Every few seconds the direction changes and we are pushed to the other side. For a long time our bus drives through a windy road with narrow curves. Behind us someone calls for a plastic bag. We don’t slow down. Always keep the eyes on the road to avoid the fate of the passenger behind us. With such beautiful nature you don’t even feel tempted to read a book or look at your phone. Rather, you wonder at the forested mountains, interrupted by green rice fields and a few villages at the road. The volcano on the right side is still covered in clouds. We reach the village with the beautiful name of ‘Moni’. We started our journey in ‘Ende’. The names of the places in Flores remind us vaguely of home. Eventually the clouds disappear, only the volcano is still covered.
Every traveler knows the procedure. You’re supposed see this or that place at sunrise. That means getting up early, taking on a strenuous way and then the weather is not that great. But we remain optimistic. Instead of hiring a car for the way up we decide to hike our way up as physical exercise. That means: getting up even earlier. We agree that I will get up at 2 o’clock and check if I can see the stars. And yes, they can be seen, no clouds in the sky.
The track is well documented on the Internet, so we carry a lot of water and start the hike motivated. But a good description of the track by itself does not make a successful hike. Right at the beginning we have to cross two creeks. There are a few bamboo trunks combined into a bridge. Will they hold? At the second creek it cracks and one foot of Conny and one of myself break through a piece of the rotten bamboo. Luckily we can stay on the bridge because otherwise it would have been a quite long way down. On the way back we discover what we did wrong. Just a few meters upstream is a much better and newer bamboo bridge. We just didn’t see it in the darkness. Well, another cat life is gone.
Right before sunrise we arrive at the viewpoint and mix with the more convenient tourists, that probably can’t understand why we are so sweaty and exhausted. After all it’s just half an hour from the parking lot. We, however, are happy that we reached the fantastic view on the three turquois to dark green crater lakes on our own feet.
At the next stage of our trip by bus a mother sits with her two children behind us at the back. Already when entering we thought, this might not end well. And so the unavoidable happens, the plastic bag is needed once again. And again pulling over is not an option. On the contrary, you can drive even faster through the curves.
Having arrived in the next town we rent a scooter and drive to the cave “Liang Bua”. 15 years ago, the skeletal remains of a tiny and hairy race of humans have been found here. The so called Homo floresiensis, aka Hobbit, not only was very short, but also had a quite small brain. Nevertheless it could handle tools and hunt animals, as the surprised scientists discovered. Maybe size doesn’t matter as much as you’d think.
The cave itself is not very spectacular, but you can watch the archeologists doing their tedious work. In the museum we see a depiction of the early humans and learn that more peculiar animals lived on Flores before the last ice ages, for example a giant rat and a mini elephant. Bones from these animals were found in the same depth next to the Homo floresiensis, leading to the conclusion that these animals were on their menu. The only animals from these ancient times that still exist are the Komodo dragons. But more on that later.
We continue to cross Flores island in the bus without motion sickness and are astounded that there are no huge palm oil plantations, no huge smoggy cities, but rather exciting nature and culture. At the end of the route we arrive again at the sea and gift ourselves with a really good Italian pizza for dinner. With real Parmesan cheese! We are full of anticipation of the coming days because we are now heading to a place that is on our wish list for a long time: Komodo.
