Steven Raucher's World Tour
2001-11-22 in Flores, Indonesia
Volcanoes, mountains and the smell of adventure
Flores is beautiful, these are the first words I should write. The landscape is rugged, volcanic, green, lush, and a dream to ride through. It was photos I saw of this island that convinced me to come to Indonesia, thanks to Rudy, my Austrian overlanding musician friend.
Okay first off Flores isn't that spectacular because one arrives in Labuan Bajo a shoddy port town on the western coast. But still there is something in the air that says: �Welcome to a great adventure�. And the air never lies.
Since the ferry only arrived at 2 am, I had a bit of a late start in the day and was consequently caught in a lovely rain storm on top of the first mountain out of town, not the best way to start. After taking shelter with a very lovely family for about an hour we hit the road while the rain had slowed down to a drizzle. The roads here are not the best, but that�s what we�re here for, who wants a super-highway when you can have a broken, pot-holed, twisting mountain road? It is definitely not a road to blast down, the road, like the people like things to go slowly, pelan pelan, as it were. One can't help but go slowly, no sooner have I given a bit of throttle when I find myself slamming the brakes for fear of missing another amazing vista to snap. This is the way it was in Flores. Ride, stop, shoot, ride, stop, shoot. What a place!
The width of Flores is 375 kms, the length of the road is 700 kms exactly double, that says something for the amount of twists and turns.
Eventually after three days of riding we had reached the village of Moni, set on the foot of Kelimutu. The famous volcano with three craters, all different colours. We rested walked around the market and prepared ourselves for the 4 am wake-up and the drive up the mountain to watch the sun rise over the craters.
My alarm drove a nail through my ear, it threatened me with beeps and whistles and finally threw me out of bed at 4:45 am. Shivering, I packed a breakfast and a blanket and jumped on my bike, off we go, up the mountain. Yeehaa!
The walk from the car-park to the view point is 2 kms and I may be a morning person but certainly not a sunrise hiker (as my mis-adventures in Nepal testify). Panting, I reached the view point, mildly disappointed as two of the lakes have changed colour to black, so in fact there is now one blue lake and 2 black ones. The lakes change colour every couple of years according to the minerals in the craters blah blah.
Kelimutu was definitely worth it, I can't imagine seeing a picture like that for a while and I am even more certain that I won�t be getting up that early for a long time. And now without further ado, I show you how a picture is worth a thousand words, behold�
 shivering and appreciating the view |
 two of the multi coloured lakes |
 sunrise over the blue lake |
 Flores' coastline, mosques and volcanoes |
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