Most people visit Labuan Bajo for the Komodo Dragon, the beautiful seaside, and the diving activities, which I found out after arriving at Labuan Bajo.
It was initially a trip to see the Komodo Dragon, I know nothing of the Flores islands, no idea that it was an hour flight way from Bali, Indonesia, and tourists often visit this place by coming from Lombok.
But after booking return flights that gave me 8 days in Labuan Bajo, I researched this place and found out about Waerebo, a traditional village with distinct houses that sit atop the mountainous region above sea level of 1,200m.
The trip to Waerebo is long and winding. We departed Labuan Bajo in the morning and took 4-hour car ride to the town.
Most of the roads were long and winding. The later section of the road could only allowed one car through, so if there was a car in front of us, we would have to follow it all the way until we parted ways; and if there was a car going the opposite direction facing us, one of us would have to let the other go carefully.
It was fortunately that there wasn’t a lot of tourist going this way. Imagine 10 cars forming a line on these roads driving up to see the village…
After the meal, we rode a bike to reach the entrance, and we were finally prepared to hike the hill.
As we were reaching closer to the village, we started to see the coffee trees along the way. The villagers plant Arabica, Robusta and Columbia beans once a year, which were harvested in different periods of the year. It’s going to be the season of Arabica beans soon, Columbia and Robusta beans will have to wait until July.
Once upon a time, they planted other types of crops as well, but now they mainly plant coffee beans, bring them down and sell at the town, and buy rice and other necessities back to the village.
While we were hiking up, there are villagers coming down and going up, bringing small sacks of rice with them. Most of the villagers we talked to have a house and a small farm at the small town mid hill.
After entering the village, the village chief will have a talk and welcoming ceremony, then we are free to move around the village. Based on my understanding, there is no single chief family, they rotated the role of village chief. There is a big round platform at the field, which is their sacred place. They asked us not to go up the platform, but we were free to take pictures.
It was around 19 degrees Celcius at the village. There is no internet coverage on the village, which is nice as we could focus on enjoying the peaceful scenery of the village.
There are no Internet connection in Waerebo village, although they do have electricity, and you could see small solar panels on the roof, being one of the main source of power to light up the bulb.
The next day, after a breakfast and a morning stroll, we hiked down for around 1.5 hours. It was not easy on the knees.
It was a tiring trip, though definitely unique. Love it.
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