End

The last 10-hour leg to Ende was only made because I had booked a flight from there a long time ago. My original plan was to travel a bit further east to Moni and from there climb the 1,690m high Kelimutu. From Kelimutu, you can see three differently colored volcanic lakes. Until the earthquake in 1969, one of the lakes was apparently dark blue, one turquoise, and one red. The earthquake allowed the water to penetrate deeper rock layers and dissolve other minerals, which also changed the colors of the lakes. By now, it seems two lakes are turquoise and one is black.

Ultimately, I decided to stay longer in Belaraghi with Nicole and Lewis and therefore went to Ende only the day before my flight. I was the second one to be picked up, my backpack was tied to the roof, and I was allowed to take a seat in the passenger seat. Fifteen minutes later, the bus was full: four people sat in the middle row and three more in the back row. It was only halfway through the journey that I realized someone was sitting on the roof, and it wasn't until we reached Ende that I found out someone had a chicken in a cardboard box as luggage.

During a break for the driver, I wanted to buy some bananas from a street vendor for the trip. But you can't buy three or four bananas here: either you buy the whole bunch or nothing at all. So I bought the whole bunch for the equivalent of 2€, got laughed at a bit by the vendors, and then shared the bananas on the bus.

Since I was only staying in Ende for one night and wanted to sleep close to the airport, I decided to try a capsule hotel. The conditions for staying there are, among other things, that you must be at least 12 years old, weigh a maximum of 100kg, and be no taller than 2m. If you meet these criteria, you get a locker for your luggage, a 2m² sleeping capsule, and an introduction to how to operate the capsule (locking, unlocking, air conditioning, USB ports, turning lights on and off, etc.). During the introduction, I could only think about the hot shower that was calling me.

Shortly thereafter, I came out of the bathroom feeling reborn and quickly ran to the beach. But unfortunately, the sun had already set when I arrived.