22.02.2023 - Makassar and Bantimurung National Park

After breakfast, our bus departed at 09:00 for our excursion to Bantimurung National Park. Unfortunately, the weather was not very inviting as it was raining.

The journey to the national park takes you through busy streets out of the city of Makassar, before reaching more rural areas. Due to the heavy rain, we could hardly take any proper pictures as the bus windows were full of water streaks.

In addition to numerous cars and many trucks, mopeds are particularly common, weaving their way between the other vehicles and adding to the traffic chaos.

After a short drive of about an hour, we arrived in the village of Parang Tinggia. It is a normal village, but it is famous for its suspension bridge over the river that comes from the national park, as well as the hundreds of Flying Foxes (fruit bats) hanging from the trees. It is remarkable that the local population accepts the Flying Foxes as 'good spirits'. This is probably because they spare the local mango trees and head to a different village every afternoon to search for food.

We also visited a school there and witnessed how the children were excited about our visit.

We also had the opportunity to watch a folk group perform impressive tricks with a ball.

Finally, we continued on to Bantimurung National Park. Due to the heavy rain, we unfortunately couldn't see the many butterflies that are the park's landmark, but we could visit an exhibition of preserved butterflies at the Butterfly Museum. Catching and preserving butterflies is widespread here. They are turned into pendants, pictures, and all sorts of souvenirs. Consequently, we were constantly approached by vendors trying to sell such souvenirs. We chose not to buy a butterfly - as beautiful as they are. But we don't really want to support the capture of these animals, even though we are aware that it is a necessary source of income for many people there.

The waterfall, for which the national park is famous, naturally had abundant water due to the heavy rain. However, this also meant that we couldn't walk along the waterfall path. So we could only take a few pictures from the base of the waterfall.

The return journey to the ship unfortunately took the same route, so there was nothing new to see. We were back on the ship at 14:00 and set off again at 15:00.

Unfortunately, we barely experienced the city of Makassar itself, and we also didn't have the opportunity to buy some spices at the market as we had hoped.