Labuanbajo and the Komodo Islands
To get to Flores we decided to take the bus from Lombok, passing through Sumbawa. After a long, hard ride on twisting, bumpy roads, our night bus, with comfortable reclining seats, deposited us at 3am at the station in Bima. Here we switched to a clapped-out, rusty minibus that would take us to the harbor on the eastern end of Sumbawa where we would board the ferry to Flores. It took hours for the bus to fill up. Then, completely packed, we wound our way through the hills at dawn towards the sea. On arrival in Labuanbajo, at the western tip of Flores, we made plans to visit Komodo and Rinca islands to see the famous dragons. We teamed up with a Japanese tourist for a two-day boat trip.
 |
 |
The area around Komodo is fabulously beautiful. There are barren, deserted islands and sparkling white beaches. We stopped on the south coast of Komodo to snorkel on “Pantai Merah” ( Red Beach ), by far the most impressive underwater life we had ever seen, with coral of an amazing variety of forms and colors. We arrived on Komodo in the late afternoon. The park-appointed guide took a long, forked stick from a rack in front of park headquarters and proceeded to show us around. Several “small” komodo lazed around camp scavenging for scraps. Wild pigs rooted around near the immobile lizards. Our guide assured us that the pigs can tell when a dragon is hungry. No amount of staring at the impassive eyes and wily smiles of the komodos could tell us if they looked hungry or not! Our guide led us on a walk through the trees and undergrowth. Twittering birds broke the silence of the dry, overgrown jungle. The fear of suddenly coming across a raging komodo kept us on our toes. When we reached the former feeding area, we discovered a large dragon lying motionless in the undergrowth. As Eric went to take a picture of it, it suddenly stood up and began advancing leisurely in his direction, its head, hips and tail swinging from side to side. Luckily, it veered off in another direction before it reached Eric, who cowered nervously behind a slender tree. We continued walking through the dry jungle, over creepers and around low bushes. Our advance frightened another small dragon out of hiding, but it ran quickly away and we could not keep up with it. It was growing late, so we turned back.
 |
 |
It was already twilight when we arrived back at the boat. We moved out into the water between the islands and anchored at “Flying Fox Island”. A colony of giant fruit bats made their home here. Shrieking and chattering rose from the island as the bats awoke. We could see the silhouettes of their wings flapping in the moonlight and hear the shrill cries they made while flying overhead. Two men from a nearby fishing village rowed up to our boat to sell carved wooden dragons. We talked for a while. One of the men had married twice so we chatted about that and made some jokes. Without asking anything in return, he gave us one of the carved komodo dragons before rowing back to town. Nighttime on the boat turned out to be breezy, cold and damp despite the fierce, dry heat during the day. We put on all of our clothes to stay warm on the open deck.
 |
 |
We woke before dawn. There was just a faint red glow on the horizon as we began to sail to Rinca, the second island home of the Komodo dragons. When we arrived, it was still early enough for the lizards to be active. In addition to a lazy individual by the docks there were several smaller “welcome lizards” hanging around camp. Rinca has more open savannah than Komodo, with odd-looking palm trees dotting the open grassland. We spotted our first lizard, a young one, actively hunting for food. We passed some small monkeys and observed a water buffalo lazing in the mud, chewing its cud. Then, all of a sudden we came across six lizards in the open. Two had just sparred and the smaller one, the loser, slunk away. We approached the larger one, still lying in the dirt, to have a closer look. With a thick, spiked tail, short muscular legs and sharp, curved claws it was truly a magnificent creature. The mouth revealed just the hint of a smile. It was tempting to approach the lizard for a photo, but what if it decided to lunge, to eat me? On Komodo and Rinca, it was clear that we were in their domain. As we walking further we saw more dragons. Our guide, counting 18 in total, said that he had rarely seen so many! It was already late morning and the lizards were becoming lethargic, so we returned to the boat for some more snorkeling before returning to Labuanbajo.
 |
Prev: Flores