroves at dusk. We just chilled on the boat watching the sunset and drinking some beers. That night one of the dutch girls fainted, but lucky for her, santiago was a doctor and the danish girl and ER nurse. She probably fainted for several reasons: she was one of those girls that is constantly sitting in the hot sun all day trying to tan, but only drinking beers for hydration, so that mixed with our hot walk in the sun and the dutch girls‘ affinity for marijuana you can see why she fainted. Of course the next day, despite our warnings she would be back out there in the sun.
The 4th morning would prove to be a fateful one. We went early to Rinca to hike there and look for more dragons. Right off of the boat, there was a large gang of macaques and the tres hermanos had hoped that perhaps Kuchina would be invited in, but she hid in santiago’s hair as the other macaques screamed at her. Right away into our hike we saw 5 big dragons all sitting together. We continued on the walk up to a viewpoint overlooking the island and the bay, going by several more dragons and a water buffalo. Near the top of the ridge, the ranger went right past a dragon hiding in the shadows and tall grass that he did not see. Kuchina did not see it either b/c for all the other dragons, she had made this terrible cry we hadn’t heard before when she would see one, recognizing them as danger. Thinking she was in a safe area she ventured off of santiago’s shoulder...and then with lightning speed the dragon struck and had poor kuchina in its jaws. There was nothing we could do but had to listen to kuchina screaming, which didn’t last long b/c it just took a few seconds for the dragon to swallow her, except for the tail sticking out for a while. And after it was all over, the dragon just stood there licking its lips with its huge forked tongue. None of the girls could watch and they all had turned away crying as did the tres hermanos who had been raising the monkey for the past 3 months. Rudy, Paul the brit, and I did watch the whole thing with some curiosity, sad as it may be, b/c it was one of those national geographic type moments. The one who it didn’t bother was Choon as she stood there not too far away clicking away with her camera. She’s Chinese malay and as Paul would say several times afterwards (he had lived in china for several months), those chinese man, they can take anything, nothing bothers them, and they can be dang ruthless. Needless to say the rest of the walk back to the boat was quite somber and full of tears. Besides the owners, Connie took it the worst crying all the time past lunch, which was interesting b/c she had been the only one vocally upset the monkey was on the boat. But we were all sad for sure b/c the little baby kuchina had been so cute. She’d just come sit on your lap and snuggle and want to be groomed and look up at you with those intelligent eyes. Rudy tried to put a positive spin on it by saying that in the long run it may have been the best ending the monkey could have b/c it wouldn’t be allowed to spain and the brothers had hoped it would be accepted my some other monkey troupe, which certainly wasn’t going to happen, and indonesia really has no rehabilitation centers anyways, so the poor thing that was bought b/c it was in a cage too small in an illegal pet market didn’t have much of a future. Initially on the first day in Komodo, we had asked the ranger how dangerous they were, and he said there had only been one human death by them. However, we would later learn this was far from true, and in fact, later that night a villager on komodo would be killed by one. And we learned that just in the past 2 months a swiss woman had been killed as well as a kid from a local village and a ranger had been attacked but survived b/c he had been airlifted to denpasar where they have the needed antibiotics (the dragons kill their larger prey such as water buffalo, deer, and boar by biting them and then waiting for the animal to succumb to sepsis a few days later). So we had a bit of a cautious and relieved laugh about the fact that we had trusted these rangers, who only carried a stick for protection, to take us around on this hike when likely their only qualification for the job was that they spoke the best english of the villagers. But we all made it out safe. I told them how when I helped with mountain lion tracking in rocky, we were out with 3 experts in mountain lions as well as 2 rangers carrying big guns for an animal that per population is much less dangerous (there are only 2,000 dragons left in the world) which was quite a contrast to this thing with the semi english speaking local with his stick. And looking back, something that was fairly alarming was how the rangers would have people crouch down in a very vulnerable position just a few meters from the dragon so that they could take their picture with the dragon.
After Rinca we headed to Kelor Island with an absolutely gorgeous beach and blue lagoon for swimming. Late in the afternoon we headed towards our final destination of Labuan Bajo. There were beers to be finished so we had a merry ole time as we motored towards LB. As we entered the LB bay, it really looked like a pirate city. Just something about it. Houses built high up on the hills and lots of old indonesia style sailboats in the harbor. The town, in my opinion, would turn out to be on the same friendliness and welcoming level as a pirate town. We were all going to sleep on the boat that night, but we went together as a group looking for a room for the next night as that’s a way to score a really good deal. But we walked and walked to many many guesthouses b/c most were just unwilling to even show us a room (as Mark said, “oh, sorry to bother you and ask you to do your job“). And the ones that we did look at were the worst value for the money of any place I have been on my trip yet. They were asking like 20 to 30 bucks for a room that had the asian squat toilet, no shower just the bucket mandi shower with cold water needless to say, and crappy beds. This is quite outrageous. Just for some perspective in yogyakarta my nice room with western toilet, cold shower, and breakfast was 3 bucks, my room in kuta with big breakfast, swimming pool, western toilet and shower was 7 bucks. Most places you can get a room with aircon for about 10 bucks. Well there was one place that had rooms for 6 bucks that was basically a prison (no fan, no windows, is that really a bed?) where I thought I would be, but then Mark the frenchman found a place for 15 bucks and asked if I’d share, so I did that. That night we had a final farewell dinner party and then went out for some drinks before retiring back to our boat.
It was a great trip for sure, and I loved it. Nothing like island hopping through gorgeous indonesian islands, stopping to snorkel and visit empty beaches on deserted islands. A trip like this was one of the main things I wanted to do in indonesia, and it didn’t disappoint. Sunsets and sunrises were always amazing and we often had dolphins following the boat around. The food was great and the group was fun, and of course interesting. By the time it was over Miguel and the danish girl had hooked up, Greg and Connie had yelled fiercely at each other (they were the only two people not in their twenties or early thirties on the trip). And Greg could be quite offensive (though I don’t know if he knew it) with one example where he said french food was absolutely terribe, which everyone in there right mind knows is not true (hmm what is australian food anyways?), and everyone backed up the frenchies on the boat, including the brit, which is of course quite unusual, but tells you how far of that statement was. But I quite liked Mark and Lena and the other mark and of course Rudy and we had lots of good laughs together. Mark the frenchman made me want to be french b/c he said that the french get 5 weeks mandatory paid leave not to mention their normal holidays, plus sick leave as well, but once you’ve been working for a while you get more. He’d been working 6 years and had 9 weeks a year off!! Mark the brit was your stereo typical brit and I think he took pride in that. He was always cracking me up. He does all his work on the computer. He somehow does advertising on the internet and then gets comission or something, so he’s been travelling around the world for more than 2 years now just going on the internet from time to time. He says he’s not working on it too hard and mainly travelling, but he still makes more than he spends each month typically. Sounds great to me. Rudy works for the dutch equivalent of the Associated Press and had been sent to afghanistan for a couple weeks before this to write about the dutch camp there. He had been getting coffee at a machine there that the next day was blown up by a missile during the attack. I think he believed the dragons were childs play compared to some of the assignments he’d had as a reporter.
