Our trip continues through the Ende Regency. We arrive at night to the small town called Moni and we wake up very early to see the sunrise at Kelimutu volcano. After resting a bit, we will discover a traditional village of this area called Wologai. On our way to Ende we will stop by the Detsuoko ricefields and finally, we will have a walk at Wolowona Market of Ende.
The road trip begins again and we will stop at Pengajawa to have lunch at the Blue Stone Beach.
Moni
Moni is a small town of one road, located at the base of Kelimutu's volcano. Even though this town has become more and more touristic, thanks to visitors that want to see the volcano and has to stay overnight, the accommodations are simple and rudimentary. There are different hotels all over the street and a few nice restaurants.
We went to Mopi's restaurant to rest and have our deserved beer while we listened to fantastic live music.
Kelimutu national park
The Kelimutu volcano with the three coloured lakes can be found in this National Park and it is one of the most spectacular places in Flores. From time to time the colour of the lakes has been changing from yellow, red, green, many shades of blue, brown and black. The entrance fees is 150.000rp each but on Sundays and national holidays 270.000rp.
We woke up at 4 am in the morning, very very early for Spanish people! To see the sunrise at the top of Kelimutu lakes. It takes almost 30min and a hundred of stairs to get there from the parking. I recommend you to bring warm clothes becouse waiting for the sunset at the top at full night can be very freezing. There are some people who sell coffee to get warm and other things to eat.
We were not very lucky as it was very foggy at the sunrise, but when the clouds left we could see a stunning view of the lakes. As we were not well prepared, we had to go down pretty early because of the cold. However, we enjoyed very much the path, with the views and the birds singing to us good morning, as we were walking down.
Wologai traditional village
After resting some time at Moni and have our deserved breakfast at Mahoni guesthouse we were ready to resume the trip. Our next stop was a traditional village from Ende regency called Wologai. As most of the traditional villages, all the tourists that wants to get in have to pay a fee or give a donation to the head of village. For this one, the fee was 5.000rp each.
A long time ago people used to live in villages like this, where distributed all over the country. Every house belonged to a different family and it was inherited by the first son. However, people needed a lot of money to build a house at this village, the materials are expensive and the ceremonies to allow it also. For this reason the next generations started to make the new houses in the modern way (the usual roofs with ironwood) and in the new towns.
Although in this village almost all the people live at the town, most of them still use the house to do the ceremonies. Furthermore, some of the locals make a living there. For example, they collect coffee and leave the grains under the sun to get it dry off. When it is dried up enough they peel them as they did in the old times. We could see many different fruits that were getting dry at the village and a nice girl showed us the procedure.
Detsuoko ricefields
Very close to the village, on the road that goes to Ende, there are a nice terrace ricefields called Detsuoko. The rice had just been planted when we get there.
There is a special procedure to plant rice. When the land is ready, the corn is sowed at the water terraces. Once the rice plants have sprouted and have enough length, the rice planter have to remove them, choose the better ones and replant them with a specific distance between them.
Ende
Ende is the capital of the regency and the second biggest city on the island. It is located on a big bay with nice views of the sea. We had read some people starting their trip at Ende instead of Maumere but nowadays there are no flights from Bali to this airport.
Close to the city, we went to have a look at Wolowona market, a bigger one than the Ende market. You can find anything in there, vegetables, spices, fish, dry fish, clothes, shoes...
Penggajawa
Following the road from Ende to Bajawa, which goes by the seaside and has beautiful views, you will find the Penggajawa town with the blue-stone beaches. Actually they are a black sand beach full of blue, turquoise en green stones which are collected by the locals every day. Don't worry, the famous stones come back miraculously from the deep sea to the beach every morning. The stones are sold for creative designs and usually exported to other wealthy islands of Indonesia like Bali and Java.
Nowadays there is a nice restaurant with sea views located on the other side of the beach. There, we had a delicious fish barbecue (as in Koka beach we could choose our fish) and a coconut juice. We enjoyed very much the views and the calm that was breathing there.
Actually, after leaving from Ende regency we went to Riung that belongs to the north of Ngada Regency. At the next day we went to Mbay (Nagekeo Regency) which is close to Riung and the road to Bajawa (again Ngada Regency but south) it's better conserved and lead us to our next destinations.
If you want to continue reading about the trip click to Nagekeo regency. To know a little bit more about Flores and the accommodations we stayed at click at Flores the exotic island.
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