Every one of our days in Labuan Bajo started at four in the morning. The call to prayer was now going on for ever, must've had something to do with Ramadan we guessed. Soon we didn't stay awake for the whole hour, we fell asleep soon after the first few minutes, only to be waken up after the prayer by all the roosters around the guesthouse. Soon we booked dives, as Komodo is at least as famous for its amazing yet challenging dives as the dragons over the surface. Anni's friend Matias, who had become an enthusiastic scuba diver during his travels, also joined us. We got four dives plus a visit to Rinca island to see the Komodo dragons for 1'600'000rp per person. The dives were stunning! The cauldron, a drift dive between two small islands was full of fish, big and small, turtles and white tip reef sharks. Castle rock, a rock rising up from the seabed to a few metres under the surface was surrounded by jackfish, trevallies. Black, bluefin, bigeye, then sweetlips and everything down to the smallest nudibranchs. The next day's highlight was manta point, or Makassar reef. It was the fastest drift dive we've ever done or will ever do, probably. We could only slightly steer to the left or the right and as soon as the first manta ray appeared in distance we dropped to the ground, emptied our BCD's and tried to hold on to something on the seabed, which was mostly pebbles or a handful of sand. Three mantas in total, the last during our safety stop with the divemaster diving down again with my camera to get at least a photo or two. World class! Then we dove at Penga kecil, a flat reef in 12m with a slope down to 30 or more.
Then we stopped at Rinca island, neighbour of the more famous Komodo island, also inhabited by Komodo dragons (monitor lizards, actually). We had to buy tickets on the pier in Loh Buaya and got a guide who took is around the place. Before we reached the guard's cabins he told us that it's very hard to spot the dragons, sometimes people don't see any apparently. Just two minutes later we reached the cabins and, oh lucky us, there was a whole pile of dragons under the kitchen cabin. The guide got all excited and said how lucky we were to see them here. He assured us that they don't feed them. Judging by the egg shells lying around everywhere we made our own conclusions. Then we went for a quick walk where we saw a deer and a wild boar (it wasn't so wild, it hung around the cabins too) and enjoyed a fantastic panoramic view from a nearby hill. The last two dives (or three for Anni) were at Tatawa besar first with turtles being the higlight, a relaxing dive along a slope. Second one was manta point with one manta swimming slowly over Anni's head! And of course, turtles everywhere. Then a shallow one, Wae Nilu, for Anni with a lot of macro life to top it off. Every evening we drove back to Labuan Bajo in beautiful sunsets. Well worth the money!
After about a week in Labuanbajo we split from our friend Matias. He had a flight to catch to Australia and we a boat to Kanawa island. It's hard to get a room there, people tend to book months in advance but being persistent worked well and we booked a tent for a couple of nights there. The boat didn't work for the first hour, we were drifting around in the harbour but the captains skills as underwater mechanic were sufficient and we arrived at the island in heavy rain. The tents are under a roof so they don't get too warm, which works well. With 175'000rp they're very expensive though, but we paid it anyway, we just wanted to snorkel around Kanawa (google it, it's amazing!). We snorkelled every day in different parts of the reef soon finding our favourite, the eastern end, with big fish, healthy corals and young blacktip reef sharks. That's all we did basically, we even extended to five nights and could've stayed forever if the food was better and less pricey. A must is the hill, after a 20 minute climb younget rewarded with a spectacular view over the reef, islands and Komodo in the background. Over all a brilliant location, with downsides like food, organisation and prices. Still worth a few days!
The road to the airport in Labuan Bajo is in a terrible state. The bemo made it though, and we were wondering if they couldn't just fix the road a bit with a bit of money they were wasting on a big, futuristic, new terminal. We didn't know where to check in so we went to the Sky Aviation counter, a small airline we got the tickets from. There was already a crowd waiting, luggage everywhere. After a while without anything happening we just went inside, there they told us that the flight to Ende was cancelled, some problem with the plane in Ende. The guy in charge offered us our money back. Or a flight the next day. I asked if they would fly for sure the next day and he smiled and said we better take our money instead. Shit. We still went for the flight. Outside we heard from others that their flight to Denpasar was also cancelled. Some of them missed their connecting flights back to Europe, we felt sorry for them. Then they also told us that some people got a night in a hotel paid by the airline. We went back inside the office and asked for the same, he asked us to wait a moment. Good. Then he came back and said he just got us a flight to Ende with Lion Air, leaving in an hour. Very good. He paid the price difference which was around 20$ per ticket and we had ourselves a safer airline. Perfect!