Our first full day in Labuan Bajo (which is on flores island which is a predominantly catholic island, though we still had the mosques‘ call to prayer waking us up at 5am that day) we (mark the frenchie and the argentinians) went diving in the waters of Komodo marine reserve. Komodo is argued by some to be the best place to dive in indonesia, which is one of the best countries to dive in the world. It’s so good because it has some really intense currents that rip through the islands there which bring in lots of nutrients which bring in lots of little fish and then bigger and bigger fish all the way up to big sharks, dolphins, and whales. A lot of people, and the actual suggestion is to, dive komodo on a 7 or 8 day liveaboard, which I wasn’t able to do, but I still wanted to sample it, so we did a two dive day trip. I immediately noticed one of the divemasters who was a beautiful gal. Turns out Rene‘s from boulder (grew up in boulder canyon) and now spends her summers as a divemaster in indonesia and her winters as a ski bum in Vail. While I was working in Vail she was working at the the pizza place that Lucas and I sometimes stopped by for a slice after a night dancing on the town. Our first dive was a place called manta point, and it definitely didn’t disappoint! We saw 10 mantas, which are beautiful rays and much, much larger than I thought they were. Watching them flap their “wings“ is mesmerizing. The next place was called batu balong with a rip roaring current. Looked like a playboat kayaker would have a lot of fun just with the rapids on the surface. But fighting the current was well worth it. This little rock in the middle of the straight had perhaps the most fish at a dive site I had ever seen. Huge fish, medium sized fish, little fish all by the thousands. It was just a swarm of fish and full of diversity. Sharks, eels, turtles...everything. On the dive were a cool canadian couple from vancouver, which would start a string of lots of vancourverites (all pissed that the olympics are going to be there saying that there just a big scam and that the canadian government is going to have to spend billions extra just to make sure it goes)
My next job was to figure out how to get to Maumere on the otherside of flores by Oct. 5th in the afternoon as I had a boat to catch (more on that later). As it was now the evening of the 2nd and it took at least two days whether by private car or public bus, so time was running short. However, I didn’t want to just take the bus, b/c my guidebook described flores as this unbelievably beautiful island, so I didn’t want to miss it! Well...I would actually miss a lot, but I wanted to see what I could. So my book (published in 2008) said you could rent a car with driver for 45 bucks to go from labuan bajo to maumere and stop at sights and views along the way. This sounded great to me, especially if I could get even one person to share with me. But enquiring around town, I found that the asking price was 250 bucks!!! for the trip. Yikes! Even sharing with several other people would be a lot, and I’d have to find people. This was most likely driven up by the fact that komodo area has become huge for destination divers who have much more money to blow than long term travellers and are also unaware of how much things should cost, so they will pay much more. Well, I found out that Rene the divemaster from CO was taking off the next day to do it, which I thought would be perfect. But turns out she was doing it in 4 days, which was longer than I had. Mark had heard rumors that two canadian gals were looking to share a ride. I saw two girls in the street and ran up to them. Yes, they were trying to hire a car to maumere as well, but they were french, didn’t know english very well, and I think were scared at how quickly I had approached them, so that appeared to be a no go. But then I found the canadians (Ashley and Allison from vancouver area) staying at the same hostel as me. They had hired a car for 100 bucks to take them to Bajawa which is a bit over halfway where they would stay a few days (there plane left oct 8) and then take the public bus on to maumere. This sounded good to me b/c I could just leave the next day from bajawa instead of hanging out there, and they also had one other guy, Peter from Austria to share the car and Mark the frenchie also wanted to go as well, so it would be a pretty good price, and I was excited to have it all figured out. Later that night we found out that even though the girls had put down a deposit for the car, the driver had changed his mind and wasn’t going to take us after finding out a few more were going. This didn’t make sense because they had hired the car and weren’t paying by the person and the toyota kijangs can take 7 people plus the driver...and of course if used for local transportation can take a lot more than that and that’s not counting the people on the roof. When we found out the news, it was too late to do anything about it, so we would try the next morning. I woke up early and went for a walk and was able to find someone else to take us for 100 bucks. I made sure to look at the car (toyota kijang) which could definitely fit the five of us and to get a proper receipt and all that. I told him there were five of us and it all seemed to be good. He showed up an hour later like I asked him to, but when he saw the group, he said no. We were pretty incredulous, not to mention upset. We had paid the deposit and had the receipt, which is a contract. And it goes both ways. We argued with them for a bit and then they started lieing. Said they thought it was only for one person, which was clearly not the case b/c I had said there was five and then checked the car to make sure it was big enough for 5. Then they said that the car wasn‘t strong enough to handle 5 people on this road, which was obviously not true considering it was a toyota which are tough cars and has 8 seats in it including the driver. And you’ll see them pack 10 indonesians into these cars. But the guy was saying for sure that the car couldn’t handle it. I offered to show him the toyota website where I’m sure it listed that the car could not only fit 8 people but put things on the roof and pull a trailer. They lied more and more and we were pretty upset. Mark who had no set itinerary told the guy he was highly considering spending the week in LB and sitting on this companies stoop and making sure no one came for a week. It was still just unbelievable how they could agree to something, have a deposit given, give a contract and then renig on it. And then they acted like they didn’t care any way and were just jerks about it. Well we luckily found another guy that would take us for 120 bucks in a slightly bigger car. So we got to enjoy the beautiful scenery along the crazy windy road that went up over a couple mountain passes. Stopped at a few places for viewpoints including a look down at some rice terraces that looked like a perfect spider web. We got to Ruteng where we had lunch and were getting ready to move on to Bajawa when all of a sudden the driver had a massive headache and said he couldn’t go on. So we had to switch drivers and car (of course now we were put into the same car that they other guys had argued so much wouldn’t be able to take us). This took a long time b/c the new driver, who I didn’t like at all right from the start needed an hour to eat, then more time to digest, then time to joke around and just hang out it appeared. In the meantime the other headache driver was runing around laughing, joking, and horseing around with friends. Hmmm... We later saw him take the car we had originally come on and head back to LB with at least 10 indonesians, so apparently he found he could make more money doing that. When we finally got started, or so we thought, this new driver drove all around the town doing errands. Dropping off letters, picking up fruit. We were getting a bit nervous b/c we still had 5 hours to go (and it was past 4) and in these little towns, guesthouses aren’t always open past 9 or so. Then once we got on the real road he was just poking around texting while driving the whole time—all this while on a completely windy, nearly 1 lane road in a dense fog and rain. We all felt unsafe and I tried to get the phone from him, but couldn’t. I believe it was around here that Ashley said she hated Indonesia (they had just started and had only been to bali and here). We finally got there and luckily had a place to stay. We met a guy there that asked us how much we had paid to get there saying he had gone through hell to get a ride here. It was very cold up at the high elevation of bajawa and seemed like a nice town. I would have liked to stay with the rest of them b/c I liked peter, the canadian gals and of course mark and they had planned a trip to see some traditional villages and go to the hotsprings, but I needed to keep moving the next day. I took a bus this time, which was a much better idea. In the morning I saw a bit of bajawa which was gorgeous with two volcanoes towering above it, agriculture fields, and a huge Catholic cathedral. Reverting back to my philipino ways, I rode on top of the bus. After the normal passenger area was packed in like sardines a german gal, Katherine, climbed up on top and couldn’t believe what she’d been missing. The top is truly the best way to go b/c you can lie back in first class comfort, get a really good breeze, don’t have to deal with smokers, and get amazing views. For half of the 7 hour ride we had to share it with a poor tied up goat who would cry on every bump. But the road was spectacular. Winding around gorgeous mountains, valleys, canyons, and along an azure coast. The road was not only breathtakingly gorgeous but very narrow with steep drop offs everywhere, huge boulders from landslides often in the middle. One of those epic road journeys. At one point we went through what katherine called paradise canyon as it was so incredibly green and had waterfalls pouring from all sides into the frothing river below. Unreal. And we had the best seat on the bus. I got off at Moni along with the other 7 tourists on the bus. We used our group bargaining power to get a nice place for cheap. Moni is the jump off point for Kelimutu volcano with it’s 3 crazy changing multi-colored lakes. The weather looked nice so we decided to hop in a bemo while we had good weather and go to the lakes. The drive up the volcano was nice as well going by some pretty incredible rice terracing. But once we got to the entrance station we realized it was fogged in. And australian guy in the group asked the bemo driver how much the entrance fee was and the bemo driver said he didn’t know, which really pissed off the aussie and he started yelling. He needn’t have yelled, but I could see his frustration b/c he’d probably been through the same nasty song and dance of getting here in the first place and then to think that the local taxi driver who’s job is to take tourists here doesn’t know the entrance fee like he’s hoping that if he doesn’t tell the tourists and they pay more than they’re supposed to at the entrance fee, he’ll get some commission. So instead of continuing up we decided to hike down were we came upon a nice waterfall that was quite warm and we had a good swim, and that night we met a really nice man who made us a delicious local meal. Katherine, Paul (the guy I was sharing my room with from britain), and the red-headed very intelligent (and somewhat nerdy) brothers Micah and Patrick from Canada (where else but vancouver), and I decided instead of taking the bemo up early in the morning we would hike up starting at 3am. I found the brothers quite interesting and they reminded me of Sherman—it’s the read hair and intelligence. They were always doing crossword puzzles and playing intellectual games with each other. They also only spoke amongst themselves in french or spanish for practice and were also quite good at indonesian. Micah had just graduated from middlebury in vermont and Patrick had graduated from Princeton then taken some time off to first teach in ecuador then be a dive master in the galapagos, but after there year of travelling he would be starting grad school at woods hole, MA the premier marine sciences grad school in country.
We got a bit lost going up on the shortcut trail in the dark (we didn’t remember so many forks), but eventually we found the road. By this time it was starting to get light and we were fearing the clouds coming in which according to our guide book often come in shortly after sunrise. So Micah, Patrick, and I decided to jog the last 3 km’s to the top to make sure we got a view of the lakes. When we made it to the top of the volcano it was clear and would remain clear for the next couple of hours as we watched the sun light up the lakes. One of the lakes was black, one turquoise, and one greenish. The greenish one, a couple months ago had actually been blood red. Apparently these lakes randomly change colors for no apparent reason. But it was definitely a beautiful sight.
