So, the internet. It’s a wonderful thing. And blogs, you know, kind of need it. And remote islands in Indonesia? They don’t have it. So yeah. That’s why (assuming we ever get internet), I will be posting a bunch of blogs at once. For now, I write them in my journal to be posted in more urbanized regions (fingers crossed for Bali).
Our last stop was the island of Flores. Sound familiar? Well, maybe. It’s the first place we’ve been to that I’d heard of and if you read the National Geographic article about pygmy humans, you might recognize the name too.
On Flores, anchored near a town called Maumere, we had a fun six days. We shopped in an outdoor market where squatting ladies sold fruits and veggies, fishermen displayed their latest catches with grins and sharp knives, and chickens were kept under tables to be sold live and squawking. From there we found that the chickens would be tied upside down to motorbike handlebars and rushed to their dooms. We feasted with the locals and learned how to peel the meat off the spine of a whole grilled fish. We watched them eat the eyeballs too, but we chose not to partake of this delicacy.
The best part of our time in Maumere, as far as I was concerned, was our trip up the volcanic mountain Kelimutu to see the fabled “color changing lakes”. Everyone we spoke to insisted that we go up early to see the sunrise, so we scheduled a private van to pick us up at (oh god) 3:30 AM. It had been rainy and cloudy the few days leading up to our adventure, and our local friends promised to pray for good weather for us.
Unbelievable as it may seem, I managed to awaken before 3 AM and wasn’t even the last one ready to go. We drove the dingy to shore and then it was off we went on our three hour drive. Up we drove through windy mountain roads, going slowly to avoid wandering goats and cattle, as well as oncoming motorbikes and buses.
Now, I said that we left at 3:30 and the drive was 3 hours long. This would lead one to assume that the sunrise was around 6:30. Imagine our surprise when, with almost an hour to go, the sky began to lighten. By 6 o’clock, we could no longer ignore it, the sun was well above the horizon. Sunrise (I have since checked on an early watch shift) occurs around 5:45 around these parts. So sunrise at the top of the mountain- fail.
As it turned out, this was just as well. The volcano was wreathed in clouds. When we reached the trailhead near the top of the mountain, it was so foggy that the trees dripped down on us. For the first time in weeks (or has it been months?), I shivered.
And so it was up to the color changing lakes with us. I was somewhat dismayed to discover that we could not expect a rave party light show from these lakes. Rather, the lakes changed colors unexpectedly from season to season. Psh! What was so exciting about that? You leave a swimming pool untreated long enough and it will do that too.
Nevertheless, we pressed on. We witnessed a bird with an incredibly loud warble that resembled Nintendo shooting noises, and this raised our spirits as we shot imaginary lasers at each other in time with the chirps. But alas, when we reached the lakes, our hearts sank again. The craters were filled with impenetrable fog. Unless these supposed lakes were white right now, we were totally unable to see them. We hiked from crater to crater and peered hopefully down… nothing. We tossed rocks in, hoping to at least hear a splash… nothing. We searched the monkey feeding grounds, hoping for some form of entertainment, and though we sacrificed a cucumber in hopes of enticing them… nothing.
Disheartened, we took pictures of the posters so we could pretend we had seen something. As we prepared to depart, we climbed one last time to the first crater, to peer again over the “safety fanch” (a spelling error we found hilarious). Mournfully we tossed pebbles into the mist and then, as if some volcano god was pleased with our mineral sacrifices, the fog began to lift.
There were, indeed, lakes! One was red, the other, a brilliant turquoise with yellowish scum. The third was still mostly shrouded, but appeared black. And as we gazed, hooted with glee, and delightedly snapped pictures, distant screeches that could only be monkeys came drifting across the valley below. Lo and behold, at the monkey feeding grounds, there were monkeys. Kitten shared her apple with one while the rest of us perched on a bamboo structure, filming and photographing.
Utterly pleased with ourselves, and rather exhausted, we returned to our driver, and, 3 hours later, the boat. Kelimutu color changing lakes- totally worth it.
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