Water not enough and then far too much!
on Rachel Gates (Indonesia), 27/Nov/2010 03:29, 34 days ago
Been a busy week for me this week, as tomorrow I start my making my way to VSO for training for a week and then I have a month swanning around Bali and the local tropical islands with my bezzy mate Anne. Yippppepeeee!So this week I have dine than the last five months all together. I have finished my reports for VSO, I am confident on the motorbike and driving it all over the place. So on Tuesday morning I set off at 6.30am with Mark and Anouk for the 4 hours drive through the mountainsbetween Ruteng and Bajawa. Was a tad anxious as if anyone knows about Flores it does have loads of mountains, which makes for a very twisty and turny drive. However the journey was great, had to stop periodically to stop the aache in the nether regions, but apart from that nothing bad happened. No falling, no stalling. The only thing that did happen to me was a flat tyre in entering Bajawa, and it happened right in front of the garage, I get the feeling in future I may not always be so lucky.The reason we all escapedoff to Bajawa is that Mark and Anouk have worked with a local NGO in establishing a water project, in a little village called Leke. So now families have access to water in the back yards, instead of having to walk 3kms up the mountain to get water. If you have seen my facebook page you will have already seen the photos. It was a phenomenal occasion and one I am not likely to see again any time soon. We all danced, drank the local brew, ate mountains of rice, got to eat the buffalo and a pig. Listened to a lot of speeches, sweltered in the heat, so found a nice cool house to sit, eat and sleep in the afternoon. Normally it rains in Leke in the afternoon, and it did rain a bit when we ft, but on the whole the weather was fantastic.However then the next day we needed to return back to Ruteng. I could not get my bike to start in Aimere (Opps I had run out of fuel) but of course I went through all the other options, has the spark plug gone, maybe the battery - but no simple enough the bike needed a drink.Again Journey beautiful and uneventful until 21kms outside of Ruteng, and then the most tremendous thunderstorm. Lightening, thunder, when you are in the mountains you definitely sound like you are closer to the action in the heavens. So they return was a bit slower. At time we had to stop and take shelter.Just to give you some idea this is what the front of my house looks like when there is very heavy rain.