As I wanted to make sure I got transport to maumere, which can be quite irregular in these unpopulated areas, I ran the first 5 km’s down the mountain before I got a moto to take me back to my guesthouse where I was able to catch a shared kijang to maumere. Most moto drivers are crazy and fast, but this one was so slow and stopped 4 times (on a 7km drive) to light up a new cigarette! I needed to be in maumere by 4pm and I made it a bit before 2, so I was obviously happy about this, that I had made my timeline and also gotten to see a good part of flores. I couldn’t stand the actual transport in Flores, but the travel was nice because since there was only one way to go and a few key sites it was easy to meet up with cool people and travel with them, share a room with them, and go out to meals together. I had originally been a bit bummed to leave the group of Mark, Peter, and the canadian gals, but I soon found a good group the next day
The next morning we woke up to a beautiful beach on Gili Laba Island where we swam and hung out on the beach and also built Kuchina the monkey a little sail raft, though it wasn’t really necessary b/c she enjoyed swimming or just riding on top of santiago‘s (mom to her) head. We then sailed to red beach on Komodo island for a snorkel, which was quite amazing. An unbelievable amount of fish. From there we went to the headquarters of komodo national park and went on a hike with a guide (and a long pronged stick) to find komodo dragons (the worlds biggest lizard and highly endangered as it’s only found on komodo, rinca, and a few on flores. On the hike we found 3 big guys (at least 7 feet long) lounging in the sun. On the hike we also came across a couple herds of timor deer and some wild boar. The landscape is quite interesting b/c it’s incredibly dry and brown and very rugged. A lot like a mountainous desert, though a cool looking species of palm tree was sprinkled about and the ocean surrounding it was an indescribable light turquoise color. And of course it was crazy hot. Boating through the area was breathtaking b/c there were so many of these rugged islands with gorgeous waters around them. That evening we went off to another island (Kalong Island) for some swimming and to watch the flying foxes leave the mangroves at dusk. We just chilled on the boat watching the sunset and drinking some beers. That night one of the dutch girls fainted, but lucky for her, santiago was a doctor and the danish girl and ER nurse. She probably fainted for several reasons: she was one of those girls that is constantly sitting in the hot sun all day trying to tan, but only drinking beers for hydration, so that mixed with our hot walk in the sun and the dutch girls‘ affinity for marijuana you can see why she fainted. Of course the next day, despite our warnings she would be back out there in the sun.
The 4th morning would prove to be a fateful one. We went early to Rinca to hike there and look for more dragons. Right off of the boat, there was a large gang of macaques and the tres hermanos had hoped that perhaps Kuchina would be invited in, but she hid in santiago’s hair as the other macaques screamed at her. Right away into our hike we saw 5 big dragons all sitting together. We continued on the walk up to a viewpoint overlooking the island and the bay, going by several more dragons and a water buffalo. Near the top of the ridge, the ranger went right past a dragon hiding in the shadows and tall grass that he did not see. Kuchina did not see it either b/c for all the other dragons, she had made this terrible cry we hadn’t heard before when she would see one, recognizing them as danger. Thinking she was in a safe area she ventured off of santiago’s shoulder...and then with lightning speed the dragon struck and had poor kuchina in its jaws. There was nothing we could do but had to listen to kuchina screaming, which didn’t last long b/c it just took a few seconds for the dragon to swallow her, except for the tail sticking out for a while. And after it was all over, the dragon just stood there licking its lips with its huge forked tongue. None of the girls could watch and they all had turned away crying as did the tres hermanos who had been raising the monkey for the past 3 months. Rudy, Paul the brit, and I did watch the whole thing with some curiosity, sad as it may be, b/c it was one of those national geographic type moments. The one who it didn’t bother was Choon as she stood there not too far away clicking away with her camera. She’s Chinese malay and as Paul would say several times afterwards (he had lived in china for several months), those chinese man, they can take anything, nothing bothers them, and they can be dang ruthless. Needless to say the rest of the walk back to the boat was quite somber and full of tears. Besides the owners, Connie took it the worst crying all the time past lunch, which was interesting b/c she had been the only one vocally upset the monkey was on the boat. But we were all sad for sure b/c the little baby kuchina had been so cute. She’d just come sit on your lap and snuggle and want to be groomed and look up at you with those intelligent eyes. Rudy tried to put a positive spin on it by saying that in the long run it may have been the best ending the monkey could have b/c it wouldn’t be allowed to spain and the brothers had hoped it would be accepted my some other monkey troupe, which certainly wasn’t going to happen, and indonesia really has no rehabilitation centers anyways, so the poor thing that was bought b/c it was in a cage too small in an illegal pet market didn’t have much of a future. Initially on the first day in Komodo, we had asked the ranger how dangerous they were, and he said there had only been one human death by them. However, we would later learn this was far from true, and in fact, later that night a villager on komodo would be killed by one. And we learned that just in the past 2 months a swiss woman had been killed as well as a kid from a local village and a ranger had been attacked but survived b/c he had been airlifted to denpasar where they have the needed antibiotics (the dragons kill their larger prey such as water buffalo, deer, and boar by biting them and then waiting for the animal to succumb to sepsis a few days later). So we had a bit of a cautious and relieved laugh about the fact that we had trusted these rangers, who only carried a stick for protection, to take us around on this hike when likely their only qualification for the job was that they spoke the best english of the villagers. But we all made it out safe. I told them how when I helped with mountain lion tracking in rocky, we were out with 3 experts in mountain lions as well as 2 rangers carrying big guns for an animal that per population is much less dangerous (there are only 2,000 dragons left in the world) which was quite a contrast to this thing with the semi english speaking local with his stick. And looking back, something that was fairly alarming was how the rangers would have people crouch down in a very vulnerable position just a few meters from the dragon so that they could take their picture with the dragon.
After Rinca we headed to Kelor Island with an absolutely gorgeous beach and blue lagoon for swimming. Late in the afternoon we headed towards our final destination of Labuan Bajo. There were beers to be finished so we had a merry ole time as we motored towards LB. As we entered the LB bay, it really looked like a pirate city. Just something about it. Houses built high up on the hills and lots of old indonesia style sailboats in the harbor. The town, in my opinion, would turn out to be on the same friendliness and welcoming level as a pirate town. We were all going to sleep on the boat that night, but we went together as a group looking for a room for the next night as that’s a way to score a really good deal. But we walked and walked to many many guesthouses b/c most were just unwilling to even show us a room (as Mark said, “oh, sorry to bother you and ask you to do your job“). And the ones that we did look at were the worst value for the money of any place I have been on my trip yet. They were asking like 20 to 30 bucks for a room that had the asian squat toilet, no shower just the bucket mandi shower with cold water needless to say, and crappy beds. This is quite outrageous. Just for some perspective in yogyakarta my nice room with western toilet, cold shower, and breakfast was 3 bucks, my room in kuta with big breakfast, swimming pool, western toilet and shower was 7 bucks. Most places you can get a room with aircon for about 10 bucks. Well there was one place that had rooms for 6 bucks that was basically a prison (no fan, no windows, is that really a bed?) where I thought I would be, but then Mark the frenchman found a place for 15 bucks and asked if I’d share, so I did that. That night we had a final farewell dinner party and then went out for some drinks before retiring back to our boat.
It was a great trip for sure, and I loved it. Nothing like island hopping through gorgeous indonesian islands, stopping to snorkel and visit empty beaches on deserted islands. A trip like this was one of the main things I wanted to do in indonesia, and it didn’t disappoint. Sunsets and sunrises were always amazing and we often had dolphins following the boat around. The food was great and the group was fun, and of course interesting. By the time it was over Miguel and the danish girl had hooked up, Greg and Connie had yelled fiercely at each other (they were the only two people not in their twenties or early thirties on the trip). And Greg could be quite offensive (though I don’t know if he knew it) with one example where he said french food was absolutely terribe, which everyone in there right mind knows is not true (hmm what is australian food anyways?), and everyone backed up the frenchies on the boat, including the brit, which is of course quite unusual, but tells you how far of that statement was. But I quite liked Mark and Lena and the other mark and of course Rudy and we had lots of good laughs together. Mark the frenchman made me want to be french b/c he said that the french get 5 weeks mandatory paid leave not to mention their normal holidays, plus sick leave as well, but once you’ve been working for a while you get more. He’d been working 6 years and had 9 weeks a year off!! Mark the brit was your stereo typical brit and I think he took pride in that. He was always cracking me up. He does all his work on the computer. He somehow does advertising on the internet and then gets comission or something, so he’s been travelling around the world for more than 2 years now just going on the internet from time to time. He says he’s not working on it too hard and mainly travelling, but he still makes more than he spends each month typically. Sounds great to me. Rudy works for the dutch equivalent of the Associated Press and had been sent to afghanistan for a couple weeks before this to write about the dutch camp there. He had been getting coffee at a machine there that the next day was blown up by a missile during the attack. I think he believed the dragons were childs play compared to some of the assignments he’d had as a reporter.
