Bajawa - Indonesian Christmas 🎄

Going from Ruteng to Bajawa brought me down to the south coast, again, before climbing up into the mountains to Bajawa at around 1.200m, similar to Ruteng. Mountains here are steep, so roads are extremely curvy and having uncountable serpentines, which is great to ride by motorbike, but you have to be extremely careful, if roads are wet. However, going from chilled temperatures down to the hot coast and back to cool mountains, within 2 hours was a nice experience.
On Christmas Eve, there was not much going on, here, most people here are only going to church, usually once at the afternoon and a second time at night. I skipped that, even if I considered attending, but my general antipathy against any religions won over my curiosity.🤷
For Christmas day I decided to visit another traditional village in the mountains, which still is populated and they allow visitors to join their daily life. Even if it's still a local community, living traditional life and following their own traditions and rituals, they're embedded in modern society and using technology, so it's more like keeping alive tradition in a modern world. Very fascinating and meeting more local tourists than foreigners is not only nice, but usually a sign, that you're seeing real cultural heritage, as it felt like.
Still some time left, I went on to see some more of the south coast. Yes, I love the beauty of mountainous landscapes, but in the end, I'm an ocean person... 😅🤷
Coming back to my homestay in the early afternoon, I immediately was invited to join the Christmas party, already ongoing since lunch. A permanent stream of people of all ages arriving and leaving, singing karaoke and drinking (a lot!😅), till the late evening, is the way, they usually celebrate. But during Christmas, the whole town did it, when I went to bed, still music at several other parties in the neighborhood was playing and the small, quite town felt really vibrant and joyful. 🥰
Next morning was hard, switching between the homemade Arrak and the palm wine, was probably not the smartest decision - but locals seemed to be used to it, as they were fit and fresh. 😅
Needed another tire repair, when leaving, as now my back tire was loosing air pressure, but a local garage fixed it quickly and cheap, again. 😎
While continuing my journey to the city of Ende, I felt so grateful and gifted, being allowed to spend a Christmas celebration with a great huge family in Bajawa! 🥰Read more