The Motorcycle Diaries: Roadtrippin Flores, Part 1

DAY 1

Yesterday we arrived in Labuanbajo, a ramshackle little port on the westernmost tip of Flores. It will be 2 days yet before we get our motorbike so today we decide to head out into the Flores Sea for some island exploration. Along the town’s main street there are travel agents offering day trips but they are all expensive. The guidebook suggests that we might do better looking for boat owners down at the jetty and bargaining a price directly with them. We approach somewhat hesitantly but lo and behold the first person we talk to turns out to be a man with a boat who speaks English and is keen to take us to the islands. We are so pleased with our find that we forget to bargain and eagerly accept his first price. Damn, not so smart after all are we? Anyway it is still cheaper than the travel agents and we have our own private boat for the day which kinda makes us feel a bit rich and famous. We spend the morning jumping from the bow into warm turquoise waters to snorkel the coral reefs below and later, when the tide is higher, he brings the boat in to moor on a white sand beach without another soul in sight. Ahhh, paradise.

We return to the dry land of Labuanbajo before the late afternoon rainstorm and settle in a cafe to have dinner and watch the sun set. A very mangy cat with a severe odour problem insists on joining me on my chair. I offer it food scraps but it seems that it just wants a snuggle. Chris threatens to disown me and move to another table but I still let it sit with me. Afterwards its smell seems to follow us home and we trace the source to my T-shirt and shorts.

DAY 2

Today is a day of dolphins and dragons (and how often can one say that?). We are down at the jetty early to meet a friend of yesterday’s boatman who has promised to take us to the island of Rinca, home of the fabled Komodo dragons. The boat trip is 2 hours of stunning beauty- the sea calm as a pond and all hues of blue in the morning light, dolphins jumping and little islands in sight in every direction rising up green and mountainous from the white sand of their beaches.

The land gets more arrid as we go and when we reach Rinca we see that it is scorched and hot, apparently up to 43 degrees celcius in the midday sun. The land is so parched that the vegetation looks ready to set ablaze with the slightest encouragement. There is only the one water source nearby, a freshwater spring, so it is there that we go in search of dragons with our guide. On the way we hear tales of these cannibalistic monsters whose septic jaws can deliver a bite toxic enough to weaken even the much larger buffalo into easy prey ie dinner. The guide carries a big stick and tells us of times he has had to use it. When we arrive at the spring though things are (almost disappointingly) peaceful. There are buffalo wallowing in the mud and dragons lazing in the shade but it seems as if the midday heat has brought with it an uneasy truce. We come across a dragon nest with the mother guarding it and find out that she only sticks around for the first 3 months so, when the eggs finally hatch, the baby dragons face life alone and fend for themselves from day 1. Back at the camp there are a couple of pensioner dragons who have given up fending for themselves, predators turned scavengers, loitering around the kitchen hoping for food scraps. This is the last sight we have of these magnificent beasts as we head for our boat and the ride home.

DAY 3

Let the roadtrip begin. We pick up the bike, borrowed from a guy we met on the street, and head off down the road out of town with only a small backpack each, the cool breeze in our faces, feeling giddy and free. 45 minutes later we ride into a fierce rainstorm. Huge raindrops bounce off the road, drenching us in minutes. We ride on, T-shirts clinging to our skin, wondering why we didn’t bring any waterproof clothes, not feeling so giddy now.

We are noticing that we seem to create quite the stir wherever we go. We are already used to constant “Hello Misterrr”s and question-firing on the street but this is on another level. As we pass through villages people are lightning quick to spot the tourists under their helmets and word of our progress spreads like wildfire. Almost everyone waves, sometimes whole families from the doorways of their houses, and the children on the roadside shout with excitement, hands outstretched for 40km/hour high fives. After about 3 hours of waving more than the Queen does on an average day, Chris comments that the back end of the bike is weaving all over the place and, sure enough, we discover that we have a flat tyre. We are in the middle of nowhere when we get off and start pushing.