Our first full day in Labuan Bajo (which is on flores island which is a predominantly catholic island, though we still had the mosques‘ call to prayer waking us up at 5am that day) we (mark the frenchie and the argentinians) went diving in the waters of Komodo marine reserve. Komodo is argued by some to be the best place to dive in indonesia, which is one of the best countries to dive in the world. It’s so good because it has some really intense currents that rip through the islands there which bring in lots of nutrients which bring in lots of little fish and then bigger and bigger fish all the way up to big sharks, dolphins, and whales. A lot of people, and the actual suggestion is to, dive komodo on a 7 or 8 day liveaboard, which I wasn’t able to do, but I still wanted to sample it, so we did a two dive day trip. I immediately noticed one of the divemasters who was a beautiful gal. Turns out Rene‘s from boulder (grew up in boulder canyon) and now spends her summers as a divemaster in indonesia and her winters as a ski bum in Vail. While I was working in Vail she was working at the the pizza place that Lucas and I sometimes stopped by for a slice after a night dancing on the town. Our first dive was a place called manta point, and it definitely didn’t disappoint! We saw 10 mantas, which are beautiful rays and much, much larger than I thought they were. Watching them flap their “wings“ is mesmerizing. The next place was called batu balong with a rip roaring current. Looked like a playboat kayaker would have a lot of fun just with the rapids on the surface. But fighting the current was well worth it. This little rock in the middle of the straight had perhaps the most fish at a dive site I had ever seen. Huge fish, medium sized fish, little fish all by the thousands. It was just a swarm of fish and full of diversity. Sharks, eels, turtles...everything. On the dive were a cool canadian couple from vancouver, which would start a string of lots of vancourverites (all pissed that the olympics are going to be there saying that there just a big scam and that the canadian government is going to have to spend billions extra just to make sure it goes)
My next job was to figure out how to get to Maumere on the otherside of flores by Oct. 5th in the afternoon as I had a boat to catch (more on that later). As it was now the evening of the 2nd and it took at least two days whether by private car or public bus, so time was running short. However, I didn’t want to just take the bus, b/c my guidebook described flores as this unbelievably beautiful island, so I didn’t want to miss it! Well...I would actually miss a lot, but I wanted to see what I could. So my book (published in 2008) said you could rent a car with driver for 45 bucks to go from labuan bajo to maumere and stop at sights and views along the way. This sounded great to me, especially if I could get even one person to share with me. But enquiring around town, I found that the asking price was 250 bucks!!! for the trip. Yikes! Even sharing with several other people would be a lot, and I’d have to find people. This was most likely driven up by the fact that komodo area has become huge for destination divers who have much more money to blow than long term travellers and are also unaware of how much things should cost, so they will pay much more. Well, I found out that Rene the divemaster from CO was taking off the next day to do it, which I thought would be perfect. But turns out she was doing it in 4 days, which was longer than I had. Mark had heard rumors that two canadian gals were looking to share a ride. I saw two girls in the street and ran up to them. Yes, they were trying to hire a car to maumere as well, but they were french, didn’t know english very well, and I think were scared at how quickly I had approached them, so that appeared to be a no go. But then I found the canadians (Ashley and Allison from vancouver area) staying at the same hostel as me. They had hired a car for 100 bucks to take them to Bajawa which is a bit over halfway where they would stay a few days (there plane left oct 8) and then take the public bus on to maumere. This sounded good to me b/c I could just leave the next day from bajawa instead of hanging out there, and they also had one other guy, Peter from Austria to share the car and Mark the frenchie also wanted to go as well, so it would be a pretty good price, and I was excited to have it all figured out. Later that night we found out that even though the girls had put down a deposit for the car, the driver had changed his mind and wasn’t going to take us after finding out a few more were going. This didn’t make sense because they had hired the car and weren’t paying by the person and the toyota kijangs can take 7 people plus the driver...and of course if used for local transportation can take a lot more than that and that’s not counting the people on the roof. When we found out the news, it was too late to do anything about it, so we would try the next morning. I woke up early and went for a walk and was able to find someone else to take us for 100 bucks. I made sure to look at the car (toyota kijang) which could definitely fit the five of us and to get a proper receipt and all that. I told him there were five of us and it all seemed to be good. He showed up an hour later like I asked him to, but when he saw the group, he said no. We were pretty incredulous, not to mention upset. We had paid the deposit and had the receipt, which is a contract. And it goes both ways. We argued with them for a bit and then they started lieing. Said they thought it was only for one person, which was clearly not the case b/c I had said there was five and then checked the car to make sure it was big enough for 5. Then they said that the car wasn‘t strong enough to handle 5 people on this road, which was obviously not true considering it was a toyota which are tough cars and has 8 seats in it including the driver. And you’ll see them pack 10 indonesians into these cars. But the guy was saying for sure that the car couldn’t handle it. I offered to show him the toyota website where I’m sure it listed that the car could not only fit 8 people but put things on the roof and pull a trailer. They lied more and more and we were pretty upset. Mark who had no set itinerary told the guy he was highly considering spending the week in LB and sitting on this companies stoop and making sure no one came for a week. It was still just unbelievable how they could agree to something, have a deposit given, give a contract and then renig on it. And then they acted like they didn’t care any way and were just jerks about it. Well we luckily found another guy that would take us for 120 bucks in a slightly bigger car. So we got to enjoy the beautiful scenery along the crazy windy road that went up over a couple mountain passes. Stopped at a few places for viewpoints including a look down at some rice terraces that looked like a perfect spider web. We got to Ruteng where we had lunch and were getting ready to move on to Bajawa when all of a sudden the driver had a massive headache and said he couldn’t go on. So we had to switch drivers and car (of course now we were put into the same car that they other guys had argued so much wouldn’t be able to take us). This took a long time b/c the new driver, who I didn’t like at all right from the start needed an hour to eat, then more time to digest, then time to joke around and just hang out it appeared. In the meantime the other headache driver was runing around laughing, joking, and horseing around with friends. Hmmm... We later saw him take the car we had originally come on and head back to LB with at least 10 indonesians, so apparently he found he could make more money doing that. When we finally got started, or so we thought, this new driver drove all around the town doing errands. Dropping off letters, picking up fruit. We were getting a bit nervous b/c we still had 5 hours to go (and it was past 4) and in these little towns, guesthouses aren’t always open past 9 or so. Then once we got on the real road he was just poking around texting while driving the whole time—all this while on a completely windy, nearly 1 lane road in a dense fog and rain. We all felt unsafe and I tried to get the phone from him, but couldn’t. I believe it was around here that Ashley said she hated Indonesia (they had just started and had only been to bali and here). We finally got there and luckily had a place to stay. We met a guy there that asked us how much we had paid to get there saying he had gone through hell to get a ride here. It was very cold up at the high elevation of bajawa and seemed like a nice town. I would have liked to stay with the rest of them b/c I liked peter, the canadian gals and of course mark and they had planned a trip to see some traditional villages and go to the hotsprings, but I needed to keep moving the next day. I took a bus this time, which was a much better idea. In the morning I saw a bit of bajawa which was gorgeous with two volcanoes towering above it, agriculture fields, and a huge Catholic cathedral. Reverting back to my philipino ways, I rode on top of the bus. After the normal passenger area was packed in like sardines a german gal, Katherine, climbed up on top and couldn’t believe what she’d been missing. The top is truly the best way to go b/c you can lie back in first class comfort, get a really good breeze, don’t have to deal with smokers, and get amazing views. For half of the 7 hour ride we had to share it with a poor tied up goat who would cry on every bump. But the road was spectacular. Winding around gorgeous mountains, valleys, canyons, and along an azure coast. The road was not only breathtakingly gorgeous but very narrow with steep drop offs everywhere, huge boulders from landslides often in the middle. One of those epic road journeys. At one point we went through what katherine called paradise canyon as it was so incredibly green and had waterfalls pouring from all sides into the frothing river below. Unreal. And we had the best seat on the bus. I got off at Moni along with the other 7 tourists on the bus. We used our group bargaining power to get a nice place for cheap. Moni is the jump off point for Kelimutu volcano with it’s 3 crazy changing multi-colored lakes. The weather looked nice so we decided to hop in a bemo while we had good weather and go to the lakes. The drive up the volcano was nice as well going by some pretty incredible rice terracing. But once we got to the entrance station we realized it was fogged in. And australian guy in the group asked the bemo driver how much the entrance fee was and the bemo driver said he didn’t know, which really pissed off the aussie and he started yelling. He needn’t have yelled, but I could see his frustration b/c he’d probably been through the same nasty song and dance of getting here in the first place and then to think that the local taxi driver who’s job is to take tourists here doesn’t know the entrance fee like he’s hoping that if he doesn’t tell the tourists and they pay more than they’re supposed to at the entrance fee, he’ll get some commission. So instead of continuing up we decided to hike down were we came upon a nice waterfall that was quite warm and we had a good swim, and that night we met a really nice man who made us a delicious local meal. Katherine, Paul (the guy I was sharing my room with from britain), and the red-headed very intelligent (and somewhat nerdy) brothers Micah and Patrick from Canada (where else but vancouver), and I decided instead of taking the bemo up early in the morning we would hike up starting at 3am. I found the brothers quite interesting and they reminded me of Sherman—it’s the read hair and intelligence. They were always doing crossword puzzles and playing intellectual games with each other. They also only spoke amongst themselves in french or spanish for practice and were also quite good at indonesian. Micah had just graduated from middlebury in vermont and Patrick had graduated from Princeton then taken some time off to first teach in ecuador then be a dive master in the galapagos, but after there year of travelling he would be starting grad school at woods hole, MA the premier marine sciences grad school in country.
