Roadtrip Flores - 1st stage: Ruteng

We have treated ourselves to a private guide for the next 4 days. He will show us the highlights of the island. Luckily, we chose this option, as the distances would be too far and dangerous with a scooter :-(. Another option would have been public transportation. It would have looked like this: an open small truck, used to transport animals (pigs, goats, chickens, and of course also people). We would have been on the road for about 5 hours each time. No, we both didn't want that.

The first tour took us to Ruteng. The rice fields, which are arranged in spiderweb form, are the highlights.

Franko, that's the name of the guide, picked us up from our accommodation and we quickly left Labuan Bajo behind. Now we had to drive for kilometers through the mountain region. It was incredibly beautiful, as the rice fields and terraces started shortly after Labuan Bajo. They were being harvested like crazy. Farmers could be seen everywhere in their fields. Franko stopped at one field, where they had a machine that helped with the harvest. That was incredibly helpful. Harvesting rice by hand is such hard work, especially in the heat where we don't even want to go outside.

We stopped along the way multiple times and were explained about the different trees and their yields. There was the region with clove trees. The scent was insane, so intense. The locals had laid out the cloves on the street to dry. Then there was the region with cocoa and the one with cashew nuts. It was fascinating to see the fruits or spices lying in front of the houses. We were allowed to take photos of them time and time again, and the locals were happy about it. We had to answer numerous questions and shake hands over and over again.

Finally, we reached the spiderweb-shaped rice fields. We had to climb a small hill and they were right in front of us. It's incredible how someone came up with the idea of arranging the rice fields like this. Like a spiderweb or I thought of pizza. When we asked "why were the fields arranged like this", they said "it was fairer for the distribution of the individual fields"!

At the end of the tour, we visited a traditional village and we were the only visitors with our guide. We were lucky because the village elder was present and we were allowed to enter his hut and talk to him! Yes, that was cool! The children from the village followed us to the very end and waved the whole time.

Then Franko took us to our hotel. We had a great facility surrounded by rice fields.

Unfortunately, I'm not feeling well. I've been having major stomach/digestive problems since yesterday :-(. I drank a smoothie with ice, thinking I could have it without any problems here. But no! At the moment, I can only eat rice and take charcoal tablets until I get better. It's terrible because I'm already tired of rice. We still have several days ahead of us and I'm already thinking about so many delicious things that are only available in Germany, awful.

Best regards, Anke & Daniela