I spent the first week of my winter break traveling with two friends around Flores, one of the smaller islands east of Bali and Lombok.
This is the sunset taken from my hotel balcony my first night in Labuan Bajo. The airport had decided not to put my luggage on the plane, and I was waiting on friends to show up the next day, but this view and a lukewarm beer made me feel a lot better about things.
The next day a new friend took me on a motorbike tour of the island. We drove past a library he built out of recycled bottles and talked about the local environmental movement.
Went caving.
Saw a bat. Our guide pointed this baby bat out to us and said "use your flash, make sure you take a good picture"
Hiked out to a waterfall. See the rain clouds lurking in the distance? About 15 minutes into our hike, the heavens let loose and we were immediately soaked through. But we kept on, slipping and sliding down a jungley slope, grateful for having remembered to put the cameras in the drysack.
The waterfall. We had to ford (swim) the river to get even this close to the big falls, our guide said we couldn't go further, because the water was rising fast.
So we played around in this baby waterfall.
Sailing out to Manta Point to go scuba diving with manta rays.
Snorkeling. I saw a cuddlefish!
Komodo Dragons!
In Komodo National Park. Sacrifice to some god of Komodo Dragons? Or just to keep things interesting for the tourists?
This is the bud of rafflesia arnodii, the biggest flowers in the whole world. The bud was 10" high. The books say it might also be the stinkiest flower in the world, it smells like rotting death.
That log-like thing in the background? Yep. That's a komodo dragon. They can run up to 18km/hr, have very sharp claws, dirty mouths, and are capable of bringing down a water buffalo. But luckily, this one isn't feeling very hungry.
No comments:
Post a Comment