We got a bit lost going up on the shortcut trail in the dark (we didn’t remember so many forks), but eventually we found the road. By this time it was starting to get light and we were fearing the clouds coming in which according to our guide book often come in shortly after sunrise. So Micah, Patrick, and I decided to jog the last 3 km’s to the top to make sure we got a view of the lakes. When we made it to the top of the volcano it was clear and would remain clear for the next couple of hours as we watched the sun light up the lakes. One of the lakes was black, one turquoise, and one greenish. The greenish one, a couple months ago had actually been blood red. Apparently these lakes randomly change colors for no apparent reason. But it was definitely a beautiful sight.
As I wanted to make sure I got transport to maumere, which can be quite irregular in these unpopulated areas, I ran the first 5 km’s down the mountain before I got a moto to take me back to my guesthouse where I was able to catch a shared kijang to maumere. Most moto drivers are crazy and fast, but this one was so slow and stopped 4 times (on a 7km drive) to light up a new cigarette! I needed to be in maumere by 4pm and I made it a bit before 2, so I was obviously happy about this, that I had made my timeline and also gotten to see a good part of flores. I couldn’t stand the actual transport in Flores, but the travel was nice because since there was only one way to go and a few key sites it was easy to meet up with cool people and travel with them, share a room with them, and go out to meals together. I had originally been a bit bummed to leave the group of Mark, Peter, and the canadian gals, but I soon found a good group the next day
The Queen Volcano
My next destination was to climb Gunung Rinjani, which means queen volcano, but was a queen in much more than just the name. From Gili Air, I was able to arrange the volcano trek as well as a boat through the komodos for quite a good price. In fact, I was able to get the trek down to pay for 1 person what they listed as the cost for a group. Wanted to book from the islands even though it’s usually much more expensive there just b/c I had booked this amazing sailing trip leaving from Maumere, Flores on Oct. 5th, so I was now dealing with a time budget as well, and if you take the public transport, etc to get to the volcano base and then look for a group and a guide and all that, you could ”waste“ at least a day. The day of the 23rd, I was expecting to take a boat back to lombok and then take a van to senaru at the base of the volcano where I would spend the night before starting early the next morning. But turns out I took the boat, took a 2 hour moto ride (which was a really gorgeous motorcycle ride, actually, through the dry then lush flores countryside and one that felt great after all the moto wet moto rides in sumatra, b/c this one was very very sunny. Also one of the always cool things when you take these random motorcycle transport rides is that the driver usually has to stop by his family’s house to get something or other before going on so you get taken through a narrow maze of back paths (on the motorcycle of course with your knees tucked in as close as possible to avoid hitting buildings) to his house where his kids and a whole bunch of other kids come out to look at you inquisitively like your some strange animal, but then get more and more adventurous and come up to you before ultimately asking for a photo and then going crazy with laughter and screams when you show them their picture. Then of course is always his wife and sisters who bring out tea and rice or fruit and then his mother or grandmother who is so old, but always smiles a friendly toothless smile, points for you to sit down and then just sort of watches you smiling the whole time) , arrived at senaru a bit before 11 and then was told I was starting that day. A bit of a surprise, but I wouldn’t argue b/c that would give me an extra day I hadn’t scheduled and would possibly allow me to make it back to bali to pick up my atm card if it had arrived. For the first day I was put with 2 cali (cher and sherri) girls who were just doing the 2 day 1 night trek up to the rim. It was quite nice being with some young americans and catching up a bit on what was going on back in ’Merica. They were actually the first americans I had met since Evan back in Kalimantan at the end of July. They were just out for their 2 week american holiday (accountants), but still found it worth it to travel far and had been doing a trip like this every year...to thailand or patagonia, here or where ever. They were west coast girls, cher had a brother who had gone to CU to ski and the Sherri had roommate who worked for ESPN (umm..dream job, right conrad and bill) who travelled all over to sporting events, one which is the x-games in Aspen, so she had some gear along from that.
The hike up to the crater rim wasn’t too tough, but took 7 hours with our guide Audie. You have to take porters with you and these guys are amazing. They carry these heavy loads from two baskets attached to a bamboo pole and do the hike up in their flip flops (or some occassionally barefoot). It is people like this that I always wonder what they think of westerners all decked out in their fancy tech equipment (middle-aged euros seemed to have the most hi-tech equipment, it’s pretty crazy) suitable to climb mt. Everest, yet going slow and complaining on the way up. The first ¾ of the hike was through forests before opening up into this dry, dry grasslandish area that could have easily been the boise foothills with baking sun, dry grass, and the occassional conifer in the gullies as well as a very dry breeze. Ahh...felt good to be back in the dry west =) The sun was starting to set rapidly and we enjoyed one of the more amazing sunsets I have seen on this trip (I have seen many a spectacular one)—up there in that dry open area with a spectacular view down the mountain to the forests below, the ocean, the 3 gili islands, and mount agung on bali towering in the distance. Breathtaking. The guide had said after lunch that instead of going to the rim like planned we would camp about 45 minutes below it since we had gotten a late start due to all 3 of us coming from the gilis. To me this wasn’t acceptable. Why not go the last 45 minutes in the dark to get to the top? b/c if we didn’t do it this night, we would have to do it at 4 in the morning anyways to make it to the rim for sunrise. He said we would see when we got to the newly proposed campsite, but I fully intended to go to the top no matter what, I mean it is my trip. I convinced the girls of this as well b/c one way or the other we would have to climb in the dark and I would prefer at night at 7pm rather than at 4am when it would be freezing cold. Wouldn’t it be much nicer to wake up at the rim, have some hot tea and stay in your warm sleeping bag to watch the sunrise. After watching sunset, the guide still wanted to camp below, claiming the porters would be too tired and have too much trouble going up at this time, which I knew to be somewhat nonesense. I had a torch and told him I would go the 45 minutes up with my gear, then come back down and carry the porters‘ stuff for them, but he said we needed to all stay together since the girls didn’t have a torch and the 2 porters only had 1 between them. When the porters caught up to us, it seemed that morale was low for going up. Both girls were pretty tired and it seemed the porters didn’t want to go up. But I had some tricks up my sleeve. First, with the girls I started some good conversation, which always takes your mind off of the hiking and I think they felt much better and even picked up the pace. And with the porters, I had my large backpack, so I took 6, 1.5L waterbottles from them put them into my pack, then also grabbed one of the big 2 basket bamboo pole things they carry, hefted it onto my shoulder and started climbing up at high speed. By the time the empty porter and the guide caught me halfway up, I think they were impressed (I’m sure they think of most tourists as weak and spoiled) and definitely newly motivated. We made it to the rim by about 8 and I helped set up the tent as I promised I would do. Usually the porters do it, which I think is crazy anyways, but the guide had said they couldn’t do it here without a torchlight. It was windy and quite cold up there, but entirely worth it. Because from the crater rim we looked down onto the new volcanic cone growing out of the massive crater and it was active! You could see the lava flowing right out. What a sight! Actually the rinjani climb had been closed to go to the very top for the past couple months b/c of heavier eruptions and you could only go to the rim where we were now, but it had just opened up, to my great excitement about a week or two before. We had a yummy meal of fresh chicken and of course nasi goreng before crawling into our sleeping bags. I had loaned the girls my (clean) socks to use as mittens as wells as an extra long sleeve shirt and rain coat for warmth. They were also concerned about hypothermia (which they were obviously far from), but I assured them I knew how to treat. The next day when we were able to sleep in a bit and watch the sunrise from close proximity to our tents, they both thanked me for helping them with the cold and making sure that we had made it to the rim that night and said they were lucky to be paired with me. That night was a nasty windstorm in which no one slept too well. I actually got some decent sleep even though my rainfly had blown off and was fluttering loudly all night and letting the cold air in which was a bit of a problem since my sleeping bag was designed to fit your average height asian man (5ft) so my shoulder were out. And of course at some point my whole tent collapsed. But I guess I’m a bit used to sleeping in rough conditions (from this trip and camping back home). There were some people a bit higher up that told me that day they didn’t even sleep a wink.
