Not a bad swimming hole

After the 57 hour odyssey, we finally arrived Labuan Bajo, the gateway to Komodo National Park and western Flores. We lined up diving for the next morning right away, and dragged our weary selves down the dusty main street to find a room. We checked a couple out, but passed on dirty sheets, stinky bathrooms and no or holey mosquito nets (what with the scare stories of both malaria and dengue in the area). We were soon spotted by a couple of young guys who herded us upstairs from a furniture shop to the fairly pleasant Komodo Indah hotel.

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We negotiated a price for the only A/C room (thinking mosquitoes would be less likely) with another young man who seemed to be in charge, and collapsed for the night. In the morning, the same guy, Anton, who turned out to be the son of the owner, was working hard to practice his English and to tell people something about his town. He said that the local Bajo people, with their own culture and language, are found throughout Indonesia, as well as the Philippines and Malaysia, but most outsiders, including Indonesians, don’t know anything about them. They always live by the sea, often on small islands, and have a long history as great fishermen. Unlike the indigenous Manggarai, who live further inland on Flores, some Bajo stopped here, leaving the traditional, transient life to settle.

Anton, our host

His father has told him that 20 years ago the village of Labuan Bajo was small and made up almost exclusively of such fishermen. There were only 20 rooms to receive tourists at this, one of the only spots from which to set out to see the famous Komodo Dragons or dive the waters of the National Park. Now there are at least 20 hotels, and more tourists arrive all the time. With the new international airport open in Lombok, many more are sure to arrive. Anton is sure that language is the biggest obstacle, as people have trouble expressing their welcome and making real contact with tourists. Anton himself has only been learning in earnest for under a year, and is the only one of his siblings to speak English at all. He started when he realized that the English-speaking manager of the family hotel was charging people much more than he was turning over. He wants to buy a boat someday to take tourists around and make more money. He hopes he will inherit the hotel from his father, though he he fears his chances aren’t good as one of four boys (and a couple of girls).

View from our diveboat

Tourism in Labuan Bajo seems to still be in its toddlerhood, but it’s growing up fast. At times it is innocent and lovable, at others demanding and unreasonable. Here, as we’ve noticed in much of Indonesia, those who interact directly with tourists are young men from their late teens to early 20s. They’ve got the hustle and the strong desire for cash. They get jaded fast, and are skilled exaggerators. Like most young guys, their standards of cleanliness and maintenance are generally low, which means hotel rooms that could easily be quite decent often aren’t at all. Here, many women still wait for their husbands to return from fishing all night to take the catch to the market to trade or sell. They are busy caring for their families, and the boys are handling the tourists.

There are many Catholic communities on Flores (80% of the island), but the mosque in Labuan Bajo woke us each morning with the 4:30 am call to prayer. We wished for more time to explore the rest of the island, waterfalls, caves, petrified forests spiderweb-shaped fields unique to the villages they surround, one of the deepest crater lakes on earth at Sano Nggoang. We were gloriously happy however to have spent as much time as we did in and around the water.

Labuanbajo Dive Club

Sunsets over the harbor are magnificent, and during the day there are countless deserted islands with white, sandy beaches, palm trees and crystalline, turquoise water. Snorkeling is fabulous, but diving was even better. Well taken-care of by the folks at Bajo Dive Club, we did five dives at some awesome sites. Corals were colorful and healthy. Green and Hawksbill Turtles accompanied us on every dive. There were several types of sharks and rays, all the common sea beauties, like Butterflyfish, boxfish (my personal fave after cowfish), Moorish Idols, Clown Triggerfish, and the highlight, superstar manta. The way these giants (some with a 10-foot wingspan) spread their wings, appearing from nowhere and glide gracefully by is indescribable.

At a couple of the sites we did experience some of the famed local current, but mostly it just made for some excellent drift dives. The coral bommies, pinnacles and walls were perfect for searching for the small stuff: nudibranches, shrimp, flatworms and juvenile fish. Close inspection is always rewarded with something unusual and special, in this case an Orangutan Crab. He peeked out of his hiding place for just long enough to give us a wave with his fuzzy claw before retreating. Amazing.

Labaunbajo Sunset

Our dives were long and leisurely. They allowed time to not just check species off a list, but also to observe behavior and underwater lifestyles. Candy-striped Lionfish are mellow when undisturbed. They look deceptively delicate with all their feathery bits. Orange and white striped Nemos (clownfish) dart out from their anemone homes, guarding and trying hard to intimidate…like chihuahuas, big and tough only in their own minds. Cuttlefish perform their magical color shifting to disappear before your eyes. Sleek and shiny Titan Triggerfish and Batfish patrol just along the edge of deeper waters, keeping schools of smaller fish on alert for the attack that could happen at any time. Whiskered Goatfish rest on the bottom, sending up clouds of sand when they start digging around for a snack.

Each day we dove, dolphins appeared beside the boat on the way home, frolicking chaperones in the wake.

HERE are more Flores photos. And don’t miss our post about the famous Komodo dragons!