Komodo Dragons! Tuesday June 24
We leave our lovely bungalow at 6:15 A.M and after coffee and banana pancakes, walk with our luggage to Tabra's. The pick up van is waiting to drive us to the airport in Denpasar. The check in process is slow and tedious, but with time to kill, Art manages to call Alisha. It is Monday night in Santa Cruz, California and all is well.
Our 10:15 flight to Labaun Bajo leaves on-time and an hour and a half later we land on Flores Island. A slightly built man, who I assume will be our guide, presses a piece of paper to the exterior of the terminal window, our names printed on it, but until we claim our two bags, we cannot exit. I watch three hot and bored men slowly unload the luggage from the plane, and eventually three carts are pushed across the hot tarmac, and reunited with our bags, we exit the terminal and are loaded into a small S.U.V.Toyota. Our English speaking guide is Mansor and our driver is Cita. It is just a short distance between the airport and the harbor, and within minutes we are aboard the small wooden boat that will be our home for the next two days. We have a captain and two crew members. The captain is a crinkly faced man that I imagine to be about our age. He smiles easily through absurdly crooked teeth. Our two barefoot young deck hands nimbly untie the boat and we are on our way to Rinca Island. It is a two and a half hour boat trip to Rinca and many small islands dot the horizon. The sea is calm and the light, reflecting off of the water is blinding. Lunch is served on a wobbly wooden table, covered with a stained plastic table cloth. We cautiously eat cold baked fish, cold and spicy stir fry noodles, and a cold vegetable salad. The warnings of our travel doctor whirl in my mind and wonder how long it will take for our guts to rebel to the cuisine. I say a silent prayer and continue to eat the unappealing meal spread before us. Art dozes on the wooden floor of our boat, John stretches out on a rickety wooden bench and I sit on the uneven deck and watch islands float by. Indonesia is part of the ring of fire, and it is obvious that these craggy islands have been formed by volcanic activity but I am surprised that they are carpeted with golden savanna grass, mangroves growing along the waters edge.
Eventually we arrive at Rinca Island and tie up to the small dock. Two other boats, similar to ours, and carrying several tourists each, have arrived before us and several small covered fishing boats are moored alongside the mangroves at the waters edge. I peer curiously into one and a weathered old woman huddled under the canvas cover, her mouth red with beetle nut juice, looks steadily back at me. Mansor leads the way to the ranger station, a simple wood building, constructed on raised wooden stilts. We climb the few steps up and into the building where two formally dressed government officials sit behind desks collecting passport information and conservation taxes. Several young dragons are rummaging through garbage piles beside the small huts where the rangers live. A young English speaking ranger, with forked dragon stick in hand, leads us into the scrubby dry forest in search of adult dragons. He tells us that June and July is the beginning of the dragons mating season and that the dragons are difficult to find this time of year but minutes later, our guide spots an adult dragon in the brush along side of the trail. We are ecstatic and I approach cautiously, snapping photos as quickly as my camera will allow. Our ranger stands close with his forked stick poised should he need to ward off an aggressive dragon. The large and powerful dragon lizard seems bored with our attention, but watches us, continually flicking it's forked tongue, tasting and smelling our scent. Some minutes later he makes a slow and undulating turn and waddles off into the brush, his powerful legs and body swaying gracefully.
We continue our hike through the scrubby forest, our guide pointing out birds in the canopy, wild pigs and deer. When we near a watering hole he motions us to proceed quietly and we see a wild water buffalo knee deep in the mucky black mud. The buffalo watches us curiously but doesn't flee and I am able to take many photos. We hike out of the forest, up to the crest of a mountain, blanketed in golden savanna grass with an amazing 360 degree view of hillsides, valleys and the ocean beyond. A narrow trail winds down the opposite hillside and our guide spots a large dragon moving along the path. The other small groups of tourists is descending the trail and we watch as they spot the dragon and have their moment of close encounter. I wish that we could race down our hillside and up the other to watch this dragon, but it is too far and we watch from afar as the dragon disappears into the brush. We hike back down to the forest floor, walking along a dry wash and watching for dragons, but they are off finding mates and I try to be satisfied with our earlier encounter with the adult dragon. Tomorrow, we will have another chance to see dragons on Komodo Island.
Back onboard our wooden boat we motor another two hours to Kalong Island. Our captain serves us tepid glasses of Tang, which taste extremely good in this setting. The sun sets and it is dark long before we arrive. The last hour of the trip is somewhat eerie since our captain uses no running lights and we speed through the blackened water and dark night unseen. There are just a few other boats in the distance, a single light denoting their prescence. Mansor points out Komodo Village, a dim strip of lights, twinkling along the shoreline beyond. Eventually our captain chooses a place to anchor and Mansor tells us that we will soon be visited by men in boats from Komodo Village, with things to sell to us. I flash back to our trip to China, where men, polling on small river rafts came up along side of our boat with trinkets to sell. I felt uncomfortable then and I was with a dozen other travelers but I know of no way to avoid tonights pending visit. Moments later, two small boats pull up along of us and two young men come onboard and begin removing carved Komodo dragons from a cloth sack and arranging them on the wooden deck of our boat. I am sitting on floor of the boat and three other men from the second boat arrange strands of pearls and carved abalone sting rays on the bench beside me. We decide that we will buy one carved Komodo Dragon and John takes his time choosing and bargaining with the young men. An older man with a blind eye thrust a fist full of abalone sting ray pendants at me and I choose one and begin the bargaining game. Eventually we settle on a price and the men re-board their boats and disappear into the darkness.
Dinner is served, a repeat of lunch but with cold fried pieces of gristly chicken in place of the fish. John wonders what part of the chicken he is gnawing on? I am grateful that the dim light minimizes the soiled plastic table cloth and again hope that our stomachs will withstand the fare. It can't be much later than 8:00 P.M. but the eventful day has tired us and the deck hands bring 5 plastic sleeping mats to the front of our small boat. Art and I get two thickness of mats each and John sleeps on the single mat. They spread printed sheets over the mats and give us each the equivalent of a beach towels for a blanket. The night is warm so we will not be cold, and after braving the primitive bathroom at the rear of the boat, I curl up in my clothes and go to sleep. The crew and our guide sleep together on a raised platform within the small steering cabin. Ordinarily, I get up several times each night to use the bathroom and am anxious that I will need to use this bathroom in the middle of the night, but I sleep straight through the night and I sleep well.
