Ruteng- Bajawa- Riung

8.7- after being dropped at our hotel we tried to go for a little wander in the rain but soon found that there wasn't a whole lot to see. For the first time we were twiddling our thumbs with what to do! We got picked up for dinner and taken back into town, then spent the evening playing cards back in the room. 

9.7- After breakfast we left Ruteng for Bajawa. Our first impressions of Flores are that it is very mountainous and beautiful but very rural. We definitely get a lot of stares here due to the lack of tourists! On the way to Bajawa we stopped at an arak processing place. They basically chop fruit that looks like coconuts down from high trees, and then boil the arak multiple times to make it to about 50% alcohol. 

We even got to taste some... The 50% was a bit much for me and josh at 10am but of course Lizzie was game. After lunch in Bajawa we went to the small traditional village of Bena. 

This was a bit weird as it feels odd wandering around looking at people going about their days, but once again we seemed to be the main tourist attraction with lots of people wanting photos with us! After this we went to find a hotel in town, went for a wander and a drink. There wasn't a whole lot else to do in this town either! 

10.7- The next stop on our roadtrip was the natural hot springs. We got here at about 9am which was before the main crowd of locals arrived. The hot springs were about 34 degrees and it was a nice way to spend a morning, although our bikinis are all a bit rust stained now from the minerals in the water. After this it was on to Riung along a very bumpy road. We had lunch at a very 'local' style warung, which was rice, tempeh, egg and sauce and was actually pretty tasty.  The hotel was slightly better that we had been used to- complete with flushing toilet! We walked to the harbour and booked a boat trip for the next day and then spent the last of the afternoon soaking up some sun. 

11.7 - we were up early for the 7am boat trip around the '17 islands'. First stop was to see the flying foxes, and after that was a few snorkelling and beach stops. There were thousands of flying foxes and they are massive!

 It was beautiful and luckily the sun came out for us to top up the tans. Lunch was a delicious fish BBQ, it just arrived a little early at 10.45am! 

Our final stop was at another island where we walked up to a nice little viewpoint, although the walk back down was so slippy I'm not sure it was worth it! That concluded that half day trip and we were then back to the hotel for a shower and ready to hit the road again. 

It was a 3 hour drive to the blue stone beach at Ende on the other side of the island. The stones really are blue but who knows why! 

We then drove on into Ende town for another local style meal for dinner. After that is was just an hour to Moni, where we are staying the night ready to do the sunrise trek up to the volcanic lakes in Kelimutu national park.