On Being Schooled by a Cigarrette Toting 8 Year-old

In my last post, I recounted tales of seeing the headliners of Komodo National Park, the komodos themselves; however, my favorite day was a long trek to see a waterfall hidden in the forests of Flores.

The trip started with a mini-van ride an hour out to a dirt road that was only meant to be crossed by four-wheelers or motorbikes. Our van took up the entire width of the road and then some as the brush on either side scraped along our closed windows. At one point, Michaela and I sat nervously in the back seat as our driver and a motorcyclist who was following us had to reconstruct a part of the road that had been completely washed out by a stream coming from the hill side. Gulp.

We pulled into a small kampung (village) and were greeted by our two, barefooted tour guides. One was our age, and the other was my young friend pictured above. I have no idea how old he was, probably 12 or so, but we'll go with 8 for better effect.

They grabbed our lunches and headed down a path leading away from the kampung. We quickly learned why our guides choose to go barefooted. It had rained hard the night before, turning our down-hill path into a veritable slip and slide. While our guides navigated the path with ease, casually smoking and chatting in their language probably about clumsy Americans, Michaela and I tried to stay upright and not lose our shoes. Ten or so feet into the woods, our young guide was dispatched into the brush with his machete to cut down two palms, which were fashioned into really effective walking sticks. Still, poor Michaela, with her treadless Vans ended up horizontal more often than she would have liked.

An hour and four or five spills later, we landed next to the river. With all the rain water, the river was swelled and rushing over some large rocks that spanned its width. When it became clear that our guides wanted us to jump the rocks to get to the other side, Michaela and I decided that plunging into the rapids wouldn't be the best way to end our vacation or lives, so we camped out on a rock instead. Still, I wanted to see this waterfall that we'd risked our lives to come see. With broken bahasa Indonesia and many hand gestures, I managed to ask our guides where the falls were and how we could get to them. Turns out there was another option, one that required getting wet.

Option B was to jump into the river above the rapids and swim up to the waterfall. After clearing all possibilities of the river being full of man-eating crocs or piranhas, I decided to go for it. My little friend doused his cigarette and jumped in. I followed suit, swimming hard up the river. We reached another group of rocks on the other side and climbed up. From this vantage point, the falls were visible, but still slighted shrouded by outcroppings of rocks on either side. It was then explained to me that jumping back into the river from our cliff (which was at least four or five meters up, I swear) would allow me to see the whole display.
I contemplated this suggestion while staring down into the murky river water - that possibly contained numerous sharp rocks just below the surface. Seeing my concern, my guide did a cannon ball off the cliff and emerged unharmed. Still, I stood at the edge with knees knocking, until little man started heckling me. "Jump! Jump!" he insisted with arms crossed and a tone to suggest I was a nancy-boy. Fine. I jumped and emerged on the other side of the river unscathed. As a reward, I got to see a slightly less obscured view of the falls. It was worth it of course, though I think I was more concerned about measuring up in the eyes of an 8 year-old than about seeing the falls at that point. 

We made it out of the river and back up to the kampung. We ended out trek with a sit-down visit with a family and half of the village. A very animated, older gentleman ushered us into two chairs clearly designed to extract money from tourists' pockets. Once seated, he hacked into a fresh coconut and served us the water inside. We had a very awkward chat with everyone until we indicated that we wanted to leave and our hosts indicated that they wanted our money. Michaela forked over some rupiah in exchange for another coconut and a bunch of bananas, and we headed back to the van (where we would later abandon our purchases).

We waved goodbye from our van window after slipping tips to our guides. They'd kept us alive, after all. It's amazing how this trip, with dragons, mud slides, and cliff diving (c'mon...give it to me) was my favorite in Indonesia so far.