More challenges on the beautiful island of Flores..

Another bit of our trip absolved - some challenging rides on the island of Flores. After our rest day at the western tourist departure point of Labuanbajo the BIG climb had to do without me.. Did around half - and lost motivation for the afternoon's hot climb. It seemed to go on forever - at least seeing it from the bus.. Stayed at the town of Ruteng - and decided to upgrade from our pretty basic youth hostile kind of place. Wrong decision: logistics to solve, cold shower and not much better than the pretty charming alpine hut style place where the group was staying..
 Was kind of unsatisfied with my lack of accomplishment the day before at decided that the 130 something k's 2200 m's climb distance to Bajawa SHOULD  be done! And I did it.. Letting my coke obsession go to unknown heights with 1 in the morning, 2 before the climb and 2 more after reaching goal. Not to mention the 2 Sprites and 1 energy gel. Well it seemed to help - I rode all the way. In the afternoon Brett paced down and went together with Jodi and me for nearly the whole climb - a good motivation also.. AND one of our drivers came back to us with big bottles COLD water midway of the long gentle climb. Enough for full body shower!

WATER! (Andreas, Brett and Jodie)

I was cold when I arrived and was desperate for food but there was NO food around - somebody just left for take away burgers - no more orders could be given in. Lost my temper a bit in front of Cristiano, our tour leader.  We are talking 4000+ deficit of calories - and I am SO fed up with the lunch white bread that I just snack on fruits, nuts and cookies. Luckily Gerald had ordered 5 burgers or something - so luckily I had one of them + french fries. Can you imagine me on a diet of burger+coke - yes, that is reality!! 
 Well, I also would like to tell you about the beautiful island of Flores. Mountains high - river deep - a special island that holds the dry landscape from Lombok and Sumbawa - but also the green rice terraces of Bali. And SO many big bamboo trees. They are just amazing with a quite special sound to them when the wind goes thru the top. And I just love the mountains here: they are often like a child's drawing and we even saw one where the volcano was smoking. Our route has been the generally  well asphalted Trans Flores Highway going inland most of the time. 80% of the islanders here are catholics and they were in their best clothes going to church yesterday, Sunday. It has another feel to it when the beautiful women are not wearing ji habs but smart short dresses with their often curly hair coiffed in a nice style  - not to forget the singing from the churches..

Yesterday we had our last 122 k riding day on this island going to Ende that lies at the middle of the south coast. Starting up high we had a lot of descent: 2270 going down compared to 1220 going up.. A nice morning ending up at the coast which we followed for the last stretch.

Now at the best hotel (does not say much) of town just opposite the airport from where we leave for West Timor tomorrow afternoon. It was first planned that we should have a 14 hours ferry ride to Kupang there but the ferry does not exist anymore so most of our luggage and bikes left on an open truck with Henry to go for a ferry leaving from the east of the Flores today.