Road to Bajawa

My first trip across the island of Flores was to the town of Bajawa where you could organize trips out to the different traditional villages in the area. A mere 10 hours from Labuan Bajo

The day didn't exactly start off that well. I had been told that the bus would pick me up outside my hotel when in fact it had no intention of doing so. If it hadn't been for a persistent young man who called himself a bemo collector I would have just sat there. Turns out I had to take a bemo to the bus terminal. A bemo, is basically a stripped down mini-van with bench seats along both sides. Its your basic form of local transportation, just flag one down going your way.

So now i was feeling a bit rushed, bus was to depart at 7am and i had 10 minutes to go. The problem with bemos is that they are also always looking for fares. They'll stop and ask people where they're going, they'll even hang out for a few seconds outside a shop just in case. So of course we made stops to pick up the woman who sold fish on sticks at the station, and the women who sold ginger and carrots at the market and some guy who jumped on, just hanging out the open door and then jumped off again.

Finally after what seems like an eternity, we get to the bus terminal, the bemo collector grabs my backpack and walks away... now i know he's not running away with it or anything but i'm still standing trying to pay the bemo driver who now wants to charge me an extra 1000 rupiah then we had originally agreed upon. I pay the man (the original price of course) and walked around trying to find the man with my backpack as all the people in the terminal stared at me. Finally ahead of me next to a bus, i see him. He opens the door and says you sit here.

okay. when i think of bus i think of njtransit, decamp, greyhound. i step up place my hand on the seat and look up. 4 seats are occupied the rest are not actually visible as they are stockpiled with fruits vegetables, rice, bags, etc. the row ahead of me is actually leaning on its side. it hasn't been screwed in yet. I wanted public transportation - i was going to get it.

As we headed to Bajawa we made stops along the way picking up more passengers and moving more stuff (for lack of a better word) onto the roof of the bus. Somehow just when i thought the bus was full, we'd stop again, do a bit more rearranging and POOF! like magic create another seat.

In the city of Ruteng we stopped to pick up one more passenger. The door opened and as the seat next to me had just been made vacant a woman got in and took it. I looked up and was surprised - another woman traveler (she was white and had a backpack) . She sat down next to me and as we started to move looked at the book on my lap. "Oh what are you reading?" I pass her the book. "Oh wow you must speak very good English". "I should hope so" - I said. She looked at me taken aback as I told her 'I'm American'.... I guess i look Indonesian to tourists as well.

That was how I met Helena, an adventurous spirit from Holland traveling around Indonesia for a few weeks who became my travel buddy for the past week. Really I think the gods must have been watching over us from above because I honestly don't think either one of us would have enjoyed any of Flores if we'd been alone