The sunrise was gorgeous, but the vista it revealed as it rose higher was breathtaking. A giant turquoise lake in the middle of a huge crater with a towering peak on one side of the crater and smack in the middle of the lake a new smoking volcano. In the morning you could still see the lava at dawn, but once the sun rose up it was too bright and you would have missed it...so good thing we had made it up to the crater that night. So we sat there wrapped in our sleeping bags and watched the beautiful view unfold. Truly stunning with the turquoise lake and the volcano and sheer crater cliffs and just everything. And of course if you turned around and looked the other way you could see the ocean, the gili islands, and bali. And of course monkeys running around the rim as well. Just so spectacular all around. And as the sun climbed higher and higher the tuquoise lake became more and more stunning. Eventually I said goodbye to the girls and they headed back down to senaru and I headed down into the crater. It was a steep hike down to the lake, but absolutely stunning with the views.
The lake shore was a bit busy considering our location. There were maybe 30 locals there that had set up camp and were fishing. Don’t ask how fish got way up this mountain into a crater lake, ok, well I did, guess someone carried some live fish up there to stock it. At first I was a little scared to eat some fish coming out of there—images of the movie dante’s peak with it’s acid lakes and dead fish came to mind—but when fresh fish is handed to you by a nice local dude, it’s hard to say no. While the porter and guide prepared another tasty meal I went to the hot springs that were near the crater. It was in fact a hot springs river that near the source was much too hot to swim in, but they had created 4 pools which I called The Egg (you could boil and egg in it, which some indonesians were doing), Kamikaze (perfect temp for the Japanese who can take water hotter than anyone else), the hot tub (normal hot tub weather) and Goldilocks (b/c it was just perfect temp for me to soak in). After I had thoroughly relaxed, with a gang of monkeys watching, I went out exploring because I was fascinated by this hot springs river. It was so impressive b/c it was this whitish-green color and just had so much volume of water for a hotsprings. It wasn’t like a big river in yellowstone that has little streams of hot water flowing in where you build pools to soak, no, this ENTIRE river was hot water. I followed it down a canyon for a while climbing down some steep pitches that weren’t that bad, nothing compared to some of the things we’d do on a regular basis for work at Rocky, but the guide later informed me they had no idea what was down there and that it was too dangerous to check out. Well, what I found was some of the most amazing hot springs areas I had ever seen. Huge waterfalls of colored and hot water falling into huge pools. It was like a hot springs wonderland. It’s hard to beat places like strawberry park hotsprings in the snow in steamboat, but this place came dang close! I mean, swimming in a waterfall is one thing, but swimming in a hot one in a gorgeous canyon on the side of a huge volcano is a whole other one. After the hotsprings and the waterfalls I went up to have lunch along the turquoise lake in plane site of the smoking new volcano. By then it had warmed up pretty good, so I jumped into the lake (putting aside all dante’s peak acid lake fears, mainly b/c many of the indonesians were wading in it.) for a very refreshing swim. The smoking volcano, with some vents lakeside was so close, it would have just taken a couple minutes to swim to it (it’s kind of an island in the middle of the lake), but without my crazy brother and with a bunch of indonesians intently watching (they usually can’t swim and tend to be scared of deep water and were already obviously nervous with me as deep as I was—if you asked an indonesian if it is possible to swim to the island (200m) they would say no b/c it is too far and one would drown), I decided not to.
After the swim in the lake, it was time to hike back up to the rim of the crater on the otherside. On the hike up we saw a pretty large wildfire (yet another indonesian natural disaster I have witnessed) across the canyon. But soon a dense and chilly fog rolled in to be with us the rest of the hike to the rim. However, it did clear for a nice view of the sunrise from this other side of the crater rim. I had noticed on the hike up that my guide seemed to be struggling a bit and was going real slow, which worried me a bit. At the camp on the crater rim there was a fair amount of people b/c most do the 2d/1n summit climb whereas I was doing the 3d/2n rim to rim to summit trip (though if I did it again I would do the 4 day trip and spend a night by the hotsprings and lake.). Some of the people were on very fancy trips, a lot were french with french speaking guides, but I was definitely the only one with my own guide.
We started climbing Rinjani at 3am the next morning. It was quite the impressive hike up. The whole hike up your on this crater ridge that drops off thousands of feet to your right into the crater, and nearly the whole way up you can see the little volcano glowing red with its lava and making lots and lots of noise, mostly sounding like a jet plane, but then changing when a little more gas or something comes out. When we reached the base of the scree field a little after 4, I was really worried that at the pace my guide was going we would not make the summit by sunrise, so I asked if I could go ahead and then did so. The scree field goes the rest of the way to the summit and is quite difficult as it is all loose rock (one of those take 1 step forward and fall 2 steps back). As I felt that I needed to make up time and the summit seemed so far up and far away, I powered up it. But I made it by 5am just as the dawn is starting and my guide even made it minutes before the sun actually rose at a bit past 6, but I was glad to make it by dawn b/c then you could look down at the lake and the little volcano and still see the lava eruption. The view from the top of Rinjani (3726m, 12,296ft) was stunning as well. Down into the crater with it’s lake and little volcano, out over the crater to the ocean, the gili islands, gunung agung, and bali and then back the other way towards the ocean and Sumbawa. It was a tough climb, especially with the scree and probably less than one quarter of the people who started made the summit. The way down was much easier though as you could essentially ski down the scree...nothing like a foot of freshy fresh basaltic pow. Went back down to camp for a banana pancake breakfast with the monkeys and view of the lake. From there we went all the way down to the village of sembulan lawang. Almost the entire way down was devoid of trees with tall grass and some dry canyons. From sembulan took a bemo back to senaru and then shared a car with a friendly dutch guy named Rudy to Sengiggi (sengiggles to me). Went down to the beach there that afternoon and there was quite the party on the beach as it was one of the post ramadan weekend celebrations (perhaps idul fitri). That evening I arranged a motorcycle ride to leave at 5 am to take me to lembar port for the 6am ferry to bali. But by 6am it had become obvious he was not coming, and I was not too happy as at that hour on a weekend it’s nearly impossible to find transport. And I had told Nyoman, my friend back in Bali with my new atm card that I would be in denpasar a bit after noon. Finally got one around 7am and headed to lembar and then onto the 5 hour ferry to padang bai and then the bemo ride to denpasar where I was able to meet the saint Nyoman with my new ATM card. I wanted to call right then and there the number to activate my card as I saw a telkmosel office right across from the bus station, which are the only places in indonesia to make collect calls. None of the wartels will let you. But nyoman was pretty sure the bemo right there was the last one back to padangbai and that I needed to catch it if I wanted to make it to the port that day. I was pretty sure bemos would run fairly late to the port, but after all he’d done, I didn’t argue and got on the bemo back to padang bai (where there was no place to make a collect call) and then onto the ferry back to lombok. Luckily I met a nice guy (who happened to work for a holiday inn in bali) who was coming to lombok for his sister in law’s wedding, so he gave me a ride back to sengiggles so that I didn’t have to go through the difficulty of trying to find a ride there from a small port at 11pm. The next day, my first business was to activate my card, which proved difficult as it was a weekend and the small telkmosel office in sengiggles was closed and I wasn’t entirely sure if the one in maumere, the city down the road, would be open either. I decided to try my luck at the sheraton, the only chain and fancy resort in the area. The woman there was nice, but had no idea how to make a collect call. She tried several times the way she thought it would work to no avail, then we tried the ways I had found on the internet, to no avail until she realized it couldn’t be done from the house phone, but needed to be done from their fancy switchboard phone. But then from there, once I made the collect call, the line at charles schwaab was busy and the operator didn’t understand to wait until there was an available person to talk to. But luckily the next one did. Finally got through and after a long time (thank God it was collect) got the card activated, but then I needed to pick my pin which you do