Last Friday week, I headed off on the two day bus trip to Labuanbajo at the western end of Flores to meet my sister and brother-in-law (my first visitors since I've been here). They arrived in Bali on Saturday and then took the short flight from there to Flores on Monday morning. After a day's relaxing and catching up we then headed off on a road trip through Flores on Tuesday morning, arriving in Maumere on Sunday.
It's hard to do justice to the beauty of Flores in mere words and I don't think that my little camera is really up to the task either - the scenery is nothing short of spectacular with plunging valleys, soaring mountains (up to about 2200m), green rice fields, coffee plantations, banana trees, white beaches, volcanic lakes, and smiling children everywhere.
I've alteady posted some photos on Facebook (just click HERE if you want to see) but here are just a few of the highlights of the week :
In Ruteng, we were invited by Anouk (a Dutch volunteer) to visit Sekolah Luar Biasa, where she works. This is a residential school for almost 200 children with various disabilities (many are blind and others are deaf) but one these kids can do is perform ! As with most Indonesians, it seems that holding a microphone gives a confidence boost that is hard to believe. We saw and heard, dancing, singing, poetry and had to take hundreds of photos.
After leaving Ruteng, we visited Liang Bua, the cave where the bones of the "Flores Hobbit" were found. The cave is still the subject of ongoing investigation but it was easy to imagine how people could have lived there as it is very deep and high. We were even introduced to a local man who we were assured was a direct descendant of the "hobbit" !
From Ruteng, we travelled on to Bajawa, from where we did a one day trek cross country to the traditional village of Watu. This village has only recently had a water supply, made possible by the installation of a solar powered pump which gets the water up to the village. This project will feature in a movie (not yet released), being made by Malcolm Wyer, an American film maker.
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After Watu, we descended to the south coast near Aimere and then made our way northwards to Riung via the hot springs at Soa (no photos but very relaxing !). Riung was the location for a day's boat trip to the islands (where I was at Easter), and then from there to Moni and the three coloured lakes at Kelimutu. From there it was down to Maumere, arriving at lunchtime on Sunday.
Monday morning offered an opportunity for Rosemary and Helmut to visit the hospital. As they had been responsible for organsing the fund raising event in Ireland which raised over 37 million Rupiah, dr. Asep, the hospital director, was very keen to meet them and give a tour of the hospital and express his thanks for the funds.
The visit closed with a formal presentation of two pieces of locally hand-woven "ikat" and a thank you from the hospital management team.
The final episode in the visit was the drama of getting out of Flores. The flights that I had booked were cancelled as the airplane was "rusak" (broken) so we rebooked using another airline - the flight eventually took off four hours late and with minutes to spare before darkness fell (Maumere airport is not lit so there are no flights at night).
All in all, a great week's holiday- Flores is one of the most beautiful places you could imagine and is still very unspoilt and untouristy. Well worth a visit - but be prepared, there are no 5 star hotels and travel arrangements are "difficult" !
