Last but not least.
Jurassic Park
Trekking around Rinca Island in search of Komodos.
The stick that is supposed to protect us.
Fay and Ty were extremely excited to see some dragons.
Komodo Dragon in the distance!
Tough to get a good shot…the guides wouldn’t let Ty get any closer. Odd.
A few of the 17,000 islands comprising Indonesia.
Watching the baby sharks from the dock.
We spent a lot of time in the water.
Kanawa Island
The End of our 100 day journey.
Komodo National Park: This refers to a greater marine national park that encompasses several islands and a whole lot of ocean. We stayed on the island of Kanawa (only one bungalow resort on the island, nothing else) and from there took several excursions snorkeling, diving, and of course, searching for Komodo Dragons.
The Ocean: Ty was shooting himself for not having an underwater camera here. We were shocked at the beauty of the underwater landscape. The colorful hard and soft corals were so abundant we felt like we were swimming in a well-manicured aquarium. We saw hundreds of new fish, octopi, turtles, sharks, dolphins, sting rays, and 8 manta rays. Ty even saw a manta ray breaching! All in just a few snorkel and dive excursions, not bad. This was Ty’s favorite place of the entire trip. Where else can you see Komodo dragons after going on the best dives and snorkeling excursions of your life? It would be the perfect place, except the ocean here can be quite dangerous. Strong currents are the norm, and down currents are not uncommon. The nearest hospital is a one hour boat ride to Flores, followed by a 90 minute flight to Bali, so we advise not getting hurt or deathly ill here.
Komodos: We took a guided hike on Rinca Island (mandatory) in order to fulfill Ty’s quest of seeing Komodo Dragons in the wild. We saw 6. The highlight of the excursion was watching a mother patrolling her nest with her long slithering forked tongue. Ty loved every minute of our trek and couldn’t have been more pleased. Sloane, on the other hand, did not share Ty’s sentiments. She was too busy stressing about Fay’s safety (of which the guides indeed expressed their concern) and dealing with hordes of mosquitoes.
The End: This was the last place we visited before making the long and arduous journey back to Utah. Is this the end of the blog? Not quite. We haven’t even started waxing philosophical yet.