through their computer phone and you have to do all this touchtone typing on the phone, which apparently didn’t work from the sheraton’s fancy switchboard, so I found myself unable to select a pin, which is pretty necessary if you desparately (or even not desparately) want to take money out of a cash point. So I called back and got a very, very nice, in Denver nonetheless, that tried to help me. But he said it had to be through the computer system so I had to type the numbers in with the phone. He stayed on the line with me while I tried several times with no luck. But then he was able to patch me through, all still on a collect call, to anyone’s phone number I had memorized (and trusted)in the hope they could do the pin for me. It was 7pm at night in Colorado, so I thought I would have luck, but was unable to reach any of the people’s phone number’s I had memorized: mom’s cell, parent’s home, bro’s cell, the Hess family. But he told me to leave a message on mom’s phone, which I did in the hope she would get it. Well there was nothing else I could do, so I used the exceedingly nice bathroom in the sheraton and then rented a motorbike. Toured the beautiful coastline of lombok, which is quite dry and almost desertish. In fact if you were to trade palm trees for saguaros, you would think you were in Arizona as you looked inland. Somewhere along the road, got a flat tire (are you sure there’s not cacti out there?) and had to get it fixed. The guy at the vulcanizing shop tried to give me a crappy replacement tube, but I caught that it had a slow leak and demanded a better one. Got it fixed and continued my way along the coast, which was bustling with all the post ramadan parties and then a bit into the hills where I turned around at sunset for the night ride back to sengiggles. On the way out I stopped at a couple of waterfalls, one full of local kids swimming as their parents sang karaoke in the picnic area a bit below. The kids (who were mostly naked went wild with excitement when I stripped down to my briefs and jumped off the waterfall. Sometimes I really get the feeling they are very surprised not only to see a white person but to see what they do and that we’re not all rich fancy camera toting tourists but will get down and dirty and hang out and do what the locals are doing. But I have never been to a county where the people look at you as if you were martian as they do in indonesian and treat you so differently as well. When I asked one of the girls at the port why she was trying to charge me 2 dollars for nasi campur (a rice dish) when I know that the local price is 50 cents and the ferry was trying to charge me 10 bucks when it’s supposed to be 3, she said it’s because I’m white and different. When I got back to Sengiggi, I went to the warnet and found out by email from bro that mom was on vacation in crested butte, had tried several times to set my pin and finally was able to, so I was free to go get money. Went immediately to the first cashpoint I saw and for some reason the english button wasn’t working and I did not want to push a wrong button that ate my card while attempting to translate bahasa indonese, so I moved on to the next one, which was broken. Hmm...one last one to try..and once again, good ole mandiri bank didn’t let me down. Finally had some cash!! Had been somewhat of a nightmare to get that cash, for everyone involved, but finally I had it.
The hike up to the crater rim wasn’t too tough, but took 7 hours with our guide Audie. You have to take porters with you and these guys are amazing. They carry these heavy loads from two baskets attached to a bamboo pole and do the hike up in their flip flops (or some occassionally barefoot). It is people like this that I always wonder what they think of westerners all decked out in their fancy tech equipment (middle-aged euros seemed to have the most hi-tech equipment, it’s pretty crazy) suitable to climb mt. Everest, yet going slow and complaining on the way up. The first ¾ of the hike was through forests before opening up into this dry, dry grasslandish area that could have easily been the boise foothills with baking sun, dry grass, and the occassional conifer in the gullies as well as a very dry breeze. Ahh...felt good to be back in the dry west =) The sun was starting to set rapidly and we enjoyed one of the more amazing sunsets I have seen on this trip (I have seen many a spectacular one)—up there in that dry open area with a spectacular view down the mountain to the forests below, the ocean, the 3 gili islands, and mount agung on bali towering in the distance. Breathtaking. The guide had said after lunch that instead of going to the rim like planned we would camp about 45 minutes below it since we had gotten a late start due to all 3 of us coming from the gilis. To me this wasn’t acceptable. Why not go the last 45 minutes in the dark to get to the top? b/c if we didn’t do it this night, we would have to do it at 4 in the morning anyways to make it to the rim for sunrise. He said we would see when we got to the newly proposed campsite, but I fully intended to go to the top no matter what, I mean it is my trip. I convinced the girls of this as well b/c one way or the other we would have to climb in the dark and I would prefer at night at 7pm rather than at 4am when it would be freezing cold. Wouldn’t it be much nicer to wake up at the rim, have some hot tea and stay in your warm sleeping bag to watch the sunrise. After watching sunset, the guide still wanted to camp below, claiming the porters would be too tired and have too much trouble going up at this time, which I knew to be somewhat nonesense. I had a torch and told him I would go the 45 minutes up with my gear, then come back down and carry the porters‘ stuff for them, but he said we needed to all stay together since the girls didn’t have a torch and the 2 porters only had 1 between them. When the porters caught up to us, it seemed that morale was low for going up. Both girls were pretty tired and it seemed the porters didn’t want to go up. But I had some tricks up my sleeve. First, with the girls I started some good conversation, which always takes your mind off of the hiking and I think they felt much better and even picked up the pace. And with the porters, I had my large backpack, so I took 6, 1.5L waterbottles from them put them into my pack, then also grabbed one of the big 2 basket bamboo pole things they carry, hefted it onto my shoulder and started climbing up at high speed. By the time the empty porter and the guide caught me halfway up, I think they were impressed (I’m sure they think of most tourists as weak and spoiled) and definitely newly motivated. We made it to the rim by about 8 and I helped set up the tent as I promised I would do. Usually the porters do it, which I think is crazy anyways, but the guide had said they couldn’t do it here without a torchlight. It was windy and quite cold up there, but entirely worth it. Because from the crater rim we looked down onto the new volcanic cone growing out of the massive crater and it was active! You could see the lava flowing right out. What a sight! Actually the rinjani climb had been closed to go to the very top for the past couple months b/c of heavier eruptions and you could only go to the rim where we were now, but it had just opened up, to my great excitement about a week or two before. We had a yummy meal of fresh chicken and of course nasi goreng before crawling into our sleeping bags. I had loaned the girls my (clean) socks to use as mittens as wells as an extra long sleeve shirt and rain coat for warmth. They were also concerned about hypothermia (which they were obviously far from), but I assured them I knew how to treat. The next day when we were able to sleep in a bit and watch the sunrise from close proximity to our tents, they both thanked me for helping them with the cold and making sure that we had made it to the rim that night and said they were lucky to be paired with me. That night was a nasty windstorm in which no one slept too well. I actually got some decent sleep even though my rainfly had blown off and was fluttering loudly all night and letting the cold air in which was a bit of a problem since my sleeping bag was designed to fit your average height asian man (5ft) so my shoulder were out. And of course at some point my whole tent collapsed. But I guess I’m a bit used to sleeping in rough conditions (from this trip and camping back home). There were some people a bit higher up that told me that day they didn’t even sleep a wink.
The sunrise was gorgeous, but the vista it revealed as it rose higher was breathtaking. A giant turquoise lake in the middle of a huge crater with a towering peak on one side of the crater and smack in the middle of the lake a new smoking volcano. In the morning you could still see the lava at dawn, but once the sun rose up it was too bright and you would have missed it...so good thing we had made it up to the crater that night. So we sat there wrapped in our sleeping bags and watched the beautiful view unfold. Truly stunning with the turquoise lake and the volcano and sheer crater cliffs and just everything. And of course if you turned around and looked the other way you could see the ocean, the gili islands, and bali. And of course monkeys running around the rim as well. Just so spectacular all around. And as the sun climbed higher and higher the tuquoise lake became more and more stunning. Eventually I said goodbye to the girls and they headed back down to senaru and I headed down into the crater. It was a steep hike down to the lake, but absolutely stunning with the views.
