Saturday, Day 56 - Mar 3 - 8am to 4pm, Komodo Island, Indonesia

Komodo, an isolated island in the chain of Indonesian islands, is a natural wonder of tropical savanna and scrub land, home to the famed, prehistoric Komodo Dragon and a new stop for us. Komodo National Park takes up the whole island and is the only place on earth that the dragoons can be found in the wild. The island of Komodo itself is about 60 squares miles in area with dramatic landscapes of 2,000 foot craggy mountains, canyons, savannas and monsoon rain forests in the valleys. Human habitation is therefore limited to only one tiny settlement in Slawi Bay.

The island of Komodo is the desolate domain of a fierce and very rare species of reptile that bears the looks of a prehistoric dinosaur and is appropriately called a Komodo Dragon. A clear indication of Komodo National Park's biological importance is its ranking with UNESCO as both a World Heritage Site and a Man and Biosphere Reserve. The Komodo Dragon is thought to be the remnant of a once widespread ancient order of monitor lizards.
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Today, fewer than 3,000 of this protected species remain and its continuing existence hangs in the balance. Often measuring up to 11 feet in length and weighing in at over 300 pounds, this ominous looking creature, with its sharp, saw-like teeth and menacing eyes and tongue, leaves a lasting impression on all who have had the opportunity to see it up close. Living on deer and wild pigs that inhabit the island, it is surprisingly agile when covering short distances and a good swimmer. It also eats its young so only about 30% of the babies survive until about age three when they can fend for themselves on the ground. As soon as the egg hatches the baby climbs a tree and lives there for the first part of its life.

It is a new stop for us, but we can’t go ashore unless we are on the ship’s tour or a tour offered by the island rangers for a charge. They are the same tours so we are doing the free ship’s tour. Our Komodo Dragons tour starts at 8AM. We order a couple bowls of cold cereal from room service for breakfast and watch some of the early morning sail in. It is in the 80's with high humidity outside and we have been told there is a lot of walking so it is too hot to wisely eat more. In the lounge by 7:50AM, we get tour #1 and they call us for the tender a few minutes later. After a short ride we dock at a very rickety, old, wooden dock and walk to the reception area. Here we meet our guide and two park rangers who act as guards for our group. We are told we will do the long trek which is about 2.5 km...UGH! We are already sweating....

So off we go on our walking expedition of the island with a park ranger in front and back holding long wooden sticks with forked ends to protect us! Really!  That's all? These dudes can kill you! We head down four foot wide paths that lead through pockets of thorny vegetation past lunch (local deer) and dry tropical grasslands looking for the dragons! All of a sudden we are told to be quite there is a dragon on the path ahead. The guide comes to the back of the group where we are and gets Dick’s camera to try to get a picture. As it turns out the dragon takes off up the path at a high rate of speed and we hurry along after it. These dragons can really move and they have a funny looking walk from the rear...up on all four feet with their knees bent. This goes on for about half a kilometer before the dragon gets tired of the chase and heads off into the bushes. We do get glimpses of him on the curves and the guide did get a few good pictures for us from behind.

The guide says we should see some more, maybe, but at least we have seen one. Shortly we come to a fork in the path. This is where, if you are suffering too much, you can turn around. There are some rangers waiting to take you back to the reception area. About eight people turn around at this point. It is tempting, but we came to see the Dragons so on we go.

Continuing our walk, we see a really small baby, maybe 18 inches long, running into the bushes. He is on top of the nest when the guide first sees him, but moves off quickly. Again he is fast and we don’t get a picture of him, just of the nest where about 39 eggs were buried. The guide says he is from this year's crop.

On down the trail we finally get to the watering hole and find six or seven dragons of various sizes. There are a number of rangers ringing the area with their forked sticks to keep us and the dragons apart. We are able to walk around the water hole and take pictures as the rangers jostle with the dragons to get them to behave.

As we leave the water hole in one direction the dragons all get up and leave in the opposite direction just as the second group comes into the area. Guess we are the only ones who will get a really good view of them
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Just then the cutest little dragon pops up from behind a rock at the water hole and runs in front of Carolyn headed for the bushes. She says out loud, “Oh, isn’t he cute.”  Well,  he is, but the ranger turns around and looks at her like she is crazy. A little later we have stopped to look at some vegetation. Again, Carolyn is in the back and the ranger is behind her. All of a sudden he starts telling her something she doesn’t understand and as she turns to look at him, a very large dragon comes out of the bushes onto the path less than three feet from her. She figures out rather quickly the ranger wants her to move away as he and the guide, who has run over, poke at the dragon to get him farther away from the group. Exciting!

We have been walking about two hours by now. As we cross a little bridge we see the end of the walk and the little shopping area just ahead. Thank goodness! It is an exhausting, but nice tour and is fun seeing the dragons! We walk through the stalls and get a little wooden dragon carving and a T-shirt and head to the tender. Time to go back to the ship, there is not a dry thread on us!

It takes forever to load the tender and there is a long line. We miss the first tender and the second one is of a really weird design.  It has a high side and the roof, inside the open door area, is really low. Getting in is a real pain. There is a two foot plus step up from the dock into the tender, but there is a very low over hang on the dock roof so there is about a four foot tall area we have to squeeze through while stepping up two feet (with no step) with without hitting our shins on the tender edge and our head or back bone on the roof of the dock! It takes four men pulling and pushing and protecting heads and backs to get each of us in and takes forever to load 40 people!

Finally back to the ship we get a very welcome shower and go to lunch. We are hungry! For good reason, according to Dick’s step monitor we have walked 2.5 miles or 4km this morning including the hike to see the dragons!

It is a nice sail away through the various Indonesian islands. We also indulge in a nap.

Tonight we join Davor, the Hotel Manager, for dinner at 7PM. He has invited us and another couple who are also on the World Cruise. Davor is from Croatia and has been working in the hotel end of the cruise ship business for about 20 years. The other couple is from Oregon. We have a delightful dinner with good conversation.

Bishop is also doing the after dinner showtime performance tonight and he is worth staying up for. We plan to go, but by 9:30PM the heat and good dinner catches up with us and we head for bed. We will be in Bali for the next two days and have private tours planned with a car and driver.