It’s fun being in a land of endless
destinations. It’s Amy’s spring break. 5 work days off + a weekend on either
side = 9 full days. Hmmm, where should we go next? After consulting our “wish
list” of places to go – organized by required timeframe, seasonality, and
activity type – we filtered for: one week, any season, beach (Amy wanted beach
time). Output: Flores.
So what’s a Flores? Portuguese (who named
the island) for “flowers”, Flores is one of the bigger islands making up this
vast archipelago called Indonesia. Unlike Java, where we live, Flores is part
of eastern Indonesia, otherwise referred to as Nusa Tenggara. And, unlike
Java, which contains 150 +/- million people, Flores is home to a mere 1.8
million – unpopulated by Indo standards, and a nice break from humanity for us.
With direct 2.5-hr Garuda flights from Jakarta, it’s an “on the beach by noon”
scenario. Gotta love that.
OK, where to begin. White-sand beaches,
gin-clear water, coral reefs, world-class diving/snorkeling, island-hopping,
volcanic craters, komodo dragons, flying foxes, manta rays…it’s a tropical
island paradise bursting with endemic (science geek word meaning: not found
anywhere else) wildlife. Very cool place indeed. While climbing to the top of a
ridge one day, Amy and I both agreed it is among our top-10 most amazing places
we have ever been.
Flores is really about 2 trips you need to
choose from if you only have a week: (1) coastal, beaches, island hopping, or
(2) inland, volcanoes, indigenous villages. We focussed on option 1 (Amy =
beach = happy). The trip was sandwiched between two stints on a beach separated
by a 3-day live-aboard boat mission in the middle. The beach days were awesome
for the usual reasons…you know…working on the tan, chillin’, reading, walks on
the beach, swimming in the ocean, snorkeling, renting a motorbike and cruising
around, and of course, sunset drinkie-poos. We all know that drill. A highlight
for us was the fact that it was low season, and we pretty much had the beach to
ourselves – again such a rarity for us these days.
Beachy stuff aside, the true “oh-my-god”
highlight of the trip was the 3-day boat trip. The basic layout of the area is
centered around a town called Labuan Bajo, on the western tip of Flores (google it). The best thing about “Bajo” is that it has an airport. That’s
really all you need to know about this scruffy town (well OK, a
couple good restaurants maybe). The idea is to get out of town to one of the
beach areas north of town, or if you are a rock star, out to one of the pricey
island resorts. Then, once based, get yer skinny butt on a boat, and out
into the tiny dots in the ocean that make up this stunning area.
In terms of boat options, we chose the private
(i.e., only us), yet rustic, “deck only” option (i.e., no cabin) for our
adventure. To be honest, price was the driving factor since these live-aboard
boat trips are ridiculously expensive – ranging from ours, which was 400 bucks
all-in, for 2-nights/3-days (rice and chicken, sleep on a piece of foam on the
deck), to stratospheric prices of 500 bucks+ pp/pn (air con cabin, duvets, drinks
on the top deck). Ahh, but the Amalia (our boat) was a fine craft, and Captain
Hanka ran a tight ship. The weather was in our favour the whole time, so life
on-deck was good. The young First Mate, up at first light making coffee,
cheffed up surprisingly good grub. All and all, a fine ship and crew.
An “interesting” sidebar however, ranging from
neutral to downright annoying, was “the kid”. In classic Indonesian style of
“surprise!”, while boarding the boat in Bajo, on jumps a young fella, who our
“agent” (i.e., guy we paid) points to and very succinctly states: “guide” and
then “training”. Huh? Who? How? What the…? Whatever, too late, the motor was
chuggin’ and the boat was moving. After a couple minutes of “who the h are
you?”, we find out the kid is 17 years old, and never been on a trip like this,
or to any of the places we’re going. We can only assume that was the “training”
part. So ya, we were now in the rather interesting situation of having to
parent a 17-yr-old kid for the next 3 days, who, aside from a phone in his back
pocket, had nothing more with him than the jean shorts, t-shirt, and flip flops
he was wearing. Welcome to Indonesia. What? You don’t want a 17-yr-old kid
along on your private charter? Silly bules. Anyway, I’m over it (Amy might need
more time).
