The last day

March 19th

To sleep in the airplane is not easy, but needed. Somehow I manage to devote about 5 hours for the sleep, however, when there are 4 hours left till the destination, I don’t manage to fall asleep in any way anymore and have to watch films. After a while lights get turned on in the saloon. It is a sign that breakfast can be expected soon. We land in Istanbul at 5:50 in the morning. We need to spend some time in the security controls, where Vitolds has to part from a folding pocket knife that was left in his hand luggage. We have almost 3 hours till the next flight, which each of us spend entertaining themselves in the airport departure area. At least as much as it’s possible to be entertained there. Boarding is announced one hour before the departure. We meet at the gate, where we get boarded on the bus outside and get driven to the airplane. It is cool. My clothes are traveling in the check-in suitcase, so I still do with a t-shirt, shorts and sandals.

Around 11am we have arrived in the Cologne airport already. Finally we get to see our luggage. Nobody is missing anything. Now I can also put on more suitable garments for the climate. To get rid of the baggage suitcases, we go to the Ryanair check-in desk. Huge queue, but no one to service it. After a while, however, the queue begins to move forward after all. We meanwhile manage the weight of the suitcases to match the permissible limits. Success. I check-in my suitcase and then run to the adjacent desk, because all the boarding cards for the people flying are in my phone. However, it is not a problem and everything is quickly sorted. Someone has found a suitable place to spend the time and around 13 o’clock we move to the cafe S-Bahn in the adjacent terminal building.

After a while I receive SMS from Agnese (she went to Germany separately, by a different flight): “Where are you?” I answer equally “logically”: “In the adjacent terminal, eating is happening”. Despite this, she finds us. We spend another hour in the cafe and then go to check-in Agnese’s luggage and to yet another security control before the last flight today. The Germans are exceedingly hard-working and seek out thoroughly. They are interested in both bags with food and boxes with gadgets (chargers, batteries, screwdrivers, etc.). After consultation among the security-colleagues I get everything returned and let to take with me. Danke Schoen! Typically, that the Ryanair passengers have already lined up in a really long queue for boarding still well ahead the start of it. We have no desire to stand, so we wait until most people are already on board. It has its cons – there is not really place for the hand baggage anymore. I stuff it under the chair, as I can somehow endure these inconveniences for the couple of hours of the flight. Despite the tense posture I manage to get some sleep.

When I wake up, we have already flown into Latvia. At 19:50 the aircraft lands at the airport “Riga”. Land is covered with snow in places. It’s a bit strange after the 3 weeks spent in heat. The bus drives us to the entrance, there we await our luggage (how nice that everyone has everything) and entering the waiting room, we meet the first welcomers. The final group photo still and then in groups we disperse to home.

The trip is over. Long live the trip!

Hier kommt die Sonne (Rammstein)

March 9th

They say the sleep is better in a fresh air. This seems to be not the case this time. I wake up several times during the night. The history keeps silent on whether that’s the noise of the Molucca sea waves or the firm sleeping place which is not letting me sleep till the moment when the others are also waking up. It’s rather the firm sleeping place as I have foresightedly left the mattress at home…
Here one has to explain that we set up the base camp on the previous evening on the sea side – some under the mosquito net, some in the tent like me, some just in sleeping bag.
So I am looking through the net of the tent entrance and see that the Sun has risen quite above the horizon. Nothing has been missed and the camp is waking up bit by bit, our travellers’ group is gathering the sleeping accessories and preparing for the Big Event. Special glasses get distributed, cameras with light filters get set up and everyone reserves the nicest square meters of the beach for themselves.
Our activities are also observed by several Indonesians which arrived on the beach in the morning with their mopeds. They are, however, shyly sitting in the bush and our contact does not happen.

At 7:30 IT starts, first as a slight gap in the Sun’s puck that looks like someone would have bitten a round biscuit. Later it becomes similar to the protagonist of the classical computer game Pacman till around 8:44 we await a moment when for 3 minutes the Sun gets lost from the firmament. No, in fact it is not getting lost anywhere, just the puck of the Moon gets in the front of it with its broad back and in these latitudes, where we have come to not in the most easiest way, a strange twilight sets in for a moment. With the diminishing of the Sun’s light it gets noticeably colder. There were some clouds in the sky since the early morning which, when the eclipse was approaching, tried to cover the Sun, but they didn’t have courage to spoil the most important moment.
Meanwhile the first Indonesian group gets replaced by some other young generation Sun observers who have the special glasses as well in their inventory.
To describe the eclipse itself nothing suitable comes to the mind. It is indescribable by words.

When the brightness of the Sun comes back a photo of the united Latvia-Sweden eclipse observers’ group is made. The last joy in the water on this coast and we get ready for going back. After the Indonesian boys have shown us their tricks in the water, they climb palms and get us more than ten coconuts for which they get a small but fair fee. The coconut water turns out to be very refreshing.

At 10:30 we start driving with an aim to reach Ampana during this day – a place from where it is planned for us to go to Togean islands. Since it is a hot day, the crews crave for another swim. A half-suitable place gets found on the seaside and the heated bodies refresh in the warm sea.

We continue our trip for a bit more than an hour and then our bright and important day is, however, darkened by a “cloud” – we get a phone call from the crew of the third car with a message that their car has broken down and does not move. Since we are quite some stretch of the road in front of them, we return to evaluate the situation. All the signs are showing that the car has got left without a clutch which has not managed to withstand the stress of the several days in mountain serpentines. There are no tools and solutions initially, but we must do something. In the closest village using the “rich knowledge of Indonesian language” a durable rope gets bought and we pull the defective car to the Salodik village. The previously acquired new acquaintance Ipin gets called who promises to come and help.
Of course, this turn of events changes our plan considerably.

After a long discussion and involvement of several Indonesian “specialists” the solution is as follows – we trust the car to the locals together with a set sum of the many-zeroes money which would be necessary for its repair and also leaving in this car a big part of our belongings so everyone could move to the two other cars (luckily they are seven-seaters after all). In this way we would continue our road to Ampana, but the car after the repair would be delivered there by the locals and we would get it back after returning from the Togean islands. The risk, as a matter of course, rather great, but we don’t have any other acceptable options at 11pm.
Then the most complicated starts as after the already long day we still decide to go to Ampana where we arrive in the ferry terminal at 3:45am. The previously planned schedules have failed so we without pleasure choose to enjoy the not-so-comfortable hotel named “car” till the departure of the ferry.