arctic-cycler.com

It’s flat they said, indicating with their hands. Not up. Don’t believe them. I may have stayed at the same altitude, more or less, on average, but it was definitely not flat. Returning to the coast was cool – a drop of 1350m down, down down.

On the way up in the forest

The famous ride paddies where dry. Grass was growing on them, and the cows were grazing. I asked why. My Indonesian was not good enough to understand. Something about not having enough water. The government was involved, and poor people couldn’t afford something anymore. Mm.. I’ll have to improve my Indonesian..

Dry rice paddy

I think I may have missed some nice views on the way down. They road was in the clouds. Higher up the rain clouds were looming and always about to break loose. They never did, though.

Road in the cloud

I was invited into a nice family’s house, ate rice from the rice paddy opposite and drank coffee from the mountains I just passed through. Oh – and we ate chicken that was (until recently) running around outside. Very cool.

My host family

Tomorrow won’t be another 100km+ day. A climb and drop of 600m is followed by a climb of 1300m, all before 70km are up. Flores keeps bringing on the mountains.. ☺