Labuan Bajo, Flores to Komodo Island. The first day of our two day, one night boat trip to see Komodo Dragons. Walking up the pier to get on our boat and four boats across from ours was a half sunk boat, with several men in the water, trying to rescue items off the boat. A bad omen? I'm not too confident on boats to begin with. Eep! Then we were shown to our boat and on the table was a hand of 20 bananas. Any boaty person will know the superstition that boats and bananas don't mix! Anyway, as long as they had life jackets... They did. Three. And there were 6 of us on board. All good. !?
The view was incredible. Many small islands jutting proudly out of the sea. They were arid & mountainous. And two dolphins swam in our wake. We arrived at Rinca Island, part of the Komodo National Park. It was 490,000Rp for the two of us (about $25 each). We saw 3 komodos on our half hour walk. The first one was small, docile and sleepy and probably three years old. It was the size of a regular goanna. The second komodo was much larger and laying in an awkward position between several rocks. We stood only two steps away from it which seemed a bit close considering their toxic bites. the third komodo was a very large, pregnant one. When we stopped to look at her, mum said "Oh look, she's turned her head to look directly at you". At that point the ranger indicated the cord hanging from my camera and said to me 'be careful your camera, she thinks it's food'. So I bunched up the cord in my hand and took a couple of steps backwards. She was big and beautiful with very long claws. Komodos kill and eat their own babies & wouldn't think twice about taking a chomp out of a human seeing as they bring down buffalo easily.
