The Jungle Book: Labuanbajo -> Bajawa -> Kelimutu -> Bali, September 13-19

The Long Trek Across Flores

Following the great two days at Komodo Island and Rinca, I said farewell to the Catalans as they were off to Bali and I planned to stick around for 3 more nights do some diving. I had heard that Komodo National Park was a great place for diving, although it is notorious for extremely strong currents. I also decided that it was time for me to take the next step in diving certification and get my advanced certification. After shopping around town for a good dive operator I decided to go with Komodo Divers, which turned out to be a great choice. Upon speaking to them they asked me if I wanted to go on a night dive in 20 minutes and I decided why not. Although the dive was just in the harbor we did see a lot of neat things, albeit amongst the garbage -- including tons of crabs, shrimp, baby cuttle fish, lion fish, and a weird eel/sea snake looking thing. The night dive lasted about an hour an I was officially on my way to becoming advanced.

The next morning I was up at 6:30 (which would be the start of a week straight of being up before 7) to head to the boat for the days dives. The dive sites in Komodo National park are a minimum two hour boat ride, so you pretty much spend all day out at sea. Our first dive of the day was at Batu Balong for my fish identification dive. The dive was amazing, one of my top five dives of all time. I saw the largest schools of the biggest fish I've ever seen! Also saw white tip sharks, turtles, and a sea snake. The coral was stunning too, with every inch of rock covered by coral, sponges or the like. For the afternoon dive we went to Manta Point, but unfortunately didn't see any Manta's. This was my drift dive for my advanced certification and what a perfect place to do it. With the strong current we drifted about 2 miles!

On Tuesday, I awoke again at 6:30 to head out diving. The first stop was Castle Rock, probably the most famous dive site in Komodo National Park. It was a great spot -- essentially a rock pinnacle in the middle of the ocean. It's nice because at the rock there isn't much current but everything gets pushed towards it, so as the dive master said "sit back and enjoy the show"! Again we saw sharks, but also huge schools of travally, tuna and barracuda. The second dive of the day was nothing special as it was my final test before becoming advanced: underwater navigation. I passed the natural navigation and compass navigation tests and was now officially advanced certified!

Wednesday was my last dive and it was no let down. Our first dive was Tatawa Kecil, a rare stop for divers here because of the currents, which I found out first hand. Tatawa Kecil lays right at the heart of the meeting point of the Flores Sea from the north and the Indian Ocean from the south, so it's no wonder there are strong currents. This turned out to be the most difficult dive I've ever done, as was the case for everyone else including the dive instructors. You had currents going in all directions (including up and down) at all times. At one point I saw a fish get flipped upside down and thought to myself "if the animals living here can't survive, how are humans?" It was hard to take note of anything around you as you were fighting the current the entire time in hopes of avoiding being swept out to sea. Fortunately, we all made it. My last dive was back to Batu Balong for another stunning show; including white tip sharks, one of the largest pufferfish I've ever seen and a sea snake that we watched hunt for over ten minutes. It was certainly a great place to do my last dive in SE Asia. Komodo Divers were a great operation, who I would recommend to anyone. The dive master was a late-20's British guy and it happened to be that his friends from England were in town doing their dive master training from him. Essentially, the four of us hung out all day on the boat then would get back to town and go out for dinner and/or drinks. It was great fun.

On Wednesday the 15th I was up by 7:30 for the beginning of a long trek across Flores to Kelimutu (some 15 hours by bus). Flores is quite undeveloped compared to other parts of Indonesia, so there's only one road across the country which, for those of you familiar, is like the road out to Stinson Beach except narrower and longer. Since I didn't want to do all 15 hours at once, I did the first 7 hours and got out at Bajawa to break up the cross-island trip. On the bus I met an English guy (John) and a French girl (Delphine) who I spent the next few days with. In Bajawa the three of us arranged a day trip for Thursday to traditional villages and to natural hot springs. The villages were okay but included a two hour hike which was nice and the hot springs were exceptional. It's essentially a river that passes over an underground lava flow which heats the water to about 102 degrees -- you could even see the bubbling of heat. A perfect natural hot tub which we hung out at for hours.

On Friday we were back on the public bus from Bajawa to Moni to head up to Mt. Kelimutu. The drive was just as rough, squeezing 23 people and 2 chickens into a minivan (the girl in front was throwing up b/c of the curvy road). Moni was a beautiful small town with the guesthouse overlooking rice fields and rolling hills lined with palm trees. The main attraction here is Mt. Kelimutu, which contains three crater lakes of varying color. The colors tend to change due to chemical reactions of many minerals in the lake triggered by volcanic gas activity. Kelimutu is considered sacred to local people and it is believed that spirits come to Kelimutu when people die. Which lake the spirit would enter depends on the age and character of the person when alive. Jon, Delphine and I were up at 4am for the ride to the top for sunrise. At the top we could see all three lakes for a truly unbelievable view. Tiwu Ata Mbupu (Lake of Old People) was black, Tiwu Nuwa Muri Koo Fai (Lake of Young Men and Maidens) was a rich turquoise and Tiwu Ata Polo (Bewitched or Enchanted Lake) was coffee brown. The lakes looked like they were filled with paint! We spent 3 hours basking at the amazing amazing scenery before heading back down via a 8 mile hike. On the way down we met an old local guy who showed us a few shortcuts through villages. We stopped at his village as well to meet his family and to share a cup of delicious tea -- sure beat driving down! Along the way we did come across some local farmer yelling at us in the local dialect but we were quick to move on.

Once back to Moni we were on the bus again to complete the cross island trip. In Maumere I said bye to John and Delphine and made out for the airline offices in hopes of getting a flight the next day for Bali. I was lucky enough to find one departing at 6am for Denpasar. I was up at 4 the next morning to catch the flight and to begin my 10 day airplane, bus and train ride up to Jakarta to catch my SF bound flight on the 28th.