Banunggunung

Going around by boat is nothing special, in a country with >17.000 islands, but spending 2 days in a tiny little boat with only 12 people, crew included, cruising through Komodo National Park was awesome!
In our randomly mixed group were an Indonesian couple, celebrating their honeymoon, a women from Jakarta and 5 travellers from Spain, Italy, Portugal and I. Not only because there's few space on a boat, but as everyone here was open minded (and in a great mood 😅😎) we quickly grew together and had a lot of fun from the beginning!
The boat went to several spots, some for hiking up a hill on an island to see amazing views, some for snorkeling and beach time at extraordinary places.
Some places were a little bit crowded, as there are a lot of boats going around, many 1-day-tours, but lots of 2- and 3-day tours, too. However, only at the viewpoint on Kelor island and the sunrise spot at Pulau Padar we met some other tourists, most other spots were still quiet and relaxed. Even at the Komodo island, were the biggest monitor lizard is living, our guides managed to arrive during a relatively quite time.
We only had some clouds and rain at the sunrise spot, so no sunrise to see, there 😅 But the clouds covering the tops of the hills and the misty weather brought a mystical mood to that place, so even if I was soaked wet from the rain, it was very beautiful. Clouds were opening up slowly, but pink beach was not yet looking really pink, due to missing sun, but it still was awesome and snorkeling there was amazing! The only downside, which I already saw a lot here, especially at reefs which are accessible directly from the beach, was that you could see clearly how people are damaging the reef. I hope Indonesia learns the lesson soon, that people snorkeling at reefs have to be educated very well, to care about the corals!
One of te two highlights of any visit of the nationl park are the Komodo dragons, really impressive animals, up to a size of 2.5 or even 3m. They are not too fast, but as their hunting strategy is to bite the prey only one time and then follow it, till some dangerous bacteria kills it, you should not get bitten by them.
We even saw one of them exploring the beach and walking around, but at that time of the day most of them are lying around lazy, making it easy to see and admire them, from a distance. Amazing and so impressive, these "little dinosaurs".
Second highlight here is some snorkeling with the black Manta rays. Due to rainy season, you have to be lucky to meeting them, but fortunately our crew spotted some out quickly and we jumped in and swam with them for around an hour.😍 Two huge ones, size around 4 or even 5 meters, and two "little" ones went around there, even looking a little bit like a family. 😅 No other words for these wonderful animals, moving so quickly but gracefully, as if they are just flying through the water. 🥰
What an end for an awesome trip, exploring our planet's wonders, together with some amazing people! 😎🥰

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About these videos: I've Messed up the video cutting, so the second video shows a few scenes from Flores island, at the beginning. But video cutting on my mobile phone is too time consuming to repair that... 😅🙈Read more