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| Monkey Lagoon |
This morning, after a typical breakfast of Timor coffee and Portuguese bread rolls, we visited the Monkey Lagoon.
We walked across rocky ground composed of sharp fossilised coral and volcanic rocks. Everything was interesting here, even the flowering plants along the coast.
Why is it called Monkey Lagoon? Well, we were fortunate to see some wild monkeys in the distance heading down to drink. Of course photographing them was pretty difficult as they are completely wild and avoid humans. I managed to catch one with the camera from a distance, but that was it.
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| Fossilised coral everywhere |
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| Plants along the coastline |
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| Spot the monkey |
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Pitileti village with a Lospalos style
house on the hill |
The rest of the trip east would be on dirt roads, firstly climbing the hills towards Tutuala before heading back down to the coast at Jaco. We passed the small Pitileti village which is typical of the villages here away from the coast - nestled into the hills and accompanied by small (usually fenced) vegetable gardens.
We even saw some traditional Lospalos style houses - not the model type made for tourists, but a very rudimentary structure, but still using the same principles of being raised off the ground. and some old graves of high-ranking people.
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| Graves with buffalo skulls |
Even though the Portuguese introduced Catholicism, the earlier animist traditions continued for some time and - these graves are identified by buffalo skulls above the grave. The number of skulls show how many buffaloes were killed for the funeral, indicating the importance of the deceased person.
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| The abandoned Pousada de Tutuala |
The road continued up to the Pousada de Tutuala which was abandoned by the Portugese colonisers due to the difficulty in getting a regular water supply.
Then it was down an extremely rocky road (it took 45mins to driver 8km) to Tutuala beach where we hopped into an outboard motor driven outrigger canoe for the short trip across the channel to Jaco island.
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| Heading across the bay to Jaco Island |
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Jacqueline in front of one of the
accommodation huts at the beach |
This is your classic Pacific island - a clear water-covered coral shoreline, washing onto a white sandy beach leading to a shady interior.
We snorkeled for an hour before heading back across the channel to see the local hut accommodation where we saw Jacqueline, an English traveller who's been travelling the world for years, including 11 years in Japan. Jacqueline was also staying at the Tourismo and we bumped into her a few times on the trip.
By now we were pretty hungry but all the lunch opportunities had been missed, and it was still a long drive to Baucau! A hint to travellers - always have water and dry biscuits stashed in your day bag, because the possibility of having regular meal times while travelling is pretty remote.
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| Transport in Timor Leste |
Did I mention that the average speed outside Dili (actually within Dili as well) was around 40kph. The roads, although sealed have numerous and sometimes deep potholes and deep 'slots' where former speed humps have been removed which require vehicles to almost stop to drive over them. Plus there are the trucks.
Because of the low car ownership (almost nil) then trucks are used for transport of all kinds - farm produce, animals and people, and sometimes all three at the same time. No-one drives anywhere without a full load if possible.
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View from the Pousada de Bacau into
the town |
We arrived back in Baucau in the early evening, tired and hungry, and booked in to the Pousada de Baucau where we stayed the night. At each place we stay there was always something amiss - this time part of the shower screen collapsed on Frances' foot.
Did I mention that almost no-one outside the major cities/towns has electricity – night-time in Baucau, the 2nd largest city, was almost black - just homes with minimal internal combustion lighting of some sort and smoke from cooking fires using whatever fuel was available, most of it smoky.
However the food and service was good at the Pousada, the caged monkeys interesting, and the atmosphere quite colonial. Here are a couple of food shots to close.
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| A spicy prawn dish |
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| Cheesecake |
