To Jakarta

March 17th

We wake at Miko hotel in Makassar. Breakfast is [agreed] at nine o’clock, but before that Agnese, Andra, Imants and Rūdolfs go to the post by taxi. After breakfast, five of us go to the market, where we create photographing festival for locals. We all return to the hotel and by a van go to the airport to fly to Jakarta, where we also land successfully. With three Blue Bird taxis we arrive at a rather the nice accommodation The Packer Lodge. Here there are comfortable beds for everyone in one’s own niche. Shower and toilet works even without buckets. There is a possibility to get beer which we hurry to use. We cozily sit and eat a bit. In the evening, some of us still find the strength for a walk through the city, going to the Dutch Square. Around it there are pedestrian streets with a rather lively night-trading. We enter a fine restaurant with live music, where we get kindly shown all the rooms, but after all of that we get back in the streets again. As this is the capital, the locals no longer show the desire to take photos with us. We have got knocked out of the usual. After 11pm we return and disperse over our shelves. In our room they are in two floors – 8 pcs. It is much more comfortable than in many other places. We fall in a sweet sleep after this saturate day.

The long and winding road back

March 15th

Yesterday’s ship was boringly tedious. The six-hour journey reminded of Syrian refugee movement across the sea in boats to Europe, the difference maybe was the density of persons per square meter, which was much smaller than for the refugees. Therefore bearable. In Ampana the repaired car awaits us. We start the journey to Tentena. Night trip and at 1:00am we are already in the our known hotel Victoria. Again, the Internet and communication opportunities and cheap beer. Next happiness is the lux rooms with both a western style toilet, shower and an embroidered heart-shape at head of the bed.

For breakfast, the traditional pancake with bananas. And we are ready for the road. This time take a different road. First the Saluopa waterfall. To it through a beautiful tropical garden leads a walkway. Coffee bushes, durians, cocoa trees and something like pawpaw fruit. Next shaded trail runs along a creek, which is formed from the water of the waterfall. Then comes the stage of the waterfall itself where the water is forming beautiful patterns, creeks on the rock wall. And finally the last stage of the waterfall which has a pool at the the bottom, where a water column falls in. So there we are swimming and having a massage. It was refreshing and great.

At the entrance we buy durians. In the car they give off not too pleasant scent. After a while we become accustomed to it. However, we do not know how to eat these wonderfruit. Ilgonis gets in contact with the locals who cut one with a large knife and show what is edible there. Large stones and a little flesh. It is then for eating. Durian doesn’t delight us too much, so that durian pleasure goes to the locals.

We go through the local villages. In one village at every home there are Indian-hindu formations. Looks like this village represents Hindu supporters. On the other hand, Christians are already preparing for Easter. Preparing celebration space, bring palm tree branches for the celebration. In some villages there are crosses near the houses. Elsewhere the whole street is scattered with crosses. Again the narrow roads. It looks like the region is the rice granary. Rice in different stages of maturity. Planted in one place, in another already being harvested. The road runs along the Lake Poso. We stop at a place where there should be orchids. But nothing, they are not there. However, there is a lake and a naked bathing.

We continue the journey and whoops. A bar in front of the road. Roadworks. Need to stay bored for 3 hours. It is expected that only at 17:00 the road will open. The road builders do not want to work and, therefore, the road gets opened sooner. The mountain road turns into a flat coastal highway. It starts to rain. The gray car has a problem again. The oncoming car breaks the mirror of the gray one. What to do, how to live on? The car has an insurance. We are going to find the police to confirm the accident. The policeman doesn’t want to do anything, only a photo taken together with white people. The lease owner gets called, who says it is an ordinary case in these latitudes, and no report is required. We are looking for a hotel. The hotel was the worst of our entire trip. Settled for the night we are looking for where to eat. Some fish and beer. And have a good night.

Agnese’s notes:
The road on the west side of the lake Poso is good enough albeit narrow. The sights are definitely better on this side and since there were roadworks on the other side, it might be that this road is also faster.
As it turned out later, the car owner wasn’t saying that all is ok and that no report and even no mirror fixing is required, even though that is exactly what the policeman told us after calling the owner. Don’t trust them with the first time, ask to confirm again and again…
There were 3 rooms with air condition in the Wisma Surya guesthouse of Palopo town, but they were not very clean. However, it was possible to arrange normal food for the breakfast instead of bread with jam only.

Day of laziness

March 11th

There was a strong rain during the night. Rūdolfs who was sleeping in the tent without the additional roof had to evacuate to the bungalo. Some rain continued in the morning. Caramelized doughnuts for breakfast were tasty. Agnese went to Wakai to pay for the car repair and the speedboat on Monday and she brought to us, guess what? Beer! Some people drank beer while it was cold, others decided to wait until evening.

Bravest men went to snorkel outside our bay where the corals are far better. For the lunch we had a giant grilled barracuda (!). After that half of the group went for a boat trip. We saw small islands and local houses but or goal was a lake of jellyfish. And there were many. Water in the lake is even saltier and hotter than in the ocean. We swam in a clear water, people could touch the jellyfish because they don’t sting. A lot of underwater pictures and video were taken. But I loved the best our second stop – a beautiful Bounty style bay with white sand and excellent corals. I snorkeled there in all directions. I and Rudolfs, we saw a clownfish.

