At the dragons in Komodo National Park

After saying goodbye to the red-haired relatives and their little cousins ​​and cousins ​​with the big noses, we spent another night in a hotel in Borneo, because the flight times didn't match otherwise. The next day we went back to Jakarta, where we also had another overnight stay due to lack of a cheap connecting flight.

Then we finally continued to the island of Flores, where the Komodo National Park is located on the west side. Here, too, we were greeted by a guide who first put us in a taxi and took us to the next houseboat. Since it was low tide, the boat could not dock at the pier. So a dinghy was sent out to pick us up along with our luggage for our home for the next 2 nights. The small motorboat looked quite rickety to our eyes, but at least it had made it from point A to point B, so it should still be enough for the return journey. When it docked, water was first scooped out with a bucket, hmmmmm ... Then our luggage - with the help of a completely rusty boat with big holes - was hoisted onto the little boat and finally we were supposed to climb after our suitcases. Okay, so about 1.5m from the jetty down onto the scrap boat, climb over a few ropes and bypass a big hole, and then finally step into the freshly emptied nutshell. The journey didn't take too long and the water only slowly flowed back into the boat, so we arrived at our destination safely. Getting off the houseboat was less adventurous and done with a big step. We could choose a sleeping area from two cabins, and all our stuff was crammed into the other one. The bathroom - just like with the orangutans - looked like we should save showering for the next hotel stay. The toilet had to be flushed by scooping water from a large bucket by hand. By now we were used to simple accommodations, but we thought we had reached the simplest level - but apparently it can always get simpler ... Well, for two nights it wasn't a big problem, so what...

At the beginning, we discussed the program with our guide. Because of a rescheduled flight (and the resulting later arrival), we were in danger of missing the hike on Rinca Island (pronounced Rintcha). However, this hike, together with the hike on Komodo Island, was the reason for the trip here. But it turned out that the guide was completely flexible and immediately accommodated our wishes. He rearranged the activities so that we could now do both hikes and also go snorkeling. Another small hike was canceled, but we weren't that interested in it anyway.

In the early morning (7:00 a.m., before breakfast), our beloved dinghy took us to Komodo Island, where we searched for the 'Dragons' (Komodo dragon in English) accompanied by a ranger. Since the mating season had just begun, it was supposed to be quite difficult to find the animals. Great, we thought, it's probably not going to work out. But it didn't turn out that bad after all: On a small hill in the dry grass lay a medium-sized dragon, which also moved nicely with its tongue when we arrived. Later we saw two really big dragons and one rather small monitor lizard on the beach, so we were completely satisfied.

Our next stop was Pink Beach, which - contrary to all the pictures we had seen so far - was only moderately pink, where we went snorkeling. The dinghy was used for this as well - we were slowly getting used to it. From the beach, you could reach a very nice and intact reef and see many small and large fish, as well as a very large squid, two turtles, and a blacktip reef shark. We were also surprised to see a young dragon sitting in a tree on the beach (the baby dragons do this for the first two years as otherwise they would be eaten by their parents or other adult dragons).

After that, we continued towards Rinca, but on the way we stopped at a spot where you should be able to observe manta rays very well from the boat, if there were any. After some searching, we actually found them, and since we apparently had a lot of time, observing them from the boat turned into another snorkeling session. We swam here with 7 mantas at times, which were feeding and didn't feel disturbed by us at all. They came very close and were huge (estimated wingspan of 10m!), so we felt really tiny. Absolutely awesome!!!

On Rinca, we saw another 8 Komodo dragons, but they were lazily lying around because it was still scorching hot despite the advanced time of day.

Before heading to the overnight anchorage, we finally passed an island from which thousands of flying foxes flew off towards their feeding island for their nightly meal…

Our stay on the houseboat finally ended after one last early morning snorkeling session at another intact and quite beautiful reef, where we encountered 2 turtles again. For one last time, we climbed into our dinghy and safely arrived on land with all our luggage, where the taxi to the airport was already waiting. We continued to Denpasar on Bali, where, however, there was no program, only a hotel stay, as the flight times were not in our favor here either ...