2/12/10-2/13/10 - The Great Komodo Island Adventure

Steff, the Canadian couple (Wes and Ashley), and I headed out in the morning to check on flight prices at 7:00... When the airport opens. We learned that "open" and "employees working who sell tickets" are two different things.


At this point Steff and I have been pretty much out of money for two days because there was no working US/Canada ATM in Sengigi, we had to spend a lot on the refugee boat, and the night before Steff and I went on a looong walk. At night. By ourselves. To the one ATM in town. Which was out of cash.

"that's ok" we said "the airport MUST have ATMs!" Noo... no it did not.

Walked and walked and walked back to town to the ATM machine again.

Success!

We did a happy "we're not screwed, yay we have money dance"

Set sail for Komodo Island! The 12 of us (the league of nations) stretched out on the small two deck boat we had to ourselves. At the last moment a great middle aged Scottish Gardner asked to join our boat. We agreed, and now Scotland had joined the league! Who could stop us now?!

We spent two days and one night on the boat. It was one of the most fantastic things ever. Ever! We went to Komodo twice to see the Komodo dragon and trek, snorkeled three times, ate the food prepared by the crew (rice.. So much rice), chatted together, and had a giant slumber party.

Komodo Island was like a magical lost land. It was hot and tiring, but we saw some of the most spectacular views we had ever seen. I can't even describe it, none of the photos do it justice. You just have to go there.

Our guides introduced the alligator sized Komodo dragon as poisonous, fast, cannibals that can take down deer and water buffalo. Don't worry though! They informed us that they were going to protect us... With a stick.

According to our guide: we weren’t in danger because it was too hot, or they weren't hungry, or there were too many of us.. Or something. What ever the exact reason, the dragons wandered right past us and we were able to get close to get pictures. They didn't even look real! They looked like some kind of animatronic Star Trek creatures, with their stiff walk and long slithery yellow tongues. Fun fact: they have three eyes and two penises.

Jumping in the water to snorkel after the mornings of hiking felt like heaven. We were lucky with the weather being in the 80's and sunny for both days. On one trip out, we swam with giant manta rays. Steff and I found three swimming together. One swam right beneath me, and even with my arms and legs stretched out it was so much larger than I am. Another spot we snorkeled could have been a series of post cards from every angle. Turquoise and blue water, white sand, rainbow colored fish, corals, palm trees - wow. Three sad things about snorkeling: trash in the water, some bleached coral, and our waterproof camera now has water damage and doesn't work. Fail.

(Editor’s note: we didn't lose any photos, the memory card is fine. We're going to buy another camera in Singapore in a couple of days. The rest of The League of Nations took photos and are going to send it to us for all events post the Great Camera Fail of 2010.)

While we were all relaxing on the boat, enjoying the quiet, views of the mountainous green islands, and warm sun - two little row boats pulled up to our boat. We were all quite bewildered as the men peeked over the deck at us. Then, miles away from land in the middle of paradise, they pulled out the merchandise to sell. There was officially no avoiding the sales people. A summary of our conversation went something like this:

"No, we would not like a wooden figurine of a Komodo dragon... But we would like beer."

They left immediately toward land to get beer to sell to us.

We found this hilarious and awesome.

That night on the boat we all sat around chatting, sharing funny travel stories, and watching the shooting stars. England (Michael and Stephan) shared their rum with the United States (me and Steff) as we are not fans of beer.

To conclude = I think we could have stayed on the boat forever.



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