After coming back to our Sunset Beach I laid in a hammock, drank beer and watched the setting sun. It sounds like a clichee, but you know, it works very well. After the diner we enjoyed a moonset and looked for the crabs along the beach. There is a lot of different crabs. Local cats helped us in this venture.

Agnese’s notes:
The ferry is not going from Wakai to Ampana every day but the speedboat is. Yet it only has place for about 17 people so it was important to buy tickets early for our big group.

The light day after the Big Eclipse

March 10th

It seems that after the big eclipse, the car problem and the night drive in 2 teams of 6 people all the possible in Indonesia has been fulfilled. However it is not so. The adventures won’t finish, the mechanic from Luwuk will come to help. After all of that we wake up in the morning at Ampana ferry pier in different places – some in the cars, others in the ferry waiting room on the stools. Like some seals.

In the terminal on the floor the ants eat up the remainings of the dead cockroaches. Toilet, as fitting in a public place, is rather “criminal”. Roosters are singing, next to the small cafe’s near the pier dogs ar chasing chickens. For the breakfast we have avocados that we bought yesterday in the market – big, dark, ripe and delicious. For the tea ordered in the local cafe the sugar has been added richly, not easy to drink from it, more similar to syroup. However warmth and some joy comes from it. We buy 12 tickets from Ampana to Wakai, each for 58000 rupees. We leave the cars at the pier to wait for us returning from the small islands.

On the ferry we make ourselves comfortable in the economic class – some on the chairs, some on specially designed sleeping-shelves. We decide that 80% Indonesians are smoking as there is smoke smell everywhere. Meanwhile in the business class there is an AC, feeling like in a fridge. As guests we get some karaoke songs dedicated to us. All the songs are like “schlager” [pop songs usually about love associated in Latvia with German culture] – melodic and similar to each other. We get happy about the Bintang (Indonesian word for star) beer cans in the fridge of the ferry cafeteria. In the water there are unknown long fish swimming, visible are many schools of little silvery fish. Sometimes some flying fish disturbed by the ship flies by. Everyone sleeps for a long stretch of road to renew the sleep resources “sweated out” during the night drive.

After 4h of journey we notice islands. When we get out of the ferry we arrive in a considerable scorch, the hostess Irina is waiting for us, divides us along 2 boats and brings us to a lovely corner of paradise on the Togean island. Palms, white sand, small houses on stilts, hammocks, warm sea. Some warming up in snorkelling. Wonderfully delicious dinner with fish, rice, fruits, the palm wine bought the previous evening. We introduce ourselves to 4 Finnish people and sing some songs (Ai Sulavesi stūru stūriem, Maza zaļa vardīte, Anders’ solo about frogs in Swedish and some more beloved Latvian songs).

After the dinner we hold an improvised disco on the beach in the light of shining plankton. Suddenly around 20:30 the generator breaks down. In a complete happiness we go to sleep. There is no light, no TV, not possible to charge the electronics. Nothing is disturbing our tender sleep – neither in houses, neither in tents, nor in hammocks. Only the she-dog Lucky steals the wet clothes hung out for drying (especially Rudolf’s) and chews them at the trunk of a palm with much care. Some bigger crabs get found and involved in a photosession. Silently are lulling and singing cicadas. In our camp and in Indonesia all is calm.

Agnese’s notes:
The ferry is named Tuna Tomini and it goes several times a week from the harbour east of Ampana.
Some of us took the mattresses for sleeping from the business class on the ferry. It seems to be fine, just need to pay 10’000IDR for the “rental”. If you want to sleep – absolutely worth it!
The electricity gets switched on at around the sunset time around 6pm and off at around 11pm in the Sunset Beach “resort” normally.
The boat cannot accommodate 12 people plus the captain and Irina at the same time, so we had to split.

The day of the first bath

March 7th

Today we wake up in Poso – the second biggest city in Central Sulawesi region if I am not mistaken. We slept on the last floor (3rd floor by Latvian standards, 2nd by UK) and it was one of the highest buildings around. There is no wifi here, but a good reception for mobile data, so I upload Ilgoni’s article before heading out.
The breakfast is arranged at 6:30 and incuded in the hotel price, but instead of fried rice that they had promised us for breakfast just before 7am we get some jam sandwiches and cream buns, plus tea/coffee. The receptionist can only say ‘sorry’. But I’m not surprised a bit. Everything happens slowly in Sulawesi, and likely the rice would take even longer time to be prepared.

