Wednesday 18 October, 2006 – 15:43 by Innforapenny
FLORES
After a fare well party put on by the Mayor the rally has now left Kupang to cruise the Spice Islands. Our first stop was a 100 mile crossing to Lembata on the island of Lewoleba, and as usual for this part of the world we motored most of the way. Lembata is a much better place than Kupang, with spectaclular scenary – 5000ft volcanoes and very friendly people. We spent a day ashore at the market, which was an experience in itself. It certainly made one Indonesian market stall holder day when we paid 20 cents for a small packet of pepper corns – the on lookers thought it very funny we paid 10 times more than the market price. We gave chalk sticks to the children which they were very excited about. It was just as well we had plenty as they started to come out of the woodwork. The kids are very inquisitive and shy of us. After spending a couple of nights there we motored on to the island of Flores anchoring at a couple of remote bays along the north coast. The biggest problem is anchoring as the depth of water can be huge only metres from the shore.
Today we hired a car and driver and he took us to see the coloured lakes at the bottom of one of the volcanoes. Although we spent over 7 hours in the car getting there and back, it was certainly worth while. We walked for half an hour to reach the top of the crater. One of the lakes was almost a flouro green due to sulphuric acid. The ph can change very quickly changing the lake to a completely different colour.
