10 pm monday 11 october 2010 calabai
What an inspirational day! We woke in Dompu early and were out on the road again with little time wasted. We ventured back towards Alas. After turning off towards Kilo (a tiny village nestled deep in a cavernous jungle valley) we began a winding series of steep ascents and descents down into the mountainous region surrounding Mount Tambora. [Tambora is a famous volcano responsible for causing the "year with no summer" in 1816 after a famous eruption in 1815 that was the largest eruption recorded history and caused the worst famine of the 19th century. I was especially interested in visting Tambora after reading a little about its history. You can read more here.]
The first few kilometers towards the coast were great roads (I’ve made some videos). Tambora sits way out at the end of a peninsula that juts off of Sembawa, and our plan was to drive the long way around towards Calabai by skirting the peninsula. After a few kilometers, once we reached a stunning sea view, the roads became a gravelly mixture of sand and rock – our speed dropped to a crawl and we petered along on extremely difficult paths the remainder of the day. We both had a very hard time keeping the bikes upright in the shifting sand and volcanic gravel mixture. Nash set his bike down twice over the course of the afternoon and my bike nearly went down numerous times. I look back and am shocked that we didn’t get seriously injured. [The only injuries we befell during the entire trip were a cut toe from stubbing a toe on a rock (Nash) and a scraped ankle from coral (me). To say the least, we were ridiculously lucky on the hardest day of motorcycle riding I've ever done.] The path mildly keeps to the coast, though at times the sheer difficulty of the landscape dictates that the path will take a precipitous drop at an angle that was so steep we had to walk down our bikes inches at a time cradling the brake like a dangerous animal’s collar.
Coastal road near Tambora
Tambora – this is a stunning large volcano, we’ve been told that the entire top came off at once – spewing out earth, fire and rock that cooled the earth in 1815 so much so that there was no summer that year. Everywhere on these islands there are massive volcanic bolders and millions of bits large enough to stop a car cold. We traversed this scenery for the entire day on dirt and sand paths. By 2:00 pm we came to a crossroads and met two men from Java who were writing a book on Tambora. We spoke to them about the area, tried macadamia fruit dipped in spicy salt (bitter, makes your mouth pucker). When we pushed on towards Calabai, we came to even harder roads to traverse. We finally reached Calabai around 4:00 pm where we promptly met Amin, the local school teacher and his lovely wife. They introduced us to Amin’s father and mother who run a small guesthouse for traders coming through the area – how fortuitous. [I look back on this as complete luck. Nash and I weren't even sure if we were in Calabai at first. It's not like there's a giant welcome sign. We drove around asking people where Calabai was - they looked at us like we weren't speaking their language ... wait. Eventually Nash spotted the water and we just aimed for it. Amin's house is literally where the road dead ends into the water. Fortuitous.]
Amin and his wife. The white paint on her face is to lighten her skin.
I am writing from the floor of this guesthouse. I learned to shower from a bucket by sitting on a mini-stool and pouring water over myself. The water is cold … damn cold. The toilet works the same way. Yes – soap is the answer. [Looking back I have to say the trip was mildly unhygienic... who'm I kidding - I wiped my ass with my hand. Nevertheless, I will say that people in Indonesia are remarkably hygienic to the extent that their surroundings permit. I never once felt like I would get sick from the food I was eating and the showers were abundant. By abundant I mean to say that there was usually some degree of running water and either a bucket or hole in the wall spraying water around.] Amin speaks a bit of english and so it was up to him to introduce us to the village of 500 people. It’s a tiny fishing village – many of the men stay overnight on fishing sampans out in the sea. We’re told the last time the village had a non-Indonesian guest come through was two and a half years ago. As you can imagine, we were the talk of the town. We had dinner and a guitar sing-a-long with some of the local boys who are very talented. We also managed to arrange a boat for tomorrow to the island of Palau Satonde (an uninhabited island just east of Calabai), and Palau Moyo where we’ve heard there is a famous resort. This village is beautiful and quiet – we walked home tonight through the streets, most of the houses had their lights on and tv playing [shockingly!] We learned that motorbikes only arrived here in Calabai five years ago and cell phones only three years ago. Before that it must have been a very different world. I’m totally exhausted. -b
