Stuck in Maumere Waiting for Visa Extensions

September 5, 2015

We are anchored off Sea World Resort near Maumere on the island of Flores, Indonesia. Nearly all 50 rally boats are here as we wait for our visa extensions. For over a week we have been experiencing firsthand the bureaucracy that Indonesia is famous for as the renewal process is changed daily. We are still waiting for our passports to be returned to us so we can continue west.

We have taken advantage of the layover to do some boat projects and touring. We hired a car and driver for a day starting at 4:30AM and traveled three and a half hours to see the Three Colored Lakes of Kelimutu formed in the calderas of a volcano. Each lake is colored differently and the colors can change overnight. The drive was as enjoyable as the lakes as we passed tiered rice paddies and white sand beaches. We stopped at a mountain village with a large open market and saw the live animals bound and ready for butchering (yuk!).

A hired driver is a must since it would be suicide for us to try and negotiate the windy mountain roads on our own. Driving is on the left side of the road and the white line is more of a suggestion than a rule as scooters and trucks often use the right lane to pass slower vehicles. Drivers beep their horns as they approach curves in hopes that oncoming traffic will return to their proper lane.

There are no taxis in Maumere but there are a million scooters that will take you anywhere for $1USD. If there are two of you the scooter driver will flag down a fellow transportation specialist and off you go. Alternatively there are bemos; public transportation vans similar to buses that cost only 50 cents. However, they will not go anywhere until they are full which means people hanging out the door.

Sea World Resort has a wonderful happy hour (actually two hours) where a cold 1 liter beer costs $3USD. Most cruisers meet at the beach bar to talk about the day’s activities and enjoy the sunset. One night the resort had a buffet on the beach with a delightful selection of food and an arak chaser. The first sip of arak tastes like turpentine, but it grows on you.

Our last post was from Wakatobi. From there we sailed 150 nm due south to Kroco Island in light winds and ended up motoring a third of the way. Kroco Island is little more than an uninhabited sand spit surrounded by four smoldering volcanos and featuring clear water and great snorkeling. From there we motored to Tanjung Gedong and then to Maumere.

We have some exciting diving ahead of us as we move west and we are very much looking forward to seeing the Komodo dragons before we meet up in Bali with our daughter Jennifer. She will join us in some land touring and our sail north to see the orangutans.