The lake shore was a bit busy considering our location. There were maybe 30 locals there that had set up camp and were fishing. Don’t ask how fish got way up this mountain into a crater lake, ok, well I did, guess someone carried some live fish up there to stock it. At first I was a little scared to eat some fish coming out of there—images of the movie dante’s peak with it’s acid lakes and dead fish came to mind—but when fresh fish is handed to you by a nice local dude, it’s hard to say no. While the porter and guide prepared another tasty meal I went to the hot springs that were near the crater. It was in fact a hot springs river that near the source was much too hot to swim in, but they had created 4 pools which I called The Egg (you could boil and egg in it, which some indonesians were doing), Kamikaze (perfect temp for the Japanese who can take water hotter than anyone else), the hot tub (normal hot tub weather) and Goldilocks (b/c it was just perfect temp for me to soak in). After I had thoroughly relaxed, with a gang of monkeys watching, I went out exploring because I was fascinated by this hot springs river. It was so impressive b/c it was this whitish-green color and just had so much volume of water for a hotsprings. It wasn’t like a big river in yellowstone that has little streams of hot water flowing in where you build pools to soak, no, this ENTIRE river was hot water. I followed it down a canyon for a while climbing down some steep pitches that weren’t that bad, nothing compared to some of the things we’d do on a regular basis for work at Rocky, but the guide later informed me they had no idea what was down there and that it was too dangerous to check out. Well, what I found was some of the most amazing hot springs areas I had ever seen. Huge waterfalls of colored and hot water falling into huge pools. It was like a hot springs wonderland. It’s hard to beat places like strawberry park hotsprings in the snow in steamboat, but this place came dang close! I mean, swimming in a waterfall is one thing, but swimming in a hot one in a gorgeous canyon on the side of a huge volcano is a whole other one. After the hotsprings and the waterfalls I went up to have lunch along the turquoise lake in plane site of the smoking new volcano. By then it had warmed up pretty good, so I jumped into the lake (putting aside all dante’s peak acid lake fears, mainly b/c many of the indonesians were wading in it.) for a very refreshing swim. The smoking volcano, with some vents lakeside was so close, it would have just taken a couple minutes to swim to it (it’s kind of an island in the middle of the lake), but without my crazy brother and with a bunch of indonesians intently watching (they usually can’t swim and tend to be scared of deep water and were already obviously nervous with me as deep as I was—if you asked an indonesian if it is possible to swim to the island (200m) they would say no b/c it is too far and one would drown), I decided not to.
After the swim in the lake, it was time to hike back up to the rim of the crater on the otherside. On the hike up we saw a pretty large wildfire (yet another indonesian natural disaster I have witnessed) across the canyon. But soon a dense and chilly fog rolled in to be with us the rest of the hike to the rim. However, it did clear for a nice view of the sunrise from this other side of the crater rim. I had noticed on the hike up that my guide seemed to be struggling a bit and was going real slow, which worried me a bit. At the camp on the crater rim there was a fair amount of people b/c most do the 2d/1n summit climb whereas I was doing the 3d/2n rim to rim to summit trip (though if I did it again I would do the 4 day trip and spend a night by the hotsprings and lake.). Some of the people were on very fancy trips, a lot were french with french speaking guides, but I was definitely the only one with my own guide.
We started climbing Rinjani at 3am the next morning. It was quite the impressive hike up. The whole hike up your on this crater ridge that drops off thousands of feet to your right into the crater, and nearly the whole way up you can see the little volcano glowing red with its lava and making lots and lots of noise, mostly sounding like a jet plane, but then changing when a little more gas or something comes out. When we reached the base of the scree field a little after 4, I was really worried that at the pace my guide was going we would not make the summit by sunrise, so I asked if I could go ahead and then did so. The scree field goes the rest of the way to the summit and is quite difficult as it is all loose rock (one of those take 1 step forward and fall 2 steps back). As I felt that I needed to make up time and the summit seemed so far up and far away, I powered up it. But I made it by 5am just as the dawn is starting and my guide even made it minutes before the sun actually rose at a bit past 6, but I was glad to make it by dawn b/c then you could look down at the lake and the little volcano and still see the lava eruption. The view from the top of Rinjani (3726m, 12,296ft) was stunning as well. Down into the crater with it’s lake and little volcano, out over the crater to the ocean, the gili islands, gunung agung, and bali and then back the other way towards the ocean and Sumbawa. It was a tough climb, especially with the scree and probably less than one quarter of the people who started made the summit. The way down was much easier though as you could essentially ski down the scree...nothing like a foot of freshy fresh basaltic pow. Went back down to camp for a banana pancake breakfast with the monkeys and view of the lake. From there we went all the way down to the village of sembulan lawang. Almost the entire way down was devoid of trees with tall grass and some dry canyons. From sembulan took a bemo back to senaru and then shared a car with a friendly dutch guy named Rudy to Sengiggi (sengiggles to me). Went down to the beach there that afternoon and there was quite the party on the beach as it was one of the post ramadan weekend celebrations (perhaps idul fitri). That evening I arranged a motorcycle ride to leave at 5 am to take me to lembar port for the 6am ferry to bali. But by 6am it had become obvious he was not coming, and I was not too happy as at that hour on a weekend it’s nearly impossible to find transport. And I had told Nyoman, my friend back in Bali with my new atm card that I would be in denpasar a bit after noon. Finally got one around 7am and headed to lembar and then onto the 5 hour ferry to padang bai and then the bemo ride to denpasar where I was able to meet the saint Nyoman with my new ATM card. I wanted to call right then and there the number to activate my card as I saw a telkmosel office right across from the bus station, which are the only places in indonesia to make collect calls. None of the wartels will let you. But nyoman was pretty sure the bemo right there was the last one back to padangbai and that I needed to catch it if I wanted to make it to the port that day. I was pretty sure bemos would run fairly late to the port, but after all he’d done, I didn’t argue and got on the bemo back to padang bai (where there was no place to make a collect call) and then onto the ferry back to lombok. Luckily I met a nice guy (who happened to work for a holiday inn in bali) who was coming to lombok for his sister in law’s wedding, so he gave me a ride back to sengiggles so that I didn’t have to go through the difficulty of trying to find a ride there from a small port at 11pm. The next day, my first business was to activate my card, which proved difficult as it was a weekend and the small telkmosel office in sengiggles was closed and I wasn’t entirely sure if the one in maumere, the city down the road, would be open either. I decided to try my luck at the sheraton, the only chain and fancy resort in the area. The woman there was nice, but had no idea how to make a collect call. She tried several times the way she thought it would work to no avail, then we tried the ways I had found on the internet, to no avail until she realized it couldn’t be done from the house phone, but needed to be done from their fancy switchboard phone. But then from there, once I made the collect call, the line at charles schwaab was busy and the operator didn’t understand to wait until there was an available person to talk to. But luckily the next one did. Finally got through and after a long time (thank God it was collect) got the card activated, but then I needed to pick my pin which you do through their computer phone and you have to do all this touchtone typing on the phone, which apparently didn’t work from the sheraton’s fancy switchboard, so I found myself unable to select a pin, which is pretty necessary if you desparately (or even not desparately) want to take money out of a cash point. So I called back and got a very, very nice, in Denver nonetheless, that tried to help me. But he said it had to be through the computer system so I had to type the numbers in with the phone. He stayed on the line with me while I tried several times with no luck. But then he was able to patch me through, all still on a collect call, to anyone’s phone number I had memorized (and trusted)in the hope they could do the pin for me. It was 7pm at night in Colorado, so I thought I would have luck, but was unable to reach any of the people’s phone number’s I had memorized: mom’s cell, parent’s home, bro’s cell, the Hess family. But he told me to leave a message on mom’s phone, which I did in the hope she would get it. Well there was nothing else I could do, so I used the exceedingly nice bathroom in the sheraton and then rented a motorbike. Toured the beautiful coastline of lombok, which is quite dry and almost desertish. In fact if you were to trade palm trees for saguaros, you would think you were in Arizona as you looked inland. Somewhere along the road, got a flat tire (are you sure there’s not cacti out there?) and had to get it fixed. The guy at the vulcanizing shop tried to give me a crappy replacement tube, but I caught that it had a slow leak and demanded a better one. Got it fixed and continued my way along the coast, which was bustling with all the post ramadan parties and then a bit into the hills where I turned around at sunset for the night ride back to sengiggles. On the way out I stopped at a couple of waterfalls, one full of local kids swimming as their parents sang karaoke in the picnic area a bit below. The kids (who were mostly naked went wild with excitement when I stripped down to my briefs and jumped off the waterfall. Sometimes I really get the feeling they are very surprised not only to see a white person but to see what they do and that we’re not all rich fancy camera toting tourists but will get down and dirty and hang out and do what the locals are doing. But I have never been to a county where the people look at you as if you were martian as they do in indonesian and treat you so differently as well. When I asked one of the girls at the port why she was trying to charge me 2 dollars for nasi campur (a rice dish) when I know that the local price is 50 cents and the ferry was trying to charge me 10 bucks when it’s supposed to be 3, she said it’s because I’m white and different. When I got back to Sengiggi, I went to the warnet and found out by email from bro that mom was on vacation in crested butte, had tried several times to set my pin and finally was able to, so I was free to go get money. Went immediately to the first cashpoint I saw and for some reason the english button wasn’t working and I did not want to push a wrong button that ate my card while attempting to translate bahasa indonese, so I moved on to the next one, which was broken. Hmm...one last one to try..and once again, good ole mandiri bank didn’t let me down. Finally had some cash!! Had been somewhat of a nightmare to get that cash, for everyone involved, but finally I had it.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