This is Indonesia though and sure enough within 10 minutes our bike is surrounded by about 10 would-be helpers and curious onlookers. How many Indonesians does it take to change a tyre I wonder but the job gets done. Chris is whisked away, the offending wheel under his arm, on the back of someone’s bike to the nearest garage and I am taken to wait in someone else’s mother’s house where I am offered a seat in a completely bare room and told I am beautiful. As if this weren’t nice enough, they put another smile on our faces by not demanding extortionate amounts of money for what they have done. We pay them gratefully and drive away (with a wave).

DAY 4

After a cold night in the rather bleak town of Ruteng, we set off early to try and beat the rain. We follow the optimistically named ‘Trans-Flores Highway’ as it tumbles down through lush tropical valleys and past impossibly green rice fields and as it climbs, one tortuous curve after another, through small hillside villages of wooden houses where the women wear hand woven sarongs, carry baskets on their heads and wash themselves and all the clothes in streams. There are goats and cows tethered at regular intervals along the way for roadside grazing (see future blog installment for our later disastrous encounter with one such cow).

The road is for the most part good but there are places which have been washed out in landslides and never resurfaced. We happen upon such a spot somewhat unexpectedly- it’s just over the brow of a hill and out of sight until the last second. Chris swears as he wrestles the bike over loose stones and spiky rock with no time for braking. I hang on and we ride it out, intact except sadly for our back tyre. Day 2, puncture number 2. With the help of a top-up of air from a good samaritan along the way we manage to make it to a friendly little hill-town called Bajawa where we get a new inner-tube fitted (much to the hilarity of everyone in the garage), check into a hotel bizarrely named Edelweis and go for dinner.

We find a great restaurant and end up revisiting it for breakfast, lunch and dinner in the days to come. There is a band playing there every evening which comprises a singer with not a bad voice, a motley crue armed with guitars and a lugubrious guy in a dodgy ‘Michael Mouse’ jumper on the keyboard. They have a large repertoire of both Indonesian and Western songs, some of which are performed quite successfully, others less so. Their treatment of Beatles classics such as ‘Yesterday’ is particularly dire. The restaurant owner’s wife clearly isn’t bothered though and sings along with great gusto (and at a rather high volume).

DAY 5

Today is the day we see all the pigs die. Squeamish readers (Ruth) be warned. We decide to go and visit a ‘traditional village’ which is something we have not done before due to skepticism on both our parts. We have this vision of all the villagers in loincloths prancing about with spears and beating a drum then, when the last tour bus of the day rounds the corner out of sight, heaving a sigh of relief, putting their jeans on and settling down in front of the TV. Hoping that this will not be the case here, we make our way gingerly down 19km of rough potholed ‘road’ to see what awaits us.

2 rows of thatched roof houses stand facing each other with a communal square in between and it is there that we are led, after we have made our donation and signed the guestbook (ahem). It is clear that something is going on as we arrive and it’s not too difficult to work out what. There are about 10 pigs with their legs tied, the guys milling about all have machetes hanging from their belts, carcass chopping is in full swing over to one side and there is a huge pot already bubbling away. The whole village is crowding round and there is a guy acting as commentator for the event, his voice rising as the atmosphere builds and the bloodshed begins.

3 machetes come down in unison right through the centre of each pig’s head. The other pigs are screaming now as the blood is drained into bowls. I look over at Chris and he is white as a sheet! They have started on a pig not 2 metres from us and, as we try and make our escape, I fear that we might get spattered. Chris finds a place to sit with his back firmly towards the action while I sneak a peak- there is a pig on fire now, its body twitching and spasming, but I think (and hope) it is not still alive. I don’t feel queasy like Chris, just sad and a bit shocked.

Meanwhile, Chris’s plight has been noticed and we are invited to sit on the verandah of one of the houses and have a reviving sweet tea. Our hosts have the red mouths and bad teeth of betel nut chewers and speak no English so a very basic phrasebook-aided conversation in Indonesian ensues. We manage to ascertain that they will be having a big meal tonight and that they want to sell us vanilla (we think) but the whys and wherefores of all the slaughtering remain a mystery. It certainly wasn’t put on for the tourists though as we were the only ones watching.

To be continued……

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