Stories from a Enchanted Iceland: A travel diary of Flores

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Stories from a Enchanted Iceland: A travel diary of Flores - Overlooking_the_Komodo_Islands_from_Rinca_Bay

Lush hills and steep cliffs overlooking vibrant villages and cerulean shores adorn the streets of Flores from one corner to the other winding. While I have my share of Indonesian islands I had called beautiful, I have to say it, Flores is something special.

Despite Flores as a tourist destination increasingly popular, there are still many off- provides the beaten path encountered. The peoples Flores enjoy life as it is; to welcome abstention from vices of excess, to celebrate life values ​​through creative expressions, and generous visitors from afar. In addition, Flores is perhaps the Indonesian island, where I felt the most secure as a solo hikers.

Our first stop in Flores was roe, the village where the first Taman Pelangi Bacaan (Jakarta Expat Issue 99) of Nila Tanzil was founded. It was a rainy Wednesday afternoon, but about 50 children aged eight to 12 braved the weather to us at school to meet that manages the library.

seemed to be excited about the children, visitors from Jakarta. Most of them have never traveled outside Flores. They seemed to be able to find a pleasure to browse images from Java, Papua and Sulawesi from my laptop screen, and asked us many questions about our families and jobs. It was amusing trying to see my travel companion Tino, to explain to them what a computer programmer does.

We also heard how tells the children about life in Roë. Many of them help their parents, the family farm or plantation walk, but still the school participate with an enthusiastic learning spirit. A number of them make talented singers and poets. Later slaughtered that evening our hosts for us a chicken and cooked us traditional Manggarai courts.

Our next stop was Wae Rebo, a restricted highland village famous for its conical straw houses. As efficient, we took a oto kayu (a modified truck, an open-air bus with wooden seats similar) to Dintor. With speakers with sappy ballads eastern Indonesian booming, the four-hour drive through narrow serpentines, mountain jungle and valley villages, made for an adventure in itself.

Dintor, a village on the south coast of Flores Fischer is where our Wae Rebo hosts live (or their semi-modern alter ego). We spent the afternoon by the ricefields walking and sitting on the banks of White Rock beach facing Pulau Mules. Our arrival coincided with a special ceremony, the renovation of an rumah adat in Wae Rebo officiate the next morning, so we. Left Dintor at 3:30 to make it to Wae Rebo walk at 8 am

Wae Rebo sacred aura, I believe, has little to do with the peculiar traditional fashion, architecture or music. It has more to do with the respect that pays this modern community of their country and the values ​​of their ancestors taught them, their assertive expectations that visitors do the same.

Our next stop was Ruteng, where we visited Liang Bua, a cave, lived in the ancient hominids. Homo floresiensis , which is also known as "Flores hobbit 'was a kind of short people who believed, were fast runners and can be speaker. We spent time with a local old man to be pretending a descendant of the Hobbits.

Tino and I traveled back to Labuan Bajo and parted there when he caught a flight to Jakarta. this afternoon in the quiet Danau Sano Nggoang with the friendly locals After, I tried my luck the next day for a cheap trip to Komodo National Park hitchhiking. I landed in a boat on Rinca to a middle-aged couple from Riau.

The trip to Rinca was sliding on Emerald seascapes, with a variety of lush islands in sight. There we saw a band of the famous Komodo dragon, watched some nests, and went for a short hike - which I found too short, but the woman found exhausting. We then went for a snorkel in Pulau Kelor, which unfortunately has a miserable underwater view of dead bleached coral.

I finally once again headed towards the east and visited Bena, a village near Bajawa, which is also known for the distinctive rumah adat. Legend has it that the ancestors of Bena came from Java, and they prayed to their ancestors by offering to the megalithic altars plating, hence the name Ba-Jawa -. Plate of Java

The local architecture with embedded philosophies of life, reproduction, and the fight to survive. , The landscapes that are surrounded by lush mountains, with views of the coast

My next stop was the end - a beautiful coastal city laced with black sand beaches and views of the mountains, where Sukarno spent some time in exile. Unfortunately, every historical place seemed there to be closed for stupid reasons -. The guardian of Sukarno House had no desire to work, and the theater where the former president wrote plays growing all over it wild plants had

If the road from the end collapsed to Kelimutu the next day, I wish I instead Riung on the north coast had disappeared. To Maumere I had north over Mbay detour - an hour's drive from Riung - but could not visit the famous white sand beach because the bus for Maumere on the north coast of hell road leaving at dawn left

[1945006InNita] spent a village south Maumere, I one night at Sentra Tenun Ikat Lepo Lorun. There I was greeted by the ladies, who are busy, Bolo plagar were - rice flour cookies made in the form of Maumere textile patterns, taught by mother to daughter to make one day for the man who for their hand demanded in marriage.

Alfonsa Horeng, the internationally renowned leader of STILL, took me on a personal tour of their gardens, shows me the plants from which fibers and colors come give their textiles. One of their Weber showed the fermentation of indigo and the spinning of cotton threads. We had a lively conversation about the role of Tenun Ikat Textile keep the values ​​of the community alive, and compared the value of Flores traditional agricultural economy of modern money-based economy.

has My visit to the tricolor Kelimutu lakes the next day is not very low turn out as dense fog descended over the view. But maybe that's just a sign that I one day return here. Change After all the colors "lakes like a coat chameleon. - They are not the same lakes on my next visit be

I ended my trip to Maumere with a mass Christmas Eve in Katedral St. Yoseph and a White Christmas morning No. , it was not snowing - very bad rain that this coastal city covered with bad fog

an alternate universe in which coexist the old and the modern, the cave of the dragon, hobbits in a cave, Civil wear woven. robes fit for Royals with secret messages embedded and mysterious lakes, to change the colors - this could have also been written in an exotic oriental tales But in the enchanted island of Flores, I experienced these stories than real life and with another adventurer... to share a part of them that has stolen my heart multiplies the joy of travel distribution

country: Indonesia
Province: Nusa Tenggara Timur (NTT )
land area: 14,300 km2
highest peak: Inerie (Greatest near Bena Bajawa) 2245 m above sea level
city: Maumere
population: 1,500,000 (06 estimate)

Directions

  • Daily flights to Labuan Bajo from Jakarta and What to bring Bali (Garuda Indonesia, Lion Air)
  • Daily flights to Maumere from Bali and Kupang (Sky Aviation, TransNusa, Wings Air)


sunscreen, a hat, snorkeling and diving equipment, hiking boots.

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