In Ende while waiting for the luggage we met two groups of tourists. One was a family from Holland, whose plan was to take a taxi to Moni. Problem was they were already five people and we didn't know if we could fit in too. The other was a french couple, taking a taxi to Ende. Problem was we didn't really want to stay there. Suddenly everything went fast, people got in the taxis and we had to decide which group to join, we ended up with the couple. We picked a random hotel from lonely planet (theirs because it was older with about 7 hotels to choose from. Our brand new book only had 3 options. Newer is not better when it comes to lonely planet). The beds where shit and Ende not much better. We ended up booking a one day trip by car with a guide. We planned to leave at 03:00 to be at the Kelimutu volcano and the three coloured lakes for sunrise, the best time according to the book and the guide. The he promised to drive us straight to Maumere and further east to Wodong.
Before our alarm went off, the mosque went off. At not even three in the morning! While driving through the town we didn't see anyone around. We expected to see people on the way to the mosque, or at least some activity. Why all this noise when no one gets up anyway?
With our guide we had a driver who drove fast. Sometimes the fog was so thick I couldn't see the road from the backseat, but he probably had every bend memorised and drove as fast as always. After two hours we reached the ticket booth where I went to pay. The guard asked me if we bring cameras (who doesn't?) and I paid quite a lot for everything. Back in the car our guide made fun of me for paying the camera fee. Well, it's my first time up here, isn't it? I can't possibly know if anyone checks later on or not. No one did and I cursed myself for being so naive. We didn't need the cameras anyway, there was nothing to see. Thick fog made it even impossible to see the bottom of the crater. The only things we saw were tourists and monkeys. And a spanish lady who yelled at her guide for not telling her that the weather can be bad sometimes. It was miserable.
Back down we went and the whole next hour the driver and guide were always checking the weather for any changes, ready to turn back. The only changes were for the worse, it was raining by now. We learned later from other tourists that the best change for good weather is in the afternoon. So sleep late, take it easy, enjoy the lakes in sunshine and fuck the sunrise. The ride was pleasant enough, green hills, rice fields in the valleys. Last stop was on a hill with Jesus statue on top, overlooking Pago beach. Flores is beautiful! Then we drove through Maumere and eastwards around 30 km to Wodong. There we checked out the Lena house 1 (it's called Lena house 2 in lonely planet). I called the day before but the guy on the phone couldn't tell me if yes or no. Now it was yes and we got a nice little bungalow on the beach for 115'000rp (the prices in the lonely planet are all wrong, from food to accommodation to diving, wrong).
We asked to stay a week which they said is ok. But every night there were arguments between the owner and guests about bookings that weren't suddenly accepted anymore or people who got kicked out. So were we. One night we extended for 5 more nights, the next morning we were asked to leave, they got a booking from a family with nine people. Even though we asked earlier we had to pack. Same with a polish couple who had an e-mail booking. Lena house is a beautiful little place for little money but they fucked up almost every single booking. There's also Lena house 2 about 500m to the west but they were full. Then there's Ankermi which is expensive. We found a bungalow for 80'000rp next to Lena 2 which was even more peaceful, Wodong bungalows. It has a much better vibe, more travellers and basically every night we shared stories with others, some of them were on a big trip too. We stayed there for another five nights and snorkelled every day off the beach. Basically all the corals are dead since a big earthquake and tsunami in 1992 hit the coast but between the piles of coral and seaweed there's a lot to see. We found frogfishes, pipefishes, beautiful nudibranchs, scorpionfishes and lionfishes. A highlight was a snorkelling trip to Pulau Besar and Pulau Babi. Besar is blessed with healthy coral, Babi with a white sand beach.
The flight back to Bali we booked already in Labuanbajo. The plane left half an hour earlier than announced and we stopped for barely half an hour in Labuanbajo before continuing to Bali. We had planned to spend our remaining four days in Ubud since we skipped it the first time. During the landing though we quick changed our plans and decided to head south to the peninsula and the surf hot spots. We were able to haggle a taxi driver down to 150'000rp to Bingin beach. There we were left at the toll gate and started walking in the direction all the guesthouse signs pointed. Some guys we met on the way suggested to walk toward the beach for cheaper rooms. The first one we asked stood right atop the cliff with a breathtaking view over the neighbouring beaches and the beautiful waves, dotted with numerous surfers waiting for the right one. Lucky us again, we got a room for 150'000rp, looking worth less than that but we were just happy to get a room after seeing the adverts for the Rip Curl competition being held right now...
Not being great surfers we chose only to watch. The waves are quite big for beginners and often crowded. We spent three days watching the waves and some seriously good surfers doing their thing. One day we drove around the Bukit peninsula and checked out the famous Ulu Watu wave. There the start and end point is in a cave and on the way out the surfers get carried quite far away first by the currents, pretty impressive! The whole area around Ulu Watu and Padang Padang (where the competition was) was very crowded, taxis, locals on motorbikes, overtaken by young topless surfer dudes driving too fast for the narrow, curvy roads. It wasn't very pleasant. Still, we were glad we went to the south of Bali, it's so different from the rest and shows Bali's beauty in a different way. Those were our last days in Indonesia, a country where we could and will spend much more time in future. Time for a change, not too big though, language and religion are pretty much the same. Malaysian Borneo.
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