So, the area is a shotgun blast of tiny,
volcanic-origin, islands ringed by coral and gin-clear water. The volcanic
thing, along with the contrast between verdant green mountains and turquoise
water, is what makes everything so dramatic. Every bit of land is a piece of a
volcano in various stages of evolution from cone formation, to
eruption/explosion, to crater formation, to final disintegration and return to
the sea.
The sea life is over the top, making it one
of the top snorkeling and diving locations on the planet. We both agree that it
is most likely the best snorkeling we have ever experienced. I don’t ever
remember being surrounding by hundreds, if not thousands of fish. It’s like
snorkeling in 3-d. They’re all around you. Very cool. The most amazing thing is
the seemingly endless array of multi-coloured species. At any one given time,
you can easily count dozens of species. As a biologist, I am continually amazed
at the diversity of species here, and many of them endemics! (that science geek
word again).
Speaking of endemics, the grand-daddy of
‘em all, and the reason we all showed up here today, is, wait for it: the Komodo
Dragon (Varanus komodensis). Found
nowhere else on the planet, and confined to only 5 small islands – a living
dinosaur as they say – lives the largest lizard on the face of earth. These
guys are huge! Imagine me, with a big beefy 2-m tail. That’s an average Komodo.
The biggest of them can be twice as big. They are 100% carnivore, and go after
big meals like deer and water buffalo. These guys are ferocious and have a mouth
full of razor-sharp teeth. Surprisingly though, while it has happened, they
rarely go after humans. Something about a guy getting attacked and killed in
2009….blah blah blah, whatever. We’re good, right? J
Only known to science since 1910, they live
mostly on 2 islands: Komodo and Rinca. Obviously, both islands were highlights
of our boat adventure. To give credit where credit is due, Indonesia has done a
nice job of making the islands and surrounding ones into a park – Komodo
National Park – and controlling human activity within the park. Upon arrival
and paying our park fee, we were greeting by the mandatory park guide, who, armed
with a forked stick (I offered to run back to the truck and grab the 12-gauge,
but he said we were good – it was a pretty good solid stick), gave us the grand
tour. Even he was surprised that we
“bumped into” 6 of the critters on our morning walk about, one of them a gigantic
male. We were both shocked at how close we got to them…touching distance if you
dare (careful, we need to remember what happened in 2009). Impressive beasts
they are. A bit smelly. 
Ah yes, another tropical volcanic island,
another gigantic endemic lizard, maybe a snorkel stop, more endemic
rainbow-coloured fish, another hike up a
volcanic ridge to see another crater ringed by coral, and then to our final anchoring
spot for an end-of-day swim and sunset cocktails. Life is good. Total and
absolute contentment. Wait….what the? what is that in the sky?…a bird, no, it’s
a freakin’ huge bat! Followed by another several thousand, with a setting sun
and crescent moon as a backdrop, we were witnessing yet another Komodo
spectacle: the flying fox evening flight at Kalong Island. 
Also known as the Sunda flying fox (Pteropus vampyrus), they have nothing to
do with foxes that fly (or vampires as the scientific name suggests). These are
simply massive bats – imagine a gopher with wings. Hanging (literally) out in
the mangroves during the day, they emerge at dusk in the thousands to fly to
night-time feeding areas where they feed on fruit, nectar, and flowers (not your
blood). Set against a sunset sky, the result is yet another amazing display of
nature’s wonders. We sat speechless and simply watched the 30-minute show. Very
very cool. Never seen anything like it. Being on the bow of a boat, bobbing up
and down in a tropical ocean, was definitely surreal.
So, Flores…wow. As the saying goes, we just
scratched the surface. I guess we’ll just have to come back! J
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