We head out, get some petrol and then continue in the direction of Ampana, that is east. After a couple of kilometers we can see the Celebes sea on our left side and it will stay there all the day. It looks lovely and soon after we cannot stand to stay in the cars anymore. We stop and most of us get in the water which is very warm. Much warmer than one gets in Latvia at any time. I could perhaps stay in the whole day. After the first impression some people go to get their snorkeling gear and only then I realise that we have been swimming above a real coral reef. The corals are perhaps not the most beautiful I have seen, but there is still a big diversity both in the shape and the colour. And there are many nice and diverse fish among them, I like the stripy ones the most. After we head back to the cars we notice a motor-cyclist has stopped to ask us for a selfie. We have got used to this by now…

Near the town of Marowo we ask the locals for hotsprings. Air-pana is the Indonesian word for it, directly translated as water-hot. The locals say it’s about 7 kilometers ahead. Unfortunately when the locals arrange some motorcyclist to show us the way, he hears ‘Ampana’ and leads us 30km ahead to that town. Well, we will try to find them again on our way back, I guess…

In Ampana we find some bigger shop to get some supplies for the next 3 or so days (bigger than a kiosk several of which can be found in every village and considerably more in every town along the roadside of the main road. Also we find a post office which only has 10 (very basic and not at all touristy) postcards in total. We have been said that there is no water in Pangkalaseang village which is our ultimate destination for observing the eclipse, so we try to buy some. The biggest bottle the shop has is 6l and there is only 2 of those. We take both and hope to buy the 20l bottle in a kiosk on the roadside where we saw them being sold. But it turns out that one needs to have the bottle and it can be only filled in the kiosk with filtered tap water. Filtered tap water is not ideal but we still thought better than none. Yet it turns out one can only get water here if one has the bottle itself. Our big bottle is still full of water so we leave without any more.

More beautiful sights, more palms, more winding roads and another swim in the sea. In the evening we arrive in the Pagimana village and find a guesthouse between the main road and the sea. It has whole 2 air-conditioned rooms and an extra we had not expected to find here – wifi. Most of us squeeze in the 2 rooms leaving 3 other people to try to not suffocate in a non-AC one with an open window. Some fish are swimming in an enclosed area next to the guesthouse. Most of us pick some of them for supper while I will eat chicken instead. The guesthouse also has some beer which most of us have been craving for a couple of days already. The fish and chicken are delicious even though the supper is not cheap by the local standards. We talk and joke a bit. Then Ilgonis suggests going for a walk and most people join. I stay to translate Gunita’s article.

When they come back they have given the Big Dipper constellation a new name – ‘Bucket’ as that’s what we have been using instead of shower for last 2 nights and will do tonight as well. They have also made some new friends and learned about a road ahead which gets closed between certain times. We need to make it there before it closes around 8am, so tomorrow everyone must be packed by 6:30, then have breakfast and leave at 7am sharp. Time for some sleep, it has been another beautiful day!

Day of crazy traffic

March 2nd

Our day started very good, rental cars arrived early, one was white, next was gray and the third was black, or – we got two Toyota Avanza’ s and one Daihatsu Xenia. Drivers with the experience of left side driving took their places and our journey had begun. First we visited the harbour with traditional wooden ships built by Bugis people. We were allowed to explore one of them from inside. The day was sunny and hot.

Our next job was to buy supplies for the trip at the supermarket. It took a long time. After filling gas we were ready to leave Makassar but there was an obstacle, a big traffic jam that lasted for an hour. What an incredible mess, small motorbikes sneaking in every gap! For all these reasons we left Makassar only in the afternoon. In the dusk we entered mountains and the rain started. During the day it was sunny and hot. Our team was split by traffic and we could not contact each other by mobile phones due to a bad network connection.

The road was full of surprises, there were pits, sand piles, wrongly parked cars, careless pedestrians, dogs. People’s activities are concentrated on roadside, seams that all Indonesian life happens here. So gradually we get accustomed to local specifics. But luckily we reached Sengkang without any scratch (many thanks to our drivers) and we spent a night in a luxury looking apartments. A dinner and cold beer after this long trip were right on time.

Day of farewells, meetings, green grass and red beer

February 28th.

The first people arriving in Riga airport are Ināra, Vitolds and Imants. Then soon after also Rūdolfs, Dace, Andra, Ilgonis un Gunita. Agnese has trusted Imants the responsibilities of the group leader till Jakarta. In Riga he has 8 travellers under his supervision. Two more will join on the way. The main worry is to divide luggage so that nobody had more than 15.9kg. We are saved by Rudolfs who has a half-empty bag. Everyone is a little worried about Andra’s name day’s cakes – who is going to eat them. Luckily they are eaten by ourselves instead of the customs officers.
We lift up above the sun-lit clouds and 3 hours later land in Bergamo airport near the rainy Milan. Going by bus to the central Milan. On the way some of us are very delighted by the green grass along the highway. In the centre of Milan we need to switch to another bus to Malpensa airport. During the ten minutes while we reach the bus stop we get 20 offers to buy umbrellas. In Milan Kārlis has joined us. In the airport Ilgoni’s suggestion about drinking beer is supported by 100%. The Italian beer labels are Peroni Forte 8% (you can ask more details to Imants) and Peroni Rosso which has a lovely red colour and is also tasty. In the Turkish plane we get well fed and diminish our thirst, so it’s actually good that we have warmed up a bit. The flight goes by without noticing and around the midnight we are already in Istanbul where Normunds joins us. The first day has finished. Let’s see what the next one will bring!