Yesterday we went to check out a part of town called Sanur, which is a beach community directly north of us. It was a short drive along a stretch of road that has become familiar to us after the last two days of tours. We were dropped off at the north end of town.
As promised, it is a nice stretch of beach. The water is Continue reading
Last night we found four little black flying bugs in our room. They looked like they were small enough to get through the screen. Argh. This explains why we have been getting bitten when we have been so careful to use the bug spray when we go out. We have some noseeum netting aboard, which is finer meshed screen, so Eric put that on all the windows we like to leave open.
This morning was an even more upsetting Continue reading
This morning we managed to sleep through the 0430 prayers, but we were awakened at 0600 by another loudspeaker. There was an announcer of some sort talking away, with a few songs played in between his monologues. There were also short snippets of music played now and again while he talked. It sounded like there was some sort of contest going on in a carnival type setting. We begrudgingly dragged ourselves out of bed and looked out the windows. There seemed to be something huge happening along the waterfront park area. There were tons of people out and a lot of activity in an area where there was not much happening when we had been there a couple days before.
We merrily went to shore, excited about our luck to have been in Ende for this big special occasion. We were shocked to see the crew was hard at work on repairing the dock. It is Sunday. On shore, the streets had been transformed. Every single shop was open. Yesterday many had been closed. The sidewalks were completely taken over by an endless row of vendors sitting on the ground with their wares spread out around them. They were even lining the alley ways. They were selling all kinds of non-perishable goods. The street was absolutely jam packed with people and scooters.
We made our way down the street to the waterfront park where we had seen all the activity from Kosmos. As we turned the corner, Continue reading
Last night when we got back to the boat, it was rocking so much we felt like we were on passage in the South Pacific. This morning when we got up we were still undecided as to whether we should leave Kupang today or tomorrow. On the stay side was: after 8 days at sea, it would have been nice to stay anchored longer. There were more sights we could go see in Kupang to entertain ourselves. Eric’s eye was looking better after using some drops we had on board that soothe irritation, but it wasn’t completely healed and could need a different medicine. On the con side: it was rocky on board, the beach landings were not fun, and we were more interested in seeing sights in other places.
We headed to shore at noon where Continue reading
The ride inside the channel was pretty. There were islands on all sides of us. As we got closer to the islands in the channel to Timor, we could see that, while there is a lot of foliage, it is actually pretty dry, with much of the shrubbery brown. From 10 miles away we could see the tall structures of the city of Kupang in the distance to the right. We could easily pick out a refinery, with it’s big smoke stack. All the other surrounding islands have few structures, maybe one or two low buildings here or there.
Kupang has a population of 350,000 people. The refinery must be on the edge of town. We passed the refinery and moved towards the heart of the city, looking for the anchorage. The shore line is pretty sad looking. There are a few extremely nice buildings, but most need some serious work, and a few are dilapidated shacks that look like they will collapse at any second. There are several half built buildings that you get the sense will never be finished.
We were pretty sure that Continue reading