LABUAN BAJO, FLORES, INDONESIA
Sleeping on the deck of a boat can be fun, but not so much when 1) no one gives you a blanket, and 2) your boat is in the flight path of a bunch of incessantly chirping flying foxes returning to their roosts before dawn.
The only bright side to being awakened so early was getting to see the sun rise over the jagged landscape of Komodo Island, which I have to admit was pretty striking. Our boat then made its way (slowly, of course) to the national park entrance, where we disembarked and again found a guide to take us trekking on the island.
Komodo, or at least what I saw of it, seemed to have more of a variety of habitats than Rinca, with more forested areas and a great variety of birds. We encountered screeching sulfur-crested cockatoos, imperial pigeons, a black-naped oriole, and a mound-building megapode, which looks a little like a chicken. Our guide also pointed out some neat tree snails, and a number of wild deer that immediately ran off into the woods when they saw us.
And about halfway through our walk, we came across a huge male Komodo dragon, sunning itself right in the middle of the path! Our guide actually grabbed the end of its tail and lifted it up, which made the dragon none too happy--it immediately whipped its tail around, stood up on all fours, and shambled off down the path. (I could almost hear it thinking, damn tourists.)
After our trek, our captain guided the boat to an area on the east side of Komodo Island where there are supposed to be lots of manta rays--if we were lucky, we'd try to snorkel with them. But although we circled around for about an hour, we didn't see any (well, the captain saw some fins or something, he said, but by the time we got there, whatever it was was gone. So a little disappointed, we turned the boat around and endured the loooooooooooong boat ride back to Labuan Bajo. (We did see a couple of jumping dolphins on the way in, which was nice.)
After cleaning up, Henrik, Chris, Smeeta and I had dinner at a restaurant a few doors down from our hotel, then came back to the hotel restaurant to find the power off. (What is it with this town?) Chris retired early, while the rest of us played cards for awhile.
Sleeping on the deck of a boat can be fun, but not so much when 1) no one gives you a blanket, and 2) your boat is in the flight path of a bunch of incessantly chirping flying foxes returning to their roosts before dawn.
The only bright side to being awakened so early was getting to see the sun rise over the jagged landscape of Komodo Island, which I have to admit was pretty striking. Our boat then made its way (slowly, of course) to the national park entrance, where we disembarked and again found a guide to take us trekking on the island.
Komodo, or at least what I saw of it, seemed to have more of a variety of habitats than Rinca, with more forested areas and a great variety of birds. We encountered screeching sulfur-crested cockatoos, imperial pigeons, a black-naped oriole, and a mound-building megapode, which looks a little like a chicken. Our guide also pointed out some neat tree snails, and a number of wild deer that immediately ran off into the woods when they saw us.
And about halfway through our walk, we came across a huge male Komodo dragon, sunning itself right in the middle of the path! Our guide actually grabbed the end of its tail and lifted it up, which made the dragon none too happy--it immediately whipped its tail around, stood up on all fours, and shambled off down the path. (I could almost hear it thinking, damn tourists.)
After our trek, our captain guided the boat to an area on the east side of Komodo Island where there are supposed to be lots of manta rays--if we were lucky, we'd try to snorkel with them. But although we circled around for about an hour, we didn't see any (well, the captain saw some fins or something, he said, but by the time we got there, whatever it was was gone. So a little disappointed, we turned the boat around and endured the loooooooooooong boat ride back to Labuan Bajo. (We did see a couple of jumping dolphins on the way in, which was nice.)
After cleaning up, Henrik, Chris, Smeeta and I had dinner at a restaurant a few doors down from our hotel, then came back to the hotel restaurant to find the power off. (What is it with this town?) Chris retired early, while the rest of us played cards for awhile.
posted by John Kuge at